OPENING ADDRESS 



Jean BLANCARD 

 delegue Ministeriel pour I'Armement 

 Paris j France 



Ladies and Gentlemen, 



I thank Ingenieur General Brard for having successfully- 

 explained in a few words what the "Delegation Ministerielle pour 

 I'Armement" is. 



I am very happy to open the Ninth Symposium on Naval Hy- 

 drodynamics. I would first like to emphasize two particular reasons 

 why it gives me great pleasure : 



- the first one is that this Symposium be held in France, in 

 Paris. It is traditional that the Symposia take place alternately in the 

 United States and in a foreign country. This is the first time that the 

 Symposium on Naval Hydrodynamics takes place in Paris, and I feel 

 particularly glad for it. 



- the second reason is the number and quality of the repre- 

 sentatives from the twenty two countries who favoured us with a posi- 

 tive answer to our invitation. This shows the utmost importance 

 attached to the problems of Naval Hydrodynamics. 



Whatever the positions I have held and that Mr. Brard just 

 recalled, I am not at all a theoretician in Naval Hydrodynamics. 

 From my student time, some forty years ago, I remember that the 

 intricate equations of hydrodynamics were stretching unendingly on 

 the blackboard, and when the professor had finished writing them 

 down, he would add : "The solutions are not known, so one has to 

 resort to experiment". 



Looking at your technical program, I can see that a rather 

 important part of it is devoted to what you call frontier problems, a 

 somewhat strange term for the non specialist. This shows that there 

 still exist numerous unsolved problems in naval hydrodynamics, and 



