Early Cat Racing in California

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 check it out.

Footprint - Where No Boat Has Gone Before

I’m conflicted. On the one hand, Footprint Boats is doing everything right:

The Footprint Boat was created to revolutionize the boating world… Using a form must follow function philosophy, this design focuses on what it must do, not how it should look. The Footprint Boat is a lightweight, low maintenance, fuel efficient, affordable “working man’s yacht.”

On the other hand, well… look at it! Considering all this yacht can do, all the while sipping teaspoons of fuel, I do see a certain empirical, practical beauty, but it takes seeing her without eyes, if you catch my drift. I think I’d paint NCC-1701/7 on the side just to nip all the shuttlecraft jokes in the bud.

Our Blue Canoe

The first teaser trailer for the documentary film, “Our Blue Canoe” currently in production and due for 2013 release. The film is part of a larger initiative called the “Vaka Motu” project, by Pacific Voyagers. The vision is to connect all Pacific Islands in a sustainable, carbon-neutral fashion via Vaka Motu, thus gaining independence, better infrastructure, and more economic opportunities for remote island communities.

The Life Pneumatic

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 always hated the Smart Car because it implied that whoever purchased it was also “smart” and conversely, those of us who didn’t were less so), but this boat really IS brilliant. A 14’, 93 lb. rocket that fits into two canvas bags - store your beach cat in the closet, under the bed, or take it on your next flight to Ibiza.

String Theory

Proving his iconoclast chops once again, Jan Gougeon launched his newest baby into the Saginaw River last summer - to cries of both shock and awe. I reported on the launch of Strings - or Project X - as she was formerly known, earlier, but we finally get a much better look at the fascinating vessel in the new Epoxyworks No. 33.

James Wharram Designs Amatasi Launched

The team of James Wharram and Hanneke Boon launched their latest child, Amatasi, on Oct. 12, 2011. The award winning design, a 27’ double canoe is intended to be a practical and sustainable coastal fishing boat. As a proa designer, I certainly appreciate the elegance of the fine canoe sterns on this design, though I do find it somewhat ironic that it embraces the quarter rudder for steering, a design that harkens back to Viking long ships and even before. Modern proas sometimes use quarter rudders out of necessity because the bows and sterns must be identical. Many a time have I wished for a stern that remained a stern, so that a proper rudder could be hung.