Sportfish bow explodes; too much flare?

During the stuff or pound into that last wave, The water must have caused tremendous stress against the anchor pulpit. The leverage of the pulpit just continued to open up the bow deck and pull some port hull with it. The pulpit is still intact. Heck of a can opener.
While the bow is still in the wave with an opening in the port hull, side force and weight of the water continued to blow out the outside laminate.
The captain chopped the throttles quickly and may have saved the bow from more damage.
I like the lead boat was on site rather quickly to help. Quick D A and get out of the slop & chop with bow now raised.

I wonder if the tabs were down or to far down. His bow should have been up like when he picked it up after the damage.

In looking at the few pictures, I really do not see any bad wood. I think it was just a bad stuff and the can opener effect.
Probably why most SFs don't have pulpits.

Well the pulpit added leverage to pull the deck. It wouldn’t have pulled without the leverage

I agree 100%... but I believe that without the pulpit the deck wouldn’t have been ripped up

I wonder if the catastrophic failure of that new Bertram a few years back couldn’t have been caused by a similar issue. Did it have a pulpit? I ve heard of this happening on a couple of Silverton too

don’t forget the hull deck joint is often pretty flimsy on some boats. The deck isn’t going to stay in place with just some light tabbing between the first bulkhead and the deck

It would be very strong in a downward direction, as a good pull from a set anchor. That is probably all the thought that went to it.
Quickly apply a many tons of water lifting that can opener up & open,,,,,, you clean your draws and remember this in your next design and build.
I bet the pulpit was not a factory installed option.

I'll pick up the salvage on that totaled tub. I offer $5.

The pulpit is pretty small and the roller is very close to the hull so the efforts while anchored are minimal. No leverage.

but considering the small pulpit, it s amazing that was enough to rip the deck. Really poor construction. They d better reinforce other boats built by that yard

I don't understand what all the fuss is about, with that poor pulpit.
The second pic in post #8 clearly shows that it's so tiny that it couldn't physically offer a huge resistance, when hitting the water. Maybe a thousand Newtons, if that. Nowhere near enough to even just crack the gelcoat.
Besides, in the third pic of the same post we can see the fracture line along the deck, and such crack shape can only be the consequence of a deck pushed upward, not downward - as it could theoretically happen, if the pulpit were the culprit.

Bottom line, imho the answer to the thread title is yes.
In fact, I believe that the damage was created by the strong water pressure against the topsides, progressively (but very quickly - in a split second, as the video shows) amplified by the flare, as the bow stuffed into the water with all the boat inertia and weight.
Certainly more on port rather than stbd side, as confirmed by the chunk of hull completely missing along the higher and more flared part of port topside, but in any case enough to "squeeze" the hull enough to leave the deck no other choice but letting go and split apart, due to the lateral and upward forces.

Btw, at risk of being cruicified by all the SF lovers, it's well understood nowadays that highly flared bows are exactly what you do NOT want to have, in very rough seas.
It's indeed a hull shape with a very strong heritage, and not only among SF builders.
More than half a century ago, Carlo Riva was very proud (and rightly so) of his highly flared Aquarama, that deflected all the spray, leaving the crew dry.
This is one of his preferred pics, which he used to keep in his office.

Which is all well and good, as long as the hull can still stay on the plane, and the flared shape must only deal with spray.
Possibly a lot of it, at times, but spray and green water are VERY different things.
When the sea is rough enough to make the odd bow stuffing unavoidable, a strong flare only contributes to slamming the whole boat.
Which the boat can still withstand of course, if better built than this one - from which yard does she come from, btw?
But if the drawback of a drier ride becomes constant slamming, that's when the high flare concept shows its limits.

After all, I can't think of any all-weather SAR fast boats (I mean, the sort of thing with seat belts for the crew, built to be self-righting after capsizing) whose hull is highly flared.
If SF hulls would be the best tool for tackling atrocious conditions, why shouldn't all Coast Guards around the globe use that hull shape?

Water is considered a near solid in it's ability to offer a near solid surface to slam into.
That lil pulpit was just like a can opener. Near tons of effort against it and riippahh off.
I would think the boat is already back in the water for this weekends fishing, maybe with just a roller than a pulpit.

The picture you showed was just like the Vega 20s I used to restore. Slice thru and keep going. Although Mama in the pic may have been pushed down as the boat did seem to slam. Rivas were a good bit faster than the Vegas so I'm blaming Daddy in that pic for not slowing down a bit.

No hull is perfect, it will always be reliant on the operator and a smooth throttle hand. I do think the O P damage could of been avoided but I was not there.

BTW, I have stuffed my 31 BlackFinn and our current 58 Bert. I know what it is and what I did wrong.
No damage (solid and bomb proof hulls) but a dent in pride. All good.