14 December 2021     0 comments

The Future Past of the Das Brothers

A continuation of this July 5 article about the Das Brothers. As I noted earlier, the twin brothers Rudolf and Robbert Das had a long career as technical illustrators, architectural designers, authors and futurologists. Since then, Proafile contributor Paul Dunlop has found and acquired five rare volumes of Das books that were published in a series called Toekomst (“Future”), between 1983 and 2008.

Paul has scanned and uploaded the…

 Designers  History

Ring Wing Sport Planes

04 October 2021     24 comments

Argo the Modular Pod Cat

Well here it is late 2021. The world has been in a COVID-19 mess for 18 months, with no real end in sight. Global supply chains are a complete train wreck, and it’s not looking to change anytime soon. Prices of lumber, especially plywood, have skyrocketed, along with most everything else related to boat building. Back in the day, when so many plywood classics were designed and built, good marine plywood was a very reasonably priced…

 New Designs  Catamarans

Argo 1 sailplan

31 August 2021     7 comments

The First Proa Only Race

Nicolas Duchein is organizing the first proa only ocean race ever, called the CHEERS Challenge. Set to start 01/03/2023 (I assume that means March 1) the race course circumnavigates the Caribbean islands of St. Croix and Martinique.

Note: This is not actually the first proa only race because many proa races have been held in the Pacific in recent years for instance, the Majuro Day canoe races in the Marshall Islands. Maybe the first…

 Proas  Racing

Cheers Challenge

29 August 2021     2 comments

The Polar Pod

This is the Polar Pod - a research platform which is intended to circumnavigate Antarctica by drifting along with the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

The craft is technically a multihull sailboat; it has four hulls - one of which is above the waterline.  It’s fitted with ten vane-like sails; these will help the craft avoid encounters with icebergs and the like.

The Polar Pod was originally proposed by the French explorer Jean-Louis…

 News

Polar Pod

17 August 2021     2 comments

Madness Rides Again

The new owner of MADNESS has submitted some recent pics and videos of the 31’ proa doing his thing on Chesapeake Bay. MADNESS is a plywood and epoxy Pacific Proa design of John C. Harris. The plans are available here at CLC Boats. He says:

Proa MADNESS has been back in the water for 1 year and logged approx. 300 NM.
Max speed so far has been 17 kts with average speed being 8 to 10.

The video has some great footage of the lee pod…

 Reports  Proas

Proa Madness

18 July 2021     11 comments

The Proasis Project

Henrik Richter-Alten has submitted a new proa development project to Proafile called Proasis. His team has recently completed the launch and a successful test sail. Henrik explains:

“I’ve started the Proasis Project together with Christian Arriens, a good friend of mine. We are both involved in the Low Carbon Sea Transport Project at WAM*. My contribution was the WAM Catamaran design, he did the recently launched solar-electric…

 Just Launched  Boatbuilding  Proas

Proasis Launch

10 July 2021     5 comments

The B&B Mini Trimaran Racer

B&B Yacht Designs is continuing their development of a very neat little adventure trimaran. It has pretty much everything you’d want in a pocket tri, nothing you don’t, and all in excellent proportion.

“Features include a roller furling mainsail and headsail for easy reefing and a boom for superior sail control. The amas retract into the center crossbeams to reduce the overall beam for trailering without having to demount the amas. A…

 News  New Designs  Trimarans

B&B Mini Trimaran

05 July 2021     3 comments

Das Prauw - The Proa of the Future

This month’s Woodenboat magazine has a nice article about Robbert Das, the Dutch illustrator and futurist. Naturally, they only show his great 3D cutaway drawings of old wooden boats, but holy smokes! A little googling and you come up with the other stuff!

The twin brothers Rudolf and Robbert Das had a long career as technical illustrators, architectural designers, authors and futurologists. I found a thread here about some of their…

 Designers  History  Proas

Das Proa

28 April 2021     8 comments

Proafile Update in Progress

Ahoy! Proafile has just undergone a big update (EE v.2 to v.6) and is now getting back into shape. Some images are missing but should appear again shortly. If you find any functionality not working, please let me know via the Contact Form, thanks.

I’m uploading an old racing proa concept from 2016 as a test entry, I don’t think I’ve published it before.

 News  Proas

R2AK proa - sailplan