: All transoms are for looks :)

: Displacement hulls are all double enders, some just have transoms
: stuck on top of the stern. In waves though the the water will
: follow the curve up to the sides of the transom adding buoyancy
: to the stern, helps to counter the very fine bow that these
: boats usually have. I have several hundred hours using the old
: whitehall that I once had as a kid, btw, they sail really well
: too and power extremely poorly ;) Eventually I'll build another,
: lapstrake over steam bent ribs like the original :)

: Bill H.

Btw, I once rented a whitehall with a pair of decent oars and an Evinrude 9.9 on the back, I was in my early teens at the time, bad choice of a boat to power with an outboard, built up a giant following wave but wouldn't go much faster than if you'd rowed it :)

They sail actually much faster than they can be rowed but are a bit tender, not real wide for their length. They were invented to be a rowing boat, to bring in mail and express cargo from the clipper's in NYC before they docked as I remember, the faster the better while being rowed, often with two pair of oars.

Bill H.