Danijela, thanks for your fine comment!:-)

Tuomas, Theo, Igor and Stan - thanks for these interesting links and examples.

Btw... Stan, checked my local shipstore right after work today, no luck, they said it's a discontinued model!:-)

Again, thanks to all for taking interest.

brgds
Jens

Hi Jens, Also available as a tanker. check out your local shipstore for the latest model!

http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=508191
http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=1235440

When I saw this picture I remembered one vessel with the same bow. She is Skipjack (IMO 8615564). She was build at the same shipyard.

Almost a identical bow here,,also when smaller and on a different type vessel
http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=181166

B&W builded a bunch and one other building yard in that time> As I understood it it was a kind of trial bow and never really took off more or less like the a-symetric stern which was also hailed as big invention and than more or less nothing more heard from

Very nice photo!

Rgds,
Dani

I guess it's cheaper to build a bow like that instead of a more complex shape. Or, the shipyard couldn't produce a complex one and had to settle with a simplified shape.

Denis
My below comment with very brief explanation was only lighted towards Jen's statement/query mentioned in his comment:
"...I hardly know anything about the construction of a ship's bow in relation to the resistance of water"

Sorry, nothing at all was here related to you or any of your points.

Gianpaolo, now that you mentioned B&W I remembered that I had seen such before, Ocean Beauty (IMO. 8025850).

http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=914775

So Ocean Beauty is one of these sisterships?

Just remembered FEDRA (IMO 8208713) also had such bow.

Interesting B/c various sisters deliverd from B&W in 80s
if i am correct 17 sisters
GP

Jadran, you completely missed my point. I know what the bulb is for & how it works. What's interesting on Jens' shot is the whole underwater bow which is literally a mirrored freeboard bow - something I never saw before.

Thanks for this simple explanation, Jadran. Back at school I've already been a failure at physics!:-)

Jens, just to briefly help with a very short explanation.
When the ship is sea-going, a recognizable amount of water resistance is anyhow created on the bulb, but.....
The bulb itself is pushing the water away from the remaining part of the ship's hull. As the remaining hull is a big surface, compared to the bulb, the water resistance on the hull surface, without bulb, would be gross and with the bulb, the hull surface water resistance is much-much less.
Therefore, in final, the total much less water resistance on the entire underwater part of the ship achieves a ship to obtain higher speed.

You could be right, but I hardly know anything about the construction of a ship's bow in relation to the resistance of water.

Perhaps it explains why on all photos of her underway I don't see much bow wake.

Yep, I thought so, too, when I stumbled upon her today...

Veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery interesting bow shape here.