3D Modeling of Northbend: A Hough Type Vessel

Summary

This is a poster submission presented at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In 1917, to offset a rise in merchant shipping losses from German U-boats, the U.S. Congress established the United States Shipping Board (USSB) and the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to oversee the rapid construction of wooden ships. Several variations of ship designs were adopted throughout the construction effort, with the two leading designs being the Ferris type and the Hough type. The Hough type primarily differed from the widely used Ferris type, using a hard chine rather than curved frames. This work outlines the methodology of utilizing Rhinoceros 8 modeling software to generate a three-dimensional model of Northbend (the first Hough type vessel in the Emergency Fleet) to assist a 2024 archaeological investigation of the site (located in NOAA’s Mallows Bay Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary).

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025   •
• 2025 SHA Poster Submissions

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow