From their Facebook page:

When they first appeared, reverse bows were sold on the premise that the boat would pierce the waves and the rig would not pitch and stall so much - that made good sense.
The effect did not happen and the boats still seemed to try and sail with their bows high in the water.
A further benefit of reverse bows has been explained to me and I couldn't 'get' it so i have never really been sold on them.

I guess that we should bear in mind that we are dealing with small cats here where the crew positioning is a major effect on the attitude of the bow through the water

You can argue this all day long but what you cannot argue is a Marstrom platform has never won the A-Class WC and a wave piercer design has won it every year since 2000.

I think Marstrom has some valid points but I also think designers like Pete Melvin are convinced the concept works when it is applied correctly. I've owned three wave piercing designs and I believe the pitching is reduced upwind. Downwind, there is a technique to pushing a wave piercing boat hard but the introduction of curved daggerboards has made it easier.

I sail an old A-cat that shares hull shape more with a Tornado than anything but I believe that like anything, each design has advantages, disadvantages, and sweet spots. In a certain chop with a certain frequency, I do believe the wave piercers have a very slight advantage. In light conditions, I still like my evenly distributed bow volume and fat boards....it's all a tradeoff. I don't see the classes that use it moving away from the low distributed volume profile anytime soon (F18, F16, most A-cats).

My perception of the boats Marstrom produces is that they are works of carbon art. They put finish and build technique ahead of some of the finer aspects of current foil and hull trends but they do build a platform that is competitive and works for a heavier sailor....and they have a mainsail halyard.

Well, every hull shape has it's merits and downfalls. You do have to ultimately ask yourself; how long do I want to keep the boat? It was very easy to fall into the trap of "sexiness" when I was out there looking for a boat. And, I do remember a conversation with my wife back in 2001 when I briefly had an A that my next boat would indeed be a Marstrom. Well guess what? “The” boat magically appeared and I now sail a Marstrom M5; designed with lots of top sailor inputs for a faster hull shape and the smaller sailor in mind. Like someone already stated, the build quality is second to none. After sailing the M5 for a year and a half and going thru another mast maker and a few sails, I’m now more convinced of how Marstrom is ahead of the others when building the “package”. We hear a lot about the platform doesn’t matter and it’s all about the sail/mast combo. In my time sailing the boat and putting the Marstrom mast back on the boat one month prior to the 2010 NAs, there’s more to how everything works together than I originally thought.

I remember my first regatta back in Aug 2009 in Gulfport, MS. There were a lot of kids sailing and one evening they were milling about the A cats. One youngster asked me what the other cats were; they looked funny and weird. They all knew what mine was!

I am thoroughly enjoying the boat now as I learn to sail with the curved boards and develop a sail(s) that works for my body weight. You can debate for eternity the hull shape profiles. At a recent regatta along the Gulf coast, I felt like I was pitching a lot in the chop and asked a volunteer on the course if indeed my boat was doing that. He said mine was not pitching as much as the “other” ones and I ended up winning the regatta. So really, it comes down to hull profile doesn’t matter. The only thing that does matter is your comfort level on your purchase and taking the time to understand what you have. And, I really enjoy the halyard!!

So there you have it from a Marstrom M5 owner in the USA.

HA!

The bow is already in the water then, with the buoyancy already working instead of being in reserve. With flotation low it also has a better shape to recover from being stuffed.

as a fixed volume is pushed deeper in the water, does its bouyancy increase?

No it decreases as the "volume" is reduced (a little bit in the case of a cat hull as it does not squash much at a few feet of depth). So no.

My view is that the drednought bows do not reduce pitching in the way most understand; they still dive as much as a vertical bowed boat would (with the same below water profile) but because the foredeck is a /\ shape the water is shedd more quickly and so there is less tripping happening.

Pshhh. What does Pete know?

--"We at Marstrom think "wave piercing" bows are just a fashion and we can already see tendencies that is on its way out."---

On its way out?? to Australia.. http://dnacat.blogspot.com/2010/10/second-container-to-australia-on-its.html

Pushing the 'old' style designs in the A-Class or F18 is just a bad marketing move, besides any performance discussion.

And a well designed wave piercer (not just reverse bow profile) is definetely superior , Goran should have a chat with Melvin & Fischer ...

All the AC designers, the C Class desingers and most of the Acat designers must all be wrong too.

Does he really belive that? Or was he betting on it being a fad?
Why re-tool if you can covince your buyers that the old design is better?
Being the best at constructing something does not equate to being the best at designing.

3 containers and 18 new DNAs at the AUS Nationals...........

That means we will see quiet a few good A class cats go on the market this season at a pretty good price. Currently 13 on the AUS A site for sale and would not be supprised to see the $$$$ coming down on them. Will be a good season to be a buyer.

Waterplane Inertia

Hang on now! Most of the volume is not below the waterline under normal sailing conditions. The dreadnought bows moves more of the volume to the waterline and thus the bow does not have to pitch as much to put the volume into action. The link is Steve Clark's comments on Oracle's bows.

In conjuction, moving the front beam a little farther back accentuates the waterplane inertia in front of the mast (lever) and further improves the downwind bouyancy of these hulls.

Just to remind that there's no reason why one man can't be right and everyone else wrong. In fact, it happens every time a new and succesfull idea, concept, model, device or similar is initially conceived.

That said, it tends to be a rare event.