There is a scarcity of weight information about destroyers prior to 1918

If you want to do a meaningful general design of a ship, you need a model to follow. The most important aspect of doing a general design, for me, has been doing the weights analysis. That is where the greatest tradeoffs occur. The weights interact with dimensions and power when trying to achieve a particular speed. Speed will drive the optimal length for a given displacement.

For example, my attempt at a light battlecruiser was too short. The wavemaking resistence was higher with the shorter length that I had chosen, so the top speed was thereby limited. The available weight for propulsion was insufficient to overcome the losses caused by insufficient length. The only alternative would have been to lower the displacement, to achieve a better balance.

The bible for British destroyers has been March's book. It is quite old, but there is really no alternative. It is comparable to Oscar Parke's book, British Battleships. March's book has some really good drawings in it. In some cases, they are either from original plans, or from tracings from them.

I don't understand why he omitted detailed weight information for each destroyer class. That level of detail would have been of incalculable value. Instead, the book is very uneven. That has greatly detracted from the books usefulness as a reference for doing general design.