Articles

Hocus Pocus trailerable proa

 Reports  Just Launched  Proas

Rafael and Heidi Francke update us on their latest mega-trailerable multihull - this time a proa. Congratulations on a quick build and a successful first sail. -Editor

Here we go again. This time it is NOT a folding catamaran like Cat2Fold. There is a change in wind direction.  It is a Pacific proa.

Last year we were playing with the idea of a “folding” (actually “demountable”) power catamaran. The playing got serious to the point of…

Hocus Pocus

28 June 2015     3 comments.

Gold Coast launches new Bieker 53 cat

 Just Launched  Catamarans

Gold Coast Yachts of St. Croix, USVI, have launched the new Bieker 53 performance cruising catamaran. The polarizing aesthetics aside, we are very interested in this build. The curved boards are a moderate use of hydrofoil tech that is extremely promising. Unlike the fully flying Gunboat G4, FUJIN’s foils do not lift the hulls completely free of the water’s surface. The boards augment righting moment and pitch stability, making the…

Fujin

18 June 2015     0 comments.

The Flying Boat

 Catamarans  Power Boats  Research

Advanced Aerodynamic Vessels of Nantes, France, aims to improve the speeds of passenger vessels by harnessing the flow of apparent wind. The catamaran employs planing stepped hulls similar to a seaplane, but the resemblance to a flying machine doesn’t stop there. The central bridgedeck is carefully shaped into a wing that creates aerodynamic lift and reduces both displacement and drag:

The operational speed of today’s small workboats…

Flying wing catamaran

18 June 2015     12 comments.

R2AK Update - June 9

 Reports  Racing

The Race to Alaska is proving to be just as tough on boats and sailors as expected. Uncharacteristically strong winds (up to 20 knots dead on the nose) and the resulting brutal chop are discovering every weak link in the fleet, causing gear failure, DNF’s, even a dismasting. Two of the early race favorites, the 24’ carbon fiber catamaran of Team Turn Point Design, and the Paul Bieker designed proa of Team Pure and Wild, called it quits…

Team Freeburd

09 June 2015     0 comments.

Multihulls in the Race to Alaska

 Racing

The R2AK starting gun goes off in less than two days: June 4, at 5:00 am. Among the fleet of 56 boats due to depart Port Townsend on Thursday morning, nearly 50% are multihulls. Point Hudson is beginning to resemble Plymouth during the OSTAR and St. Malo during the Route du Rhum! The harbor is filling up with the coolest multihulls we’ve ever seen, many purpose built for the race. Not to say that there aren’t very interesting monos as…

Team Pure and Wild

02 June 2015     2 comments.

Richard Newick’s first try

 Designers  History  Trimarans

This is TRINE, the first trimaran design of Richard C. Newick. Still going strong as a day charter boat in St. Croix, USVI, over four decades later. Not bad at all for plywood, and a damn good first try.

Thanks to Bob W. at Boat Bits for the submission! If you have some shots of interesting historical multihulls, send them in! We’d love to post them.

Newick Trine

18 May 2015     1 comments.

The Iditarod with a chance of drowning

 Racing

The Wave Writer - Kurt Hoehne, on the R2AK and its founder, Jake Beattie, and the Brown/Bieker proa of Team Pure & Wild. -Editor

In today’s world, there are few adventures with Big Questions. It seems every adventure has been done at least once before. Somebody’s going to find a new route to the summit, win the game on a superlative performance or lucky bounce, or find that extra bit of speed around the race. Those are relatively…

R2AK

15 May 2015     1 comments.

R2AK - April Update

 Reports  Racing

The Race to Alaska - only 40 days until the June 4 starting gun! The new boats are finally getting splashed, the first hurdle of many to come.

The first and only proa to be entered in the race is Team Pure and Wild, launched this Saturday at CSR Marine in Seattle. Designed by America’s Cup foil master Paul Bieker, built by legendary proa builder Russell Brown, and raced by the team of Joe Bersch and Dalton Bergan (I-14 National…

Team Pure and Wild

25 April 2015     0 comments.

The Foil Alphabet

 Hydrofoils

Rudders and centerboards with hydrofoils, profiled arms, wing masts… after the 34th America’s cup, it would be easy to say “we are in the age of wings”. And now it’s not only on multihulls but also on monohulls!

However, wing masts and hydrofoils on sailboats are not a new invention. In 1913 Alexander Graham Bell and Casey Baldwin built Nancy, a hydrofoil sailing model. In 1938, Robert Rowe Gilruth, the “father of America’s human…

Monitor

15 April 2015     0 comments.

The Trickle Down Effect

 New Designs  Just Launched  Hydrofoils

I’ve had an interest in hydrofoil sailboats ever since I ever heard about them, when I found ‘The 40-Knot Sailboat’ by Bernard Smith in the Kirkland Public Library as a teenager, which I must have checked out a dozen times. A few years later I was glancing through the Whole Earth Catalog at the neighbors and I saw an entry for ‘Flying Hydrofoils’, published by the AYRS in 1970, which I promptly ordered. So it has been with considerable…

Gunboat G4 on foils

09 April 2015     4 comments.