Vladimir Yourkevitch
Encyclopedia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n naval engineer
Naval architecture
Naval architecture is an engineering discipline dealing with the design, construction, maintenance and operation of marine vessels and structures. Naval architecture involves basic and applied research, design, development, design evaluation and calculations during all stages of the life of a...
, developer of the modern design of ship hull
Hull (watercraft)
A hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. Above the hull is the superstructure and/or deckhouse, where present. The line where the hull meets the water surface is called the waterline.The structure of the hull varies depending on the vessel type...
s, and designer of the famous ocean liner
Ocean liner
An ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes .Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes referred to as...
SS Normandie
SS Normandie
SS Normandie was an ocean liner built in Saint-Nazaire, France for the French Line Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. She entered service in 1935 as the largest and fastest passenger ship afloat; she is still the most powerful steam turbo-electric-propelled passenger ship ever built.Her novel...
. He worked in Russia, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Biography
Vladimir Yourkevitch attended Saint Petersburg Polytechnic Institute from 1903 to 1907; he was a pupil of Alexei KrylovAlexei Krylov
Aleksey Nikolaevich Krylov was a Russian naval engineer, applied mathematician and memoirist.-Biography:Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov was born on August 3 O.S., 1863 to the family of an Army Artillery officer in a village Akhmatovo near town Alatyr of the Simbirsk Gubernia in Russia...
. After graduation, he entered Kronstadt
Kronstadt
Kronstadt , also spelled Kronshtadt, Cronstadt |crown]]" and Stadt for "city"); is a municipal town in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia, located on Kotlin Island, west of Saint Petersburg proper near the head of the Gulf of Finland. Population: It is also...
Naval School. One year later he received a degree as shipbuilding
Shipbuilding
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...
engineer and was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
.
He was assigned to work in the design bureau of the Baltic shipyard
Baltic Shipyard
The Baltic Shipyard is one of the oldest shipyards in Russia. It is located in Saint Petersburg in the south-western part of the Vasilievsky Island. It is one of the three shipyards active in Saint Petersburg...
. After the defeat of Russia in the war with Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and the actual loss of the navy in the Battle of Tsushima
Battle of Tsushima
The Battle of Tsushima , commonly known as the “Sea of Japan Naval Battle” in Japan and the “Battle of Tsushima Strait”, was the major naval battle fought between Russia and Japan during the Russo-Japanese War...
, the Naval Staff Headquarters was set up in Russia, which worked out a programme for the modernization of the Russian navy. The Baltic shipyard was supposed to play a special role in the realization of the programme.
The young engineer was entrusted to work on the biggest and fastest cruiser
Cruiser
A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...
s that existed at that time. According to specialists, the first Russian dreadnought
HMS Dreadnought (1906)
HMS Dreadnought was a battleship of the British Royal Navy that revolutionised naval power. Her entry into service in 1906 represented such a marked advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the "dreadnoughts", as well as the class of...
Sevastopol
Sevastopol (1911 ship)
Sevastopol was the first ship completed of the s of the Imperial Russian Navy, built before World War I. The Ganguts were the first class of Russian dreadnoughts. She was named after the Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. She was completed during the winter of 1914–15, but was not ready...
, which was launched in 1911, "was many years ahead of the world in shipbuilding." Yourkevich's famous "streamlined form" was realised for the first time in its construction.
In 1915, Yourkevitch was transferred to the Sailing Department of the Baltic shipyard. He was designated designer of the Forel and Ersh submarines. He took part in the design process and testing of 11 submarines of the AG type. He also was one of the main designer of 4 super-dreadnoughts: Borodino, Kinbourn, Izmail and Navarin. The new shape of hulls provided excellent results on the tests of the models, but the warships were not built because of the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
.
During the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, Yourkevitch became an officer with the White Movement
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
. In 1920, after the defeat of Wrangel
Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel
Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel or Vrangel was an officer in the Imperial Russian army and later commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia in the later stages of the Russian Civil War.-Life:Wrangel was born in Mukuliai, Kovno Governorate in the Russian Empire...
's army in Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
, he emigrated to Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. He wholly experienced all the hardships of living in a foreign country, including the absolute impossibility of working at his profession. He found a job as a stevedore
Stevedore
Stevedore, dockworker, docker, dock labourer, wharfie and longshoreman can have various waterfront-related meanings concerning loading and unloading ships, according to place and country....
. Then, with a group of immigrants, he set up an old car repair shop. Two years later he found himself in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
Even at that time, Yourkevitch was an outstanding engineer. However, he had to work as a turner
Turning
Turning is the process whereby a single point cutting tool is parallel to the surface. It can be done manually, in a traditional form of lathe, which frequently requires continuous supervision by the operator, or by using a computer controlled and automated lathe which does not. This type of...
at the Renault
Renault
Renault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, and in the past, autorail vehicles, trucks, tractors, vans and also buses/coaches. Its alliance with Nissan makes it the world's third largest automaker...
car factory and as a draughtsman
Technical drawing
Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the act and discipline of composing plans that visually communicate how something functions or has to be constructed.Drafting is the language of industry....
at a shipyard. He was trying to convince British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
shipbuilders to use the hull design he developed in Russia for the project of RMS Queen Mary
RMS Queen Mary
RMS Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner that sailed primarily in the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line...
, claiming it would be equivalent to a power boost of 1/6 but was rejected.
Only six years later did he get the opportunity to work based on his qualifications. He was employed by the large shipbuilding company Penhoët, which had a monopoly on the construction of passenger ships. Soon, the Penhoët company was commissioned to work out a project to construct a massive new transatlantic liner called the SS Normandie
SS Normandie
SS Normandie was an ocean liner built in Saint-Nazaire, France for the French Line Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. She entered service in 1935 as the largest and fastest passenger ship afloat; she is still the most powerful steam turbo-electric-propelled passenger ship ever built.Her novel...
. Yurkevich decided to design the body plan of the ship independently, which played a very significant role in his future life.
Work on the project started in 1929. To prove the superiority of his ideas, Yourkevich believed he had to work until late at night. "He created his work in primitive, refugee-style surroundings, where the drawing board was the most sacred object. On the walls, on the floor and on the desks there were volumes of correspondence, tables, diagrams…" remembered one of Yourkevich's friends.
After more than five years of painstaking labour, calculations and checking, the project was adopted. "I had to sustain a long fight: the forms I suggested were so different from the ones that were generally accepted, that I had to argue in their favour to the end. It cost me a lot of emotions," confessed Vladimir Ivanovich later.
The testing, which started first in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and then in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, proved the complete and obvious superiority of Yourkevich's model. It was the fastest of 25 models that had been suggested, mainly by French specialists. It struck everyone by the novelty of its hull, that combined a Bulbous bow
Bulbous bow
A bulbous bow is a protruding bulb at the bow of a ship just below the waterline. The bulb modifies the way the water flows around the hull, reducing drag and thus increasing speed, range, fuel efficiency, and stability...
with the Clipper
Clipper
A clipper was a very fast sailing ship of the 19th century that had three or more masts and a square rig. They were generally narrow for their length, could carry limited bulk freight, small by later 19th century standards, and had a large total sail area...
-style of the top of the hull.
With France initially unaffected by the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, Compagnie Générale Transatlantique
Compagnie Générale Transatlantique
The Compagnie Générale Transatlantique , typically known overseas as the French Line, was a shipping company established during 1861 as an attempt to revive the French merchant marine, the poor state of which was indicated during the Crimean War of 1856...
("CGT" or "The French Line") started the construction of what would become the Normandie in 1931, and she was launched in 1932. But as the Depression reduced demand for transatlantic travel, CGT slowed her fitting-out, and she did not enter service for two and a half years.http://www.greatoceanliners.net/normandie2.html On her maiden voyage in May 1935 from Le Havre
Le Havre
Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...
to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, she crossed from the Bishop Rock to Ambrose light in four days, three hours and five minutes at an average speed of almost 30 knots, bettering the previous record by over a knot, and earning Normandie the Blue Riband
Blue Riband
The Blue Riband is an unofficial accolade given to the passenger liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean in regular service with the record highest speed. The term was borrowed from horse racing and was not widely used until after 1910. Under the unwritten rules, the record is based on average speed...
for the fastest crossing. She later lost it to RMS Queen Mary
RMS Queen Mary
RMS Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner that sailed primarily in the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line...
, and then took it back before losing it for good. But the revolutionary design of Normandie's hull allowed her, with 160,000 h.p engines, to be almost as fast as Queen Mary, a ship virtually the same size but with 200,000 h.p. engines. Normandie also required much less fuel than Queen Mary. From that time the designs of almost all big ship hulls copied that of Normandie.
From then on, Yurkevich was always accompanied by success. He managed to set up his own design bureau called BAKNI in France, then opened several branches throughout Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and finally patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
ed his body plan for the Normandie in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, the USA, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Leading European countries became BAKNI's regular customers not only for designing new ships, which were the fastest and the most economical in the world, but also for the reconstruction of old ones.
Yurkevich moved to America on 5 March 1937. He founded a technical bureau in New York called Yourkevitch Ship Designs, Inc. and started negotiating with representatives of the naval and commercial fleets of the USA, as well as with private shipping companies. A. N. Vlasov, also a graduate from the Polytechnic Institute and the owner of over forty ocean liners, rendered Yurkevich financial assistance and addressed his compatriots with the following appeal: "We, Russian-Americans, are very proud of the success of our talented compatriot and consider it our sacred duty to support his new enterprise in America… We view the cause of V. I. Yurkevich as the National Cause of Russia."
The first testing of Yurkevich's models took place in Washington, DC, in the government testing basin. They exceeded the results of the models designed by competitors. By 1938, 42 ships had been built or reconstructed according to Yurkevich's designs.
From 1939 to 1945 Yurkevich continued his scientific and educational studies. A number of his articles were dedicated to the problems of upgrading the form of the hull, to the ship's steadiness and speed and to the ocean liners of the future. He gave lectures on the theory of ship design at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
and in the Shipbuilding Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
. In 1940, Yurkevich started working as a technical consultant for the U.S. Maritime Administration
U.S. Maritime Administration
The United States Maritime Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Transportation that maintains the National Defense Reserve Fleet as a ready source of ships for use during national emergencies, and assists the NDRF in fulfilling its role as the nation's fourth arm of...
and contributed to the design of US warships during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
In the post-war years of 1954-1957 he worked on a project of a giant ship that would carry six thousand passengers from New York to Le Havre within three days for… only 50 dollars. Two ships of this class were supposed to service the line between the USA and Germany. For several years the American press made a fuss over the sensational project, but it was never realised. To a significant degree the realisation was hampered by the financial difficulties of the customer, and also by the shipping and airline companies that were afraid of losing passengers and profits.
Almost to the end of his days he worked as a consultant for big shipbuilding companies in England, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and the USA. Vladimir Ivanovich died in December 1964. He was buried in the Russian Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
cemetery at the Novo-Diveyevo Convent near New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.
External links
- Biography of Yourketch - in English
- Biography of Yourkevitch - in Russian