A vessel's length at the waterline (abbreviated to L.W.L)Note: originally Load Waterline Length is the length of a ship or boat at the level where it sits in the water (the ''

waterline The waterline is the line where the hull of a ship meets the surface of the water. Specifically, it is also the name of a special marking, also known as an international load line, Plimsoll line and water line (positioned amidships), that indi ...

''). The LWL will be shorter than the length of the boat overall (''

length overall __NOTOC__ Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, an ...

'' or LOA) as most boats have bows and

stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Ori ...

protrusions that make the LOA greater than the LWL. As a ship becomes more loaded, it will sit lower in the water and its ambient waterline length may change; but the registered L.W.L it is measured from a default load condition. This measure is significant in determining several of a vessel's properties, such as how much water it displaces, where the bow and stern waves occur,

hull speed Hull speed or displacement speed is the speed at which the wavelength of a vessel's bow wave is equal to the waterline length of the vessel. As boat speed increases from rest, the wavelength of the bow wave increases, and usually its crest-to-tro ...

, amount of bottom-paint needed, etc. Traditionally, a stripe called the "boot top" is painted around the hull just above the waterline. In sailing boats, longer waterline length will usually enable a greater maximum speed, because it allows greater sail area, without increasing beam or draft. Greater beam and draft produces a larger

wetted surface The surface area that interacts with the working fluid or gas. In maritime use, the wetted area is the area of the hull (watercraft) which is immersed in water. This has a direct relationship on the overall hydrodynamic drag of the ship or submar ...

, thereby causing higher hull drag. In particular, any "displacement" or non-planing boat requires much greater power to accelerate beyond its

, which is determined by the length of the waterline, and can be calculated using the formula: Vmax (in knots) = square root of LWL (in feet) x 1.34. The hull speed is the speed at which the wavelength of the bow wave stretches out to the length of the waterline, thus dropping the boat into a hollow between the two waves. While small boats like canoes can overcome this effect fairly easily, heavier sailboats cannot. Since waterline length provides a practical limit for the speed of a typical sailboat, traditional rules for racing sailboats often classed boats using waterline length as a principal measure. To get around this rule, designers in the early 20th century began building racing sailboats with long overhangs fore and aft. This resulted in a nominally shorter waterline, but when the boats were sailed they heeled over, pulling the sides of the overhangs into the water as well and creating a much longer effective waterline, and thereby achieving much greater speed. The first recorded use of a line (documented by New Jersey marine museum) is by the small and rather unknown naval fleet of Thomas Jefferson.

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* * Nautical terminology Shipbuilding Ship measurements {{navy-stub

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