Sportfish bow explodes; too much flare?

You can see the underneath of the anchor and pulpit area, looks like they only put 1 layer of matting and it pulled away from the plywood. I don't see any rot, but I do see adhesion issues in that area. I don't think the pulpit has anything to do with it, it just wasn't strengthened enough in this area.

Just like the overhanging eve of a house roof catching the wind in a hurricane, poof, roof gone!

It wouldn't have pulled if the deck was strong enough to begin with either. I've stuffed the bow on a few sportfish before and never had the pulpit come flying off. The pulpit and windlass is designed to hold the entire boat on anchor, even during a storm, so it should be extremely strong, one of the strongest areas of the boat.

Why can't we just call a spade a spade and not a tool for garden use but not restricted in it's ability unless in unskilled hands.

From the photo, the pulpit appears to have been well built. Just not well integrated. Aft end of that pulpit should have been well married to a watertight bulkhead that creates the rode locker chamber. You should be able to pick the entire boat up from that attachment point. Needs to be that strong.

This was the photo to which I had commented that I saw what appears to be some darkening of the wood along the edge that principally failed. Now, that's a bit of a stretch to conclude based on very limited information, but it was meant merely as a comment as to what I gathered from looking at this one photo. The port edge of that cap joint is unlike the rest of the wood showing...

You got to hand it to them , they attached that pulpit and windlass for bear, didn’t even budge for a 30 year old boat.

I agree they didn't tie in the back of the pulpit well enough. It seems everything broke free just forward of the bulkhead, I'm guessing not enough tabbing to the bulkhead. I do see the dark spot on the port side of the deck. I also agree that the pulpit has to be extra strong and tied in extremely well.

I always liked "appears serviceable".

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?

Well, Carlo Riva did a great job of bringing to Europe the Chris-Craft and Hacker Craft designs from the US, plus the small Bertram's for that matter.

The SF designs are part of US culture , just like the US muscle cars, Mustang’s, Camaro’s, Charger’s and Challenger’s, with the more edgy ones closer to a Corvette or Viper following. It’s an American thing with a strong influence of Bimini Bluefin Tuna fishing, Gulf Stream Marlin and Florida sailfish just to mention a few. We like our hp just like the V-8 muscle car engines and we have regional influences that have matured the designs over time.

It’s designed for fishing with has nothing to do with Coast Guards missions, although some of the new global Coast Guard design are similar from the chine down - fine entry forward, good deadrise amidships and lesser deadrise aft. You could make a parallel that they are just like a Carolina sportfisher along the running surfaces.

The Carolina sportfisher is a unique design based on the regional influences which has attributes intended for the local rough seas and challenging inlets which have dangerous shifting sand shoals. They were the first to sacrifice interior space forward to improve seakeeping and inlet running while eliminating the unwanted wetness from production boats. It is almost like a trademark brand like the Europeans assign to Champagne or Parmesan products.

Keep in mind the boat pictured earned her stripes as a daily use sportfisher while being used for 30 plus years in a harsh environment. These are typically built in fairly meager sheds by commercial fisherman in the offseason and budgets are not usually generous, some even install rebuilt engines in order to keep costs reasonable. The failure is right at the anchor locker which acts like a collision bulkhead and did it’s job properly in an extreme circumstance, quite repairable and it will be back on the water performing its duties soon.

Sportfish hulls are generally much stronger than motoryachts. The bottom line, the tears are clean, there's very little shredded matting. Bottom line, there wasn't enough overlap in the matting and poor build quality. Look at the one tear on the port side, midway up from the waterline. It is a perfectly straight tear with very little glass strands. Same with the bow cap, it's a perfect straight tear with very little glass strands. They used one thin layer of matting instead of 2 layers and no overlap.