Thomas Heatherwick explains a boat design commission to transport tourists and locals along the Loire river between Nantes and Saint-Nazaire.
Unlike a traditional two-hulled catamaran, the boat will have a single hull that folds back on itself and stretches over to form an infinite loop. This makes space for two diagonal viewing decks from which passengers can look out towards works of art along the river banks.
Thanks to Paul D. for…
A new ocean rowing trimaran has been unveiled that will attempt a trans-Tasman crossing early next year - from Hokianga to Queensland, and back. Designed by New Zealand firm Lomocean, who also did the MS Turanor PlanetSolar, the boat is claimed to be the world’s first self-righting trimaran.
Their brief was to create something with speed in mind. A trimaran is quick, but presents one major problem.
“It’s quite likely he’ll be rolled in…
Here are a couple of new boat designs with rigs that harken back to the days of working sail. The trimaran is a Dick Newick design for a cargo/passenger lug rigged schooner, for the Vaka Fanāua project, the second is a 60m yacht designed to evoke the romantic image of a dhow.
The lug rig was a favorite of Phil Bolger because it combines short spars, sturdiness, simplicity, thrift and aerodynamic power. The first five of these virtues…
Using archival footage, the Int’l Hydrofoil Society has made a short video of David Keiper’s hydrofoil trimaran Williwaw. David built the first flying hydrofoil cruising sailboat in 1970 and subsequently cruised her all over the Pacific. The boat and the voyages are detailed in Keiper’s Hydrofoil Voyager, which is being republished on Amazon this summer.
The first sail of Lady Godiva in a quarter century. The Richard Newick designed proa was built in Martha’s Vinyard by Rory Nugent, for the 1980 OSTAR. Now owned by Anne and Paul Buttin.
Thanks to Frederic M. and Golden Oldies Multihulls for the submission.
Before Steve and Linda Dashew became famous for their innovative blue water cruising yachts, both power and sail, they raced catamarans at the center of the growing multihull movement - Southern California in the early 60’s. Steve has put up a page at Set Sail with some great archival images of the catamaran racing scene back in the day. Rudy Choy, Warren Seaman, Bob Reese, Mickey Munoz, Phil Edwards, they knew and raced them all. Go…
“Dr. Frank” Smoot is the ultimate DIY sailor. He began his sailboat design career in 2009 with this and has progressed to this in only two years. His latest is the most ingenious small trimaran I’ve ever seen. If he continues at his Moore’s Law rate of improvement he should be building America’s Cuppers out of plywood/epoxy in about 6 months.
I want to make it clear right up front that I am definitely not a professional boat builder…
I found this electric-powered mini-camper by architect Jay Nelson at Tiny House Blog. I like the faceted, polyhedron style, all done up in plywood, plexiglass and epoxy. See more of his work (including a mini-camper boat) at JayNelsonArt.com
His “Golden Gate” electric camper car is made from a combination of plywood, glass, fiberglass, expoxy resin, bicycle parts and powered by an electric motor. The Golden Gate measures 96″x54″x64″,…
Malcolm Smith always has something really tasty cooking in his workshop. His latest project is a force-balanced design utilizing a ‘ring wing’ that he calls the ArcSail. The concept has huge potential for boats both large and small, and I’m very pleased that Malcolm has opted to share it with us at Proa File -Editor
I have a long time fascination with sailing boat configurations that minimize heeling moment, due to their potential for…
I have a longstanding interest in pneumatic (pressurized) engineering structures. Blame it on Jacques Cousteau and his Zodiacs making a strong impression at an early age. For boats, inflatable hulls make all kinds of sense, being unusually light, strong, tough, and repairable. I even made a concept sketch of an inflatable hulled proa.
Here is Kurt Heiligenmann’s design for an inflatable beach cat - the Smartkat. Hate the name (I…
