Originally Posted by
Tourist
Wow!
Must be windy on your planet, because here on earth ships that can only do 17kts seem to manage to move out the way of most nasty weather systems...
Uhhh, yeah sure if a dangerous storm was the same thing in the context of an airship as it is in the context of an ocean-going ship, sure. Thing is it's not. the kind of winds which would be absolutely catastrophic for an airship wouldn't give an oceangoing ship much pause. Yeah, a ship can see a typhoon coming, usually, and chug out of the way, usually. Sometimes they aren't able. I think you're going to find that weather that is going to jeopardize an airship is a lot less severe, and will be a lot more common, and will be a bit harder to predict. Just as a guess, I would say that winds 25 kt gusting to 35 would almost certainly destroy an airship not in a hangar, but airline operations commonly continue is such weather and it would be relatively unremarkable for an ocean-going ship. Never mind that a ship will have fuel reserves measured in weeks at normal cruise which enables waiting out large storms, while a hybrid airship with a load which requires lift in excess of bouyancy will not.
Point being, reasoning that a strategy which is useful for oceangoing ships will also be viable for something so completely different as an airship is fundamentally flawed.