Hovgaard was one of the foremost authorities on ship design in his generation, especially on the general and structural design of warships. He wrote several books on naval design and construction and the history thereof, but also on a diversity of other subjects, and he received a significant number of orders, awards and merits during his life.
His contribution to the shipbuilding art in this country, and particularly to the education of the officers of the Corps of Naval Constructors of the United States Navy, is incalculable.
Hovgaard wrote a number of books and scientific articles on a number of subjects. Pertaining to his warship expertise, he wrote Structural Design of Warships[4] (1915) and General Design of Warships and Modern History of Warships (1920).
Books by Hovgaard on other subjects include The Voyages of the Norsemen to America[5] (1914) where he comments on this subject-matter based on his knowledge of ships and navigation. He comes to the conclusion that Leif Ericsson reached the south coast of Cape Cod. Hovgaard wrote,
"He landed on the shores of the cape at some point where there was a long, narrow beach outside a large expanse of water, a pond or a lagoon, into which he entered. A river or brook flowed into the pond. This pond may have been on the east coast of the Cape Cod peninsula, but more probably it was on the south shore, in Nantucket Sound."[6]
This is a splendid example of his clear understanding of world politics and the problems that existed or that would arise during the process of making effective peace. His ideas concerning peace and how to secure it read like a prophecy of events that are now taking place. While his professional abilities had been utilized to create instruments of warfare, he sought to prevent war, knowing well its horrors, by creating a better intellectual understanding among nations.
At his death he had for some years been working on a new theory of cosmology, but it remained unfinished.[8]
In 1915 Hovgaard served as an expert witness after the sinking of RMS Titanic (later he would also give testimony on the RMS Lusitania). Later he served as vice-president in The American-Scandinavian Foundation. In 1929, he was appointed to the Department of Commerce's Committee on Ship Construction, and later the same year he became a full member of the National Academy of Sciences.
In 1937 Hovgaard was honored at a luncheon at the Astor Hotel, under sponsorship of the American Society of Danish Engineers, the Danish Officers' Club, and the Danish Luncheon Club. A letter read at the luncheon from a US naval official noted that 85 percent of the officers in the Navy's construction corps were Hovgaard's former students, and that every one of the Navy's ships currently docked at New York Harbor was constructed under the supervision of his former pupils.[9]
^Hovgaard Ø. In: Anthony K. Higgins: Exploration history and place names of northern East Greenland. (= Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Bulletin Vol. 21, 2010). Copenhagen 2010, ISBN978-87-7871-292-9
^Hovgaard, W. "Determination of the stresses in a beam by the method of variation". In: Atti del Congresso Internazionale dei Matematici: Bologna del 3 al 10 de settembre di 1928. Vol. 6. pp. 239–246.
^The Norsemen in Greenland: Recent Discoveries at Herjolfsnes
William Hovgaard
Geographical Review
Vol. 15, No. 4 (Oct., 1925), pp. 605-616
Published by: American Geographical Society
Article Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/208626
^The Arsenal in Piraeus and the Ancient Building Rules
William Hovgaard
Isis
Vol. 8, No. 1 (Feb., 1926), pp. 12-20
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Article Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/223671