Wave Piercing Bows

I couldn't agree more with this. Apparently, a lots of folks miss the fact that aesthetics has nothing to do with design solutions for A-cat hulls, and that requirements for such extreme racing machines are very different from requirements for cruising boats.
Everything is different in the racing world: speeds are different, winds are different, sea-states are different, crew agility, age and experience are different, boat handling characteristics are different, risk perception is different, consequences of maneuvering errors are different. Everything.
Yet, folks want their cruisers to look like the performance-edge-seeking racing boats. From the emotional point of view, I can understand the desire to have a boat which makes one feel like James Spithill. But rationally it makes very little sense. Fashion tendencies should be left for clothes and shoes, imo.

 

MOB?

These aren't monohulls. These are 15 meter catamarans. You don't even go to the bow of a well designed catamaran - you go forward (if at all) by walking the plank at the boat's overall centerline between the two nets. The cockpits look like this:



How, exactly, with the cockpit in the above picture and the bows in the below picture, do you have an increased risk of MOB? These arguments aren't even logical. They seem to come from someone trying to grasp at straws to support the feeling that they like a certain bow vs. another type of bow.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to go to the bow of my last catamaran - and I put at least 4000 nautical miles on her.

I'm doing the bows as you see on this boat that Groper linked to (pictured below). They are essentially the plumb bow with a stylish cut in them. So how is that going to affect all of these absolutely essential features of an old fashioned bow?



I think we're all talking about different boats here... very little I'm reading makes sense when applied to the boat I'm building.

Fashion is an absolute necessity (as is climate control) aboard my boat/business.

 

Yes fashion and solid spruce bows for the PNW drift be damned and all that, now the tsunami debris is getting added to the mix. We have a Lot of drift up here..... still this trend could be great news for the boatyard patch guys. Why argue with fashion that can bring in a fortune? Still you won't see me on rounded decks when the frost hits either but they'd be nice to look at in the tropics. Now I'll do an impartial revue for anyone who wants to buy me a ticket to the warm zone and provides a suitable charter.....

 

For those not familiar with how you sail a catamaran like this, take a look at this video. It goes over everything we are discussing in this thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdqXoIhg0dA

That's the kind of boat I'm building, though LOA will be in the high 40's to 50ft based on the same bowsprit (longeron) inclusion in the LOA that Gunboat uses.

Do the bows at 0:31 look like great places to take a walk? Do you think they are used at all?

Do you see people walking up there?

Look at the person who goes forward at 1:26. Where are they standing?

They drop the anchor at 2:34. Anyone in danger of going overboard?

At 2:37, they are at the bow watching the anchor set. Anyone in danger of going overboard? Anyone on the tiny little bows?

Notice at 3:30 the reporter discusses how a well designed catamaran is used. Some on this thread who have never been on one may want to pay attention here.

Hoisting a spinnaker at 5:53 seconds at the bow. Any danger from the narrow bows?

7:17 - at the bow again, looking for coral heads while going through an inlet. Are they using the "bows" everyone is so concerned with?

7:28 - playing with a halyard to put a different sail up.

7:38 - sitting on the bow going like 10 knots.

Now, after watching this video, either you guys have never been on a catamaran designed like this before, or... you are thinking of the wrong kind of boat when you are considering all these dire consequences of narrowing up the last foot of bow at the top of a plumb bow like shown in the last post I made.

See how all these arguments make no sense when applied to a catamaran like I'm building?

That's why Groper and I can't understand what you guys are talking about. All these horrible consequences are irrelevant on these particular boats, which I suspect you aren't thinking about when making the arguments.

I mean are you picturing people walking all the way up to the pointy part of the bow? (the stem?) It's simply not done.

 

Considering both Groper and I are building the entire boat, I don't think a nick out of the sacrificial bow foam will be much of a challenge for either of us to fix:

1) Grind the glass away
2) Fill missing piece of sacrificial bow foam with new foam and/or bog
3) Make good taper and re-glass (it just uses a few layers of 6oz cloth up there, since it's *sacrificial*)
4) Apply fairing bog if needed
5) Apply primer
6) Paint to match

Done. Same damage you'd get with plumb bows or old timey bows. There's no difference between the silver colored catamaran's bows I posted and any other bow in a collision.

I have to wonder if some of you are at all familiar with the use or construction of modern foam/glass performance catamarans.

 

Time will tell.....if we contact drift, and we try not to, it rolls under and off to the side. I think you will be in the bow repair minority though. The market for these boats is aimed at guys who hire out their work anyway.

 

That much we can agree on.

 

I found this photo of a Greg young Catamaran. Going by the fore beam location I would suspect He was allowing for wave penetration with a plumb bow.

For a wave piercing bow would it be more about volume than angle, any angle would just be fine tuning.

 

Different folks different strokes

Cat - I go right up to the bow of my hulls often. Just last time I took the boat out I left the dinghy on the mooring. This means I have to approach the mooring from the side of the boat (don't want the dinghy going underneath and banging about). Then as I am singlehanded I grab one part of the bridle and cleat it off. The boat drifts back. I have the other bridle part hanging by the mooring pendant and have to flick it around the bows to move ot to the other side.

So for me - and this is personal - I do go right up to the bows - like Richard to jump off with a line when coming to the wharf and when playing with the kite and screecher lines set far forward. So my boat has easy to use plumb bows. Yours of course may be different because you are different. My kids and I also love jumping off them.

cheers

Phil

 

Ah, that is personal, I suppose. As kids, we usually did halyard swings. You have to show your kids that one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15u7HTYCCfw

(probably not best done underway)

 

I like powerboats in general, the concept of going outside in really rough weather to change a sail on a narrow boat, cat or monohull is for the sea birds. Most ocean sailboats look more like circus trapezes than boats. This should get you sailboaters in a uproar.

 

That could be one of the reasons the latest Imoca (60 foot single handed boats) boats are being set up to sailed from a sheltered area compared to the Volvo boats. The Volvo boats appear to me to be a generation or two behind.

As to wave piercing bows, the possible problem may be everyone has their own idea for what constitute a wave piercing bow.

 

Aye, it was the occasional lifted stern (surf) that might drive bow into sand, I was thinking of...

 

Ok, that makes sense, but there is some seamanship involved here. You don't put any boat on a beach when there is a surf or even much wave action or wind at all pushing you toward that beach. That's poor seamanship.

 

Catbuilder, you are correct, except in the case of the Malibu Outrigger and various proas, intended for surf launch and beaching...see below pics.

I am revamping orig design (class is defunct) to accommodate modern gear etc, and will build to operate as intended, in case.

That odd beach surf, even on Lake Michigan, can drive bow into sand too fast to bear off to avoid it...so we have to work with what might happen and why the foam idea is a softy, at least to me.