I think I'd rather be in a bigger boat, provided that it doesn't break up This is a very high structural demand. Torpedoes work best, when they can effectively

I think I'd rather be in a bigger boat, provided that it doesn't break up This is a very high structural demand. Torpedoes work best, when they can effectively "lift" the keel, breaking the back of the ship. (Not exactly, but kind of, IIRC.) Very high sea swells apparently do the same thing! When there's far less buoyancy supporting one end of the ship than the other, the entire ship has to act as a cantilever. At the size of large ships, the square-cube law dominates, and the ship is far more fragile at that scale than a model boat would be. Even steel structures at that scale are flex-y.