Ship bow waves

The bow wave generated by a ship hull that advances at constant speed in calm water is considered. The bow wave only depends on the shape of the ship bow (not on the hull geometry aft of the bow wave). This basic property makes it possible to determine the bow waves generated by a canonical family of ship bows defined in terms of relatively few parameters. Fast ships with fine bows generate overturning bow waves that consist of detached thin sheets of water, which are mostly steady until they hit the main free surface and undergo turbulent breaking up and diffusion. However, slow ships with blunt bows create highly unsteady and turbulent breaking bow waves. These two alternative flow regimes are due to a nonlinear constraint related to the Bernoulli relation at the free surface. Recent results about the overturning and breaking bow wave regimes, and the boundary that divides these two basic flow regimes, are reviewed. Questions and conjectures about the energy of breaking ship bow waves, and free-surface effects on flow circulation, are also noted.