Flare is the angle at which a ship's

hull Hull may refer to: Structures * Chassis, of an armored fighting vehicle * Fuselage, of an aircraft * Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds * Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a ship * Submarine hull Mathematics * Affine hull, in affi ...

plate or planking departs from the vertical in an outward direction with increasing height. A flared hull typically has a deck area larger than its cross-sectional area at 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 ...

. Most vessels have some degree of flare above the waterline, which is especially true for sea vessels. Advantages of hull flare can include improvements in stability, splash and wash suppression, and dockside utility. Flare can also induce instability when it raises the

center of gravity In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the balance point) is the unique point where the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zero. This is the point to which a force ma ...

and lateral torque moment of a vessel too much (by negatively impacting its righting moment and

metacentric height The metacentric height (GM) is a measurement of the initial static stability of a floating body. It is calculated as the distance between the centre of gravity of a ship and its metacentre. A larger metacentric height implies greater initial stabi ...

Tumblehome Tumblehome is a term describing a hull which grows narrower above the waterline than its beam. The opposite of tumblehome is flare. A small amount of tumblehome is normal in many naval architecture designs in order to allow any small projecti ...

is the inverse of flare, where the hull becomes narrower with increasing height.

References

Ship measurements {{navy-stub

See also

References