BULBOUS BOW

A greater concern is how well a ship cuts through waves. The ability of
a ship to cut through waves can greatly afect its fuel efciency and
even its safety in a storm. Most ships use a sharp or bulbous bow to
cut through waves and help prevent waves from slamming the bow of
the ship. However, icebreakers have a round sledlike bow. They tend
to slam into waves, which can be a risk in high seas. A bulbous bow,
a feature of many modern ship hulls, is a protruding bulb at the bow
!or front" below the waterline. #sually visible only when a ship is in dry
dock, the bulb modi$es how water %ows around the hull, reducing drag
and increasing in speed, range, and fuel efciency. &hips with bulbous
bows generally have '( to ') percent better fuel efciency than similar
vessels without them.
*ulbous bows achieve ma+imum efect at a narrow range of speeds
over , knots !*ray, website". At other speeds, they can increase drag.
They have the greatest efect on large ships such as freighters, navy
vessels and various passenger ships. They are rarer on recreational
boats designed for wide speed ranges and planning over the water
The %uid dynamics of bulbous bows can be calculated.
-ong waves are faster, so a ship that wants to go fast has to e+cite
long waves and not short ones. .n a conventionally shaped bow, a bow
wave forms immediately before the bow. /hen a bulb is placed below
the water ahead of this wave, water is forced to %ow up over the bulb.
.f the trough formed by water %owing of of the bulb coincides with the
bow wave, the two partially cancel out and reduce the vessel0s wake.
/hile inducing wave stream saps energy from the ship, canceling out
the second wave stream at the bow changes the pressure distribution
along the hull, thereby reducing wave resistance. The efect that
pressure distribution has on a surface is known as the form efect.
&ome e+planations note that water %owing over the bulb depresses the
ship0s bow and keeps it trimmed better. &ince many of the bulbous
bows are symmetrical or even angled upwards which would tend to
raise the bow further, the improved trim is likely a by product of the
reduced wave action as the vessel approaches hull speed, rather than
direct action of water %ow over the bulb.
A sharp bow on a conventional hull form would produce waves and low
drag like a bulbous bow, but waves coming from the side would strike
it harder. Also, in heavy seas, water %owing around the bulb dampens
pitching movements like a s1uiggle keel. The blunt bulbous bow also
produces higher pressure in a large region in front, making the bow
wave start earlier.
The $rst bulbous bows appeared in the '2(3s with the introduction of
the Bremen and Europe, two 4erman 5orth Atlantic ocean liners.
Bremen, which appeared in '2(2, was able to win the coveted *lue 6ib
and of the Atlantic with a speed of (7.2 knots.
&maller passenger liners such as the American President Hoover and
President Coolidge of '28' began to appear with bulbous bows
although they were still viewed by many ship owners and builders as
e+perimental.
.n '28) the 9rench super liner Norman die coupled a bulbous bow with
a radically redesigned hull shape and was able to achieve speeds in
e+cess of 83 knots. At the time Norman die was famous for !among
other things" her clean entry into the water and her greatly reduced
bow wave. 5orman die:s great rival, the *ritish liner Queen Mary
achieved e1uivalent speeds with a nonbulbous traditional stem and
hull design. However, the crucial diference lay in the fact that Norman
die achieved these speeds with appro+imately thirty percent less
engine horsepower than Queen Mary;and with a corresponding
reduction in fuel use.
*ulbous bows were further developed and used by the <apanese. &ome
/orld /ar ..era <apanese battleships such as the Yamato were $tted
with bulbous bows. However, <apanese research into this area did not
spread to the western world, and much of the advances were lost post
war.
.t is unclear when bulbous bows were conclusively $rst e+amined by
western researchers, but scienti$c papers on the sub=ect were $rst
published in the '2)3s. >ngineers began e+perimenting with bulbous
bows after discovering that ships $tted with a ram bow were e+hibiting
substantially lower drag characteristics than predicted, and eventually
found that they could reduce drag by about )?. >+perimentation and
re$nement slowly improved the geometry of bulbous bows, but they
were not widely e+ploited until computer modeling techni1ues enabled
researchers at the #niversity of *ritish @olumbia to increase their
performance to a practical level in the '2A3s.