Wave Piercing Bows

Thank you for the replies, everyone. I'm standing back and watching the thread. All interesting points of view. My mind isn't made up yet.

I prefer the look of the plumb bow, but who knows? Maybe I'm getting old!

Adding the plumb bow or the wave piercer is basically the same operation for me. I have the following from bow to stern direction:

1) Wave piercing or plumb bow, built as a block of foam that is glassed on to the forward most part of the hull - this is a "bumper" of sorts.

2) Watertight bulkhead at the front aluminum cross beam

3) 2nd watertight bulkhead about 3ft aft of the aluminum cross beam

So, there is no safety consideration for any type of bow bumper I put on. I'm more concerned with the looks. I suppose I can just haul the boat and grind the thing into a different shape as the styles change, to keep the boat looking new...

 

I don't think that you can change the look of the bow by changing 'bumpers'. any shape starts a much further back on the bow than any bumper - otherwise it will look like something that you have just stuck on!!!

Plumb bows came about when boats were designed to length/box rules and designers wanted maximum waterline length and were still of the mind that they wanted maximum bouyancy above the waterline. I don't think that there was ever a design benefit of them in themselves.

As for raked back bows, there are 2 reasons that they work. On smaller or fast boats they give minimum drag when bows are forced under the water, thus making them more likely to surface again. On bigger or slower boats, they give a smoother ride through waves as a developement on from bulbous bows.

Every morning I sit and have my breakfast looking at two boats in my garden - a hobie wildcat and a farrier F-32....... I prefer raked foward bows!

 

Right, Teamvmg. I know. This would be a *cosmetic* change, turning this...



....into this....





It's a modification of the profile view of the boat, by extending the waterline a few inches forward from plumb and raking the line back to make the look of the new bows, as seen here in the 2nd picture.

 

There is another benefit to the rake back bows, it reduces the windage of the hull up front.

Not likely there is any differece in the amount spray kicked up at all.

IT seems to me on a cruising cat the lost storage column of the raked-back bow up front would be an issue.

Another consideration for a charter boat is how attractive your average customer might consider the look of the hull. No matter the minor sailing benefit, if you lose customers to more "traditional" looking boats, you have lost money and there is no amount of sailing benefit that will make up for it.

 

Exactly, Petros. I'm asking what people think of the look here to try to understand if they are ugly, as i see them, or cool. The thought being that I'm trying to understand what other people like so I can pick the most desired shape.

There is no storage lost doing the rake back. It's solid foam either way, with additional waterline length added if I do the rake back.

 

I like the look of a plumb bow on certain hull forms, with certain styling clues. The recent rage is once again to best advantage the design, within a rule set (surprise).

The discussion is muddied a bit when you attempt to mix in cruising yacht bows. These boat's need a lot more from their bow than a racer. A racer's fairly narrow SOR can tolerate the plumb or reversed bows advantages and disadvantages, while the cruiser needs to ask for more, to a degree, negating the need for an extreme bow profile.

This too will come out in the wash and we'll get back to some rake.

 

For clarity, I should point out that the boats in the pictures above are quite close to the styling, performance and handling of the build I'm doing. The pictures above can be considered accurate to the design I'm building and accurate representations of the type of plumb bow or reverse rake. The deckhouse I am building is more like the one in the first picture though, so it is best to picture the first boat with the bows of the second boat stuck on

Which looks better to the average charter customer?

 

Between the two boats pictured above, I would say the second one is more pleasing to the eye only because it does not have the harsh lines of the boat in the first picture.

I have always thought that smooth flowing lines, like you see in nature on fish and sea mammals, always always more pleasing to the eye. Only on man made objects to you see the unnatural straight and square lines.

And if you are adding it up front, it will give you a bit more waterline length too.

 

Catbuilder, I dont think your customers will reject your boat because they dont like the look of the bows. They will make their judgement based on the activities you offer and the quality of food and accomodation onboard. Make the boat look what you want it to look like if you think you are losing sales due to the way your boat looks (unlikely) you can always do some bow surgery in the future and fit up a reverse bow.

 

exactly... the reverse bow on CRUISING boats is a FASHION thing, it only has a small FUNCTION on RACE boats, so it depends on the styling of the boat your going for... if you want very modern, use the reverse rake - but i agree with petros in that deckhouse wont suit it, its too square and more "dated"...

IMHO, your investing heavily in this yacht, i would look to keeping it as up to date as possible for its resale value years from now...

 

With all due respect to charter customers everywhere, and at times I have made my living from them, they won't have a clue.

To give you the real live marketing answer: Neither. The traditional clipper type bow with overhang will be the most pleasing to the eye of the typical clewless charter customer. Given that: plumb bow would be correct.

$.02 Steve

 

It is a conundrum what will be the fashion in the future? Maybe reverse bows will just be a blip and everyone will want a standard overhanging or plumb bow. I remember reading Ian Farrier's thoughts on the F27 trimaran they were going to do a plumb bow but customer sentiment in the states when polled prefered the overhanging bow so that's what they did.

I have the luxury that I'm not building my boat for anyone else nor do I need to look at depreciating it's value in a business sense it's a racing trimaran so will have stuff all resale value.

 

That's what they said about the reversed rake transoms too . . . then there's the bleach blond fad that was suppose to fade out . . . I'm glad the short shorts fad has lingered, except the ones Troy wears . . .

 

I dont think this will be a blip, why? Because many things, such as cars, boats, sporting equipment, yada yada take their aesthetic design clues from racing, or sporting elite successes etc... what do most of teh cars on the road look like today? more like race cars than vintage collectors items no? And theres actually good reason too, like windage or in automobile parlance, fuel efficiency etc...

so because the reverse bow does have a small function in racing, primarily to reduce windage and pitching, these race boats will continue to use the best bow shape they can in order to keep winning races. This means this bow shape is here to stay until they find a faster shape. This also means, based on past trends of many industries and the link to racing, that this bow shape will remain aesthetically desirable for a similar duration...

So i dont think this one is a fad... it will be a desirable feature of many modern yachts that want the "go fast" look...

 

Well the ram/reverse bow comes from an old tradition of narrow purpose. Warfare and racing do have similarities. Conventional bows come from a long line of merchant vessels which parallel the needs of cruising. Maybe the plumb bows are the compromise....I'll stick to overhang for my practical reasons...