Design Time
A look at the evolution of cruise ship bows.
WITH THE PASSAGE OF TIME, PASSENGER SHIPS’ bows have come in an assortment of shapes and sizes. To accommodate evolving aesthetics and technology, their form has morphed from sleek and clipper-like to vertical, raked, bulbous, and varying combinations of each.
BACK IN THE DAY
_ That concept of “when men were men and ships were ships” harks back to the Horatio Hornblower era of clipper ships, whose long, pointed bows sported tusk-like bowsprits. Besides providing more sail volume to propel the hull they were attached to, they were stunningly beautiful apparitions. But by the late 1880s, when the age of steam finally eclipsed the need for sails, clipper bows fell completely out of style.
From that point, such elegant prows were mostly relegated to luxury yachts, a notable exception being one of the world’s first cruise ships, Clipper Line’s diminutive, deluxe Stella
Polaris of 1927. Happily, with the passage of time and like almost every fashion that is rendered obsolete, the clipper bow would make a vigorous comeback, albeit with some alterations. For those looking for the real thing in today’s cruise fleet, the wind-enhanced ships of Star Clippers sport true clipper bows, bowsprits and all.
The image is so vivid of a knifelike vertical prow slicing through the eerily calm waters of the North Atlantic. When Titanic entered service in 1912, her bow, a finely pointed, 90degree wedge designed to slice through the seas, was considered state of the art. Almost all of the great liners, from the waning years of the 19th century through the stately Ile de France of 1927 boasted similarly regal, aristocratic noses.
Gradually, in response to the burgeoning streamline form, the vertical bow became more angled or raked during the early years of the 20th century. Famous examples of the raked bow would be Cunard Line’s first “Queens,”
Queen Mary of 1936 and her running mate, the slightly larger Queen Elizabeth of 1940. Raked bows could also be curvaceous, as exemplified by the Dutch Art Deco flagship Nieuw Amsterdam of 1936, a sublimely elegant liner whose likeness lives on in Holland America Line’s logo.
What lies beneath the waterline has a profound effect on how efficiently a ship moves. Borrowing a technology vetted with war ships, the imposing German Bauhaus liners Bremen of 1929 and Europa of 1930 were the first major passenger ships fitted with a bulbous bow. Although the additional mass seems counterintuitive, the bulb form actually pushes water aside, thus creating less resistance as the ship’s hull propels forward. With few exceptions, most notably the French flagship Normandie of 1934, it wasn’t until the late 1950s with futuristic ships such as Holland America’s SS Rotterdam that the bulbous bow became a staple in passenger ship design. Today, nearly every major modern cruise ship boasts one.
DESTINATION ADAPTION
_ Sometimes a ship’s form is determined by where it goes. For instance, the handsome Soviet- operated
Alexandr Pushkin of 1965 was fitted with an ice-strengthened bow to help navigate the often-treacherous North Atlantic between the Baltics and Canada. Heavily rebuilt, the former Pushkin sails on today as Marco Polo for British-based Cruise and Maritime Voyages. In addition to Marco Polo and Hurtigruten’s Norwegian coastal liners, most of today’s expedition ships have ice-strengthened bows with extra thick, reinforced plating to help navigate Polar seas.
Another bow form that one might encounter in icy seas is the sloping or icebreaker bow, which protrudes from the hull in such a way that it slides atop the ice and then breaks it apart by leveraging the weight of the ship downward. Currently, several icebreakers operate under charter to expedition cruise companies for voyages into the icy realms of the Arctic and Antarctic. YOU’VE GOT THE LOOK
_ Occasionally, a ship’s features are determined by aesthetics. In the early 1960s, the great Italian naval architect Nicolo Costanzi designed the “swan’s neck bow,” adding a subtly elegant curve to the top of the prow that had absolutely nothing to do with function. A prime bearer of the “swan’s neck” was Home Lines’ dashing Oceanic of 1965, which later sailed as the Big Red Boat for Premier Cruises.
Not to be bested, architect Renzo Piano came up with a bow that, in tandem with the superstructure, gave Princess Cruises’ Crown
Princess and Regal Princess of 1989 and 1990 a dolphin-like profile. That cetacean aesthetic was taken a step further with the “whale’s mouth” bows of the current Grand Princess platform.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the clipper bow had made its full-fledged comeback via the first-generation cruise ships of Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean International, all of which featured gorgeously sleek and sweeping bows that, despite their nod to the past, epitomized a racy modernity.
Royal Viking Line’s deluxe trio of Star, Sky, and Sea, had sharply pointed bows that were inspired by the aforementioned Stella Polaris, albeit with the addition of a bulb and minus the bowsprit. Continuing the trend, most of today’s warm-weather cruise ships feature foreshortened versions of a bulbous clipper or raked bow.
The ultimate combination of beauty with function, Cunard’s Queen Mary 2, the last true liner built to cross as well as cruise, boasts an elegant prow with a majestic rake and a strengthened bulb designed to forge the most challenging of seas.
Another once-outmoded form may be returning, thanks to German-based Aida Cruises brand-new AIDAPrima, which features a bulbous vertical prow. A sister ship, AIDAperia, the as- of-yet-unnamed pair of 180,000-gt Costa Cruises ships under construction, and two new Hurtigruten liners on order are following an upright fashion that would make those early–20th-century Cunard and White Star liners proud.
And finally, if the artists’ renderings of the future Virgin Voyages ships are a harbinger, proper bows may be on their way out entirely. No matter what, history has proven that in the world of ship’s bows, what is considered passé today will likely be tomorrow’s new rage, albeit with a tweak or two.
It wasn’t until the late 1950s with futuristic ships such as Holland America’s SS Rotterdam that the bulbous bow became a staple in passenger ship design.