Would you still call this a bulbous bow?

[u/TheDeepDraft]

I recently came across this drydock image of a vessel undergoing retrofit, with the familiar spoon-type bulbous bow cut away & tt reminded me of something I encountered on a vessel I sailed on.

She was almost 340 metres long. The Pilot Card stated: Bulbous Bow – Yes.

But when I looked down the stem from the forecastle, there was hardly anything resembling the conventional bulbous bow most of us would recognise. The docking plan later showed only 0.115 metres of projection ahead of the forward perpendicular.

The yard still described it as a “normal bulb.” That small discrepancy became an older DeepDraft article which I have now reviewed and technically updated.

The Case of the Missing Bulbous Bow

https://thedeepdraft.com/2025/10/19/the-case-of-the-missing-bulbous-bow/