In every ship design weight engineers are challenged with estimating the weight and center of gravity for stowage aides and stowage contents particularly in the pre-contract stage of ship design. Ratiocination techniques using parent hull designs contained in SAWE Weight Engineers Handbook (SAWE, 1986) will suffice at the concept phase of design, but as the design progresses a weight engineer requires higher fidelity information for storeroom location and function, types and number of stowage aids within a storeroom, as well as the number of lockers and special stowage aids scattered throughout the ship. Hull outfitting design and construction products for stowage aids are typically scheduled for issue after primary hull structure and major through services and equipment arrangements have been established. Also, the list of items to stow is not provided until very late in the design. As a result this portion of the reported ship weight and center is usually neglected by the weight engineer due to the perceived lack of information and realization that "stowage" accounts for only approximately one percent of the lightship weight and one percent of the load weight. Yet, most weight engineers are unaware of an abundance of information available mainly due to their lack of knowledge in the ship design and storeroom and stowage aid design process. This paper in meant to enlighten the marine weight engineer in a process used successfully for evolving the estimates and calculations for stowage aid and contents weight and center of gravity from the early to latter phases of ship design.
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