Torpedo-sterned Aft Cockpit

The idea:

I’ve always loved the torpedo stern. I helped build Liberty, the Bruce King commuter with that picture perfect tail end. Those lines are beautiful. I’m head over heels for the look of the torpedo stern but really they’re quite impractical. The problem is you’re throwing away volume which could be used for something else. Relative to the more common wide transom, squared-off stern which allows for a large aft cockpits or aft deck arrangements, the torpedo stern transom sometimes seems almost farcical. I wanted to put that volume to good use, but still keep the look of that torpedo shaped transom.

That’s what brought me to the rumble-seat.ford-model-a-rumble-seat-coupe-54-06

What a great way to squeeze usable space out of a small volume stern, and when you don’t need it, just fold it up!

I had designed a couple Express Cruisers, and I had always figured that as an example of a boat type whose character and purpose would suffer too much without a large aft deck and outdoor space.

…but maybe if you could at least reclaim some of that volume as seating, whether dining, lounging or fishing. That might look great and be practicalRumbleseat sketch 05.

A Torpedo-Sterned Express Cruiser.

I’ve been playing with this in Rhino.

TSEC render 01TSEC render 02

TSEC render 03

Aft Cockpit PlanTSEC swim step

I could also incorporate a folding swim step,…or a boarding platform.

I love some of the marvelous hydraulic gadgets which we’re now installing on megayachts; folding bulwarks, passerelles, anchor launcher and the like. I’ve always thought it would be nice to scale down some of that technology for use in production yachts in the 40ft to 60ft range. Make these bells and whistles available to a wider audience.

There is a “cool” factor in much of this which can be very highly valued by some.

Leave a Comment





This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.