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QueeQueg 18

Indian summer is officially over around here, and thoughts turn to winter projects in the workshop. I've worked up a little trimaran design, inspired by Solway Dory's Osprey and Chris Ostlind's XCR.

It's an 18' stitch and glue plywood, 5 panel hull, with tortured ply amas and aluminum akas. Hull beam is 30". sail area: 118 sq. ft. a high aspect leeboard would be included (not shown). It would be fun to day sail, and might make a good little camp cruiser.

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FreeShip Walap

I've found a way to force the freeware boat design softwareFreeship 2.6 to do proas, it may interest proafile readers.

The problem is that such programs assume that the port and starboard sides are mirror images of each other, so you can build a catamaran or a trimaran, but not a proa. Then I remembered that proas *are* symmetrical, only the axis of symmetry is turned 90 degrees.

The trick is simple: begin with the default design, and set the measures to say, 6 meters WIDE and 0.5 meter LONG. the hull will look weird at first, but once you move the control points around, it becomes pretty normal.

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FatCat21

Just a few months back, our Proafile host, Michael Schacht, introduced a set of concept illustrations for a very nice, 23' Hawaiian flavored catamaran called, Manu Kai.

Michael's vision was at once elegant in the manner in which it honored traditionally styled Hawaiian sailing vessels and it provided a set of unique solutions for how to blend the traditional with the modern in boat design.

Below the text of the article in the section for comments was a note from the author about the difficulties of designing this type of hull for a plywood build style. Since I design a lot of boats for stitch and glue plywood construction, I was immediately curious as to just how far down the path of the Manu Kai I could actually go with a possible design from that material/technique.

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New From Selway Fisher

Prolific English designer Paul Fisher at Selway Fisher has some new stock canoe designs of interest to Proafile readers:

18' stitch and tape Waka Ama (Hawaiian outrigger canoe) LOA 18' (5.49m); Main hull beam 1'7" (0.49m); Overall beam 5'11" (1.8m) Approx. wht 140 lbs (64kg) in 6mm ply.

Tikopian 24 - "based on the 18' Waka Ama and uses the same stitch and tape plywood construction process. She has 4 seats plus stowage compartments in the ends of the canoe but can be fitted out in various ways - ie. with more seats and storage. The Tikopian 24 uses the same float/outrigger as the Waka Ama and comes with the sail rig of the Dragon 40 for those who want to go for a full platform and sail option. The hull can be built in 2 boltable halves and two hulls could be built to form a high volume catamaran. LOA 24' (7.32m); Main hull beam 2' (0.61m); Overall beam 6' (1.83m)

SIG 45 Performance Cruiser

Le Breton Yachts is promoting an interesting project: the SIG 45 performance cruising catamaran. Interesting to me, because it is one of the first legit multihull attempts to play in the Wally sector: very refined, very stylish, very fast, and very expensive. The design guns are high calibre: Van Peteghem Lauriot Prevost (VPLP), Bjorn Johansson for the interior, and even Bruno Peyron as technical consultant. The impetus or the yard behind the project is not disclosed on the web site.

The yacht is far from the usual "condomaran" offering. It offers real speed, and it should be a serious competitor in the harbors of the Cote D'Azure. It should also have no trouble fitting in with the other sailing "Ferraris" on the quay, it looks the part - featuring a sleek profile, flush/hidden hardware, no lifelines, and teak decking. The boat will be an interesting multihull test of this very exclusive market.

Minimising the impact to the environment both during construction and during use is one of the project's stated goals. To that end, all wood products are sourced through Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified suppliers. Power for the house systems will come from a 14kW Glacier Bay generator, which will also power the twin auxiliary electric motors.

Amazon by Prao

More proof that the French know how to spend a holiday better than anyone: Marc and Matthieu emailed to share their blog and pics about a recent cruise up the Amazon river on a native canoe modified into a sailing prao (French for proa). Note the cool bamboo ama. Note the most excellent hats. In French.

Palindrome - a Land Proa

Three quarter view from windward side.
The craft travels toward upper right in this view.

The land proa was a mad last minute dash to the finish for 2 quarters worth of thesis work I did around "Joy Rides". The idea was to create unexpected experiences--things you had to try to understand. All of these were developed as working prototypes. The projects included:

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High Performance Outrigger Pt. II

In September I had my contribution appear in Proafile regarding the design and construction of my tacking proa or more correctly, outrigger sailing craft. Since that article I have sailed my boat in the strongest wind conditions that I had taken it out thus far, around 18 to 20 knots. Apart from an impending structural failure in that the 50 mm aluminium tubes could not stand the rig load from the side stays and bent permanently beyond their pre-bent shape, it was very instructive at a design level for this type of craft.

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High Performance Outrigger

After more than two decades sailing, designing and building sailboards including a six metre long tandem I decided to go back to my sailing roots, that is a Moth dinghy. However I needed a craft for two as my son has accompanied me on my sailing journey for the last 20 years. The other problem was that when I last sailed Australian Moths they were 1.3 metre wide scows, and now they are ultra narrow 30cm wide skiffs that are more stable lying on their side, capsized, than upright, sailing. However the modern Moth is the speed machine of the monohull sailing world.

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No School Like the Old School

John Bruton reports the launch of his 32' Marshall Islands style proa in Cape Fear, North Carolina. The big canoe was built with no plans other than referencing photographs and books. The hull is built in two stages: a sharpie-like plywood section from waterline to sheer, and then the hull below waterline built like a surfboard, all hand-shaped urethane foam glassed with polyester resin. The hull is self bailing. Great job, John!

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