Unlike all the other ‘non-wave piercing bows’.
4 Likes
Meanwhile, even the fourth of the first series of seven patrol ships was launched.
An Italian defense website gives this reason for the ‘double bow’:
The new units reach a maximum speed of over 32 knots also thanks to the particular shape of the bow, designed to maintain high speeds even in rough seas. The range is 5000 nautical miles at 15 knots of speed…
Looks like the bow is designed to cut through the smaller waves for speed and rise for the bigger ones.
1 Like
Granted, the deck area on the smaller bow may be small but so was the overhanging stern on many curtailed designs. They just don’t like that weight forcing them under.
How the shape effects the bow’s response to various sea heights seems analogous to how hull form (excess dead rise, tumble-home etc) effects the righting curve.
I remember the stories of the grain races and captains that were real “drivers”. Evidently a few of those ships bows were driven into big waves and never came up, the theory was that far enough under forward motion slowed enough the ship could turn or be dismissed and in the roaring forties of course … !!
A far distant relative of the Finnish Axopar hull shape…?
Some may have noticed that older cruise ships when getting a “makeover” tend to get an ugly look “appendix” (known as a “Duck Tail”) added at the stern?:
Some cruise ships have this feature from new:
Why add such an ugly feature to a ship you may ask?
Well, here is an explanation:
In this case the waterline length has been added at the bow, thus reducing resistance by changing the L/B ratio.
This give higher speed with a given engine power, or reducing the power requirement to obtain a given speed.
The last also reduce operational fuel consumption, which was mentioned as a feature for this design.
1 Like
As usual ombugge had draw a line on topic.
But the military still go frenzy is search of new hullforms.
French future " Frégate de défense et d’intervention", Intermediate Frigate (FTI) program it has a bow similar to old battleships…
crimany!!! … bow or stern it’s not going to be nice in some seas!, 2,000 years of ships design, They may find a few tricks but I don’t call this much of a success or a revolution.
I recently received this pic, originally from LR, of a “retractable” bow arrangement.
Looks downright gynaecological to me 
Yep!
As for the French frigate design, nothing new at all…
I discovered a CAD rendition I made of a late Norsk line ship:
What the HELL?
1 Like
It seems they pay the designer by his nightmares!
Click on the displayed pic to see two others…
More pictures are on MarineTraffic >>>
A nice ship with a fearsome ‘mouth’; built for the rough seas of southern Chile.
She seems to work as the Norwegian Hurtigruten ships, but in sparsely populated Patagonia:
RoRo + cargo + local passengers + cruise passengers.
from the NaviMag Company
Design IS peculiar - to say it plain - how it works in “rough seas” I can’t imagine…
Me too… but we didn’t see the results of how this bow worked in the ship model basin…
