Wave-making resistance (RW)

Wave-making resistance is the energy a hull sheds into the surface wave system it generates, the dominant resistance component at high Froude number. It scales with the wave pattern rather than with viscosity, so it follows Froude’s law and is bound up with the Kelvin wake. It rises steeply past $Fn \approx 0.30$ and shows humps and hollows where bow and stern wave systems interfere; a bulbous bow works by adding a canceling wave to flatten the main hump.