Tumblehome is a term describing a hull which grows narrower above the waterline than its beam. The opposite of tumblehome is flare. A small amount of tumblehome is normal in many naval architecture designs in order to allow any small projections at deck level to clear wharves. The term is also applied to automobile design, where a vehicle's sides taper inward as they go up. This includes a roof tapering in, and curved window glass. Origins Tumblehome was common on wooden warships for centuries. It allowed for maximizing a vessel's beam and creating a low center of gravity (by decreasing mass above the waterline), both tending to maximize stability. In the era of oared combat ships it was quite common, placing the oar ports as far abeam as possible, allowing maximum possible manpower to be brought to bear. Inward-sloping sides made it more difficult to board by a vessel by force, as the ships would come to contact at their widest points, with the decks some distance apart. With the advent of gunpowder, extreme tumblehome also increased the effective thickness of the hull versus flat horizontal trajectory gunfire (as any given width material grows effectively "thicker" as it is tilted towards the horizontal) and increased the likelihood of a shell striking the hull being deflected—much the same reasons that later tank armour became sloped. Steel warships especially of the early 1880s frequently demonstrate tumblehome, though it has been an influential factor in their design ever since their beginnings. One of the first ironclad warships, the of 1862, could be considered an early example of this integral trend. However, France in particular promoted the design, advocating it to reduce the weight of the superstructure and increase seaworthiness by creating greater freeboard. A French yard was contracted to construct the pre-dreadnought battleship Tsesarevich along the lines of France's Jauréguiberry, which was delivered to the Russian Imperial Navy in time for it to fight as Admiral Wilgelm Vitgeft's flagship at the Battle of the Yellow Sea on 10 August 1904. The Russo-Japanese War proved that the tumblehome battleship design was excellent for long-distance navigation, but could be dangerously unstable when watertight integrity was breached. Four tumblehome s, which had been built in Russian yards to Tsesarevichs basic design, fought on 27 May 1905 at Tsushima. The fact that three of the four were lost in this battle resulted in the discontinuing of the