The Battle Axe

Clockwise from upper left: 1. Team Alinghi cat; 2. BMW Oracle trimaran; 3. Blohm + Voss ‘A’; 4. Amels 199; 5. Feadship ‘Predator’; 6. Aeroyacht 110

For racing multihulls the advantages of the axe bow are clear: the wave-piercing shape delivers maximum buoyancy for minimum weight and surface area, less wind resistance and better wave shedding.

Counter-intuitively, the reverse bow is less likely to pitchpole because it It may well dig into a wave but it tends to rise immediately rather than stopping and burying itself in deeper. Bottom line is less pitching and a stable sail carrying platform that can carry more sail in more wind with more safety. Morelli & Melvin and VPLP design firms have been instrumental in bringing the axe bow into the mainstream, most notably with the BMW/Oracle racing tri. Team Alinghi has followed suit with an axe bowed cat. Since racers set the fashion, I suspect it will be nearly impossible to sell a performance oriented multihull WITHOUT axe bows in the near future. Gentlemen, start your grinders!

The megayacht adoption of the axe bow is equally interesting, because yachts are traditionally so… traditional. Changes in styles happen very slowly in yachting, and yet the designers and builders have all jumped on the axe bow bandwagon as if it was the last stage out of Dodge. One reason is simply to have something new to sell, but obviously the axe bow strikes a deeper chord in the yachting psyche.

1. the dreadnaught battleship ‘Texas’, 2. Greek trireme reproduction ‘Olympia’

Previous examples of reverse bows are to be found on warships - the ram of the Greek trireme and the cutting axe shape of early twentieth century dreadnoughts, for example. But the axe goes back much further than that. Anthropologists point to two primary innovations upon which all of human civilization are founded: the invention of agriculture, and the axe.

Culturally the axe bow is an aggressive and weapon-like shape, a shape appropriate for a ship of war. The multihulls battling for the America’s Cup are “warships” of a type, so the aggressive profile fits the agenda. But as for the owners of these very large axe bowed pleasure yachts - the captains of industry and finance - I do wonder what Freud would have to say about it.