Why the bulb on the bow

[bepsf]

Ahhh - there's the picture I was looking for!

;)

 

Our friend must have been remembering one of the other Dam ships for his Alaskan whale incident.

:)

[Copper10-8]

Ahhh - there's the picture I was looking for!

;)

 

Our friend must have been remembering one of the other Dam ships for his Alaskan whale incident.

:)

 

Check this site out! Pretty good info to keep up with her progress in Gdansk

http://www.ssrotterdam.net/

[Tinknock50]

Been doing a google search and so far found this:

 

"Cruise Ship hits Whale....

 

Seems in Vancouver as a ship was going in to dock, it had a 60 foot

whale on the front of it. Seems no one was aware of the collision..."

 

Thats all I have found so far....that was from 1999. Sounds like the story I heard. Now I am really curious and will keep searching to find out which ship it was.

[dougnewmanatsea]

ROTTERDAM (V) definitely has a bulbous bow. It's certainly not as pronounced as modern ships but it is there. If you were to compare her bow to that of a ship with no bulb, it would be fairly obvious.

 

I think the last big liner to be built without a bulbous bow must have been VISTAFJORD (now SAGA RUBY) in 1973. She is the evolution of a design that began with OSLOFJORD (1949) and went through BERGENSFJORD (1956) and SAGAFJORD (1965). None of these ships had bow bulbs. For VISTAFJORD, a bulb was considered but rejected after tank tests.

 

In may ways she was the last "traditional" liner, also the last one to have curved sheer (this is when the decks curve upwards at the bow and stern) that I know of. As SAGA RUBY she is one of my favorite ships.

 

The little FRONTIER SPIRIT (now BREMEN) of 1990 also has no bulbous bow, but that is a very small ship; a bulb was not incorporated because her bow is designed to go through heavy ice and a bulb would hinder her ice capabilities. If you look at icebreakers, they don't have bulbous bows for this reason.

 

Bulbous bows were very uncommon before WWII - only a handful of ships like BREMEN, EUROPA, and NORMANDIE had them. Fairly widespread use did not come about until the 1950s, and by the 1970s virtually all passenger ships had them. By the time the 1980s rolled around, the very pronounced bulbous bows we are used to seeing today had been developed. An early example of a ship with a modern-style bulbous bow would be HAMBURG (MAXIM GORKIY) built back in 1969; it took until the early '80s for this sort of design to be universally adopted instead of the less-pronounced type as you see on ROTTERDAM (V).

 

There have even been a few ships which have had bow bulbs added; one that comes to mind was Royal Cruise Line's first ROYAL ODYSSEY which had been built in 1964 as SHALOM and gained a really massive bulbous bow when Royal Cruise Line bought her in 1982. (She sank in 2002 on the way to the breakers after a long period in lay-up.)

[Tinknock50]

Excellent picture!

 

Thanks John

[Copper10-8]

YW Sean

Thanks Doug, been waiting for ya!

[Tinknock50]

Very interesting Doug!

 

One thing for sure I have found in my searches is that bulbous bows are not very whale-friendly! Numerous examples of whales caught on them.

[dougnewmanatsea]

Thanks Doug, been waiting for ya!

You're most welcome :) .

 

I don't know why I didn't see this thread earlier.

 

It strikes me that so far, nobody has shown a photo of a bulb-less bow. Here's one on EMPRESS OF BRITAIN of 1956 (shown here in a Carnival postcard as CARNIVALE):

 

 

From Maritime Matters

 

(See here for more about this fascinating ship, still in service as THE TOPAZ. I visited her this past Tuesday.)

[Druke I]

Doug

 

As always, you are a wealth of info.

 

Thanx.