Entries | Proas

Proavocative Art

There are no more audacious multihull sailors, designers and builders on the planet than the French. The modern, post-war multihull boom may have begun in the U.S., but in 1936, it was Frenchmen Eric de Bisschop and Joseph Tatiboet who first pitched a tent on a secluded, shady spot of Waikiki Beach, to build Kaimiloa. The “mad Frenchmen” sailed safely back to France, via the Cape of Good Hope, and the French have been mad about multihulls ever since.

The French multi-mania includes proas (a particularly virulent strain) and designer Denis Kergomard appears to be particularly stricken. These are some of the best proa designs I have ever seen, and I’ve seen more than a few. Wild and organic, beautiful and dangerous, Kergormard’s vessels invite us into a field of dreams. Nautical art, indeed. See more after the jump, and do be sure to check out his body of work at Alibi Architecture.

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Ninja Pro - Sailing Outrigger

This sporty little multihull hails from Cape Town, the home of designer Gerhard Schein and G-Force dinghies. It’s called a “tacking proa”, though we purists would say ”outrigger”. It has all the mod-cons like a square top main and a carbon fiber bow sprit for the screacher, and it looks like a great ride. Though the actual boat doesn’t have it, the 3D model on the G-Force site shows a Bruce foil in the ama.

Edmond Bruce was a brilliant sailing theorist and experimenter who was perhaps the brightest star of the Amateur Yacht Research Society (AYRS) in it’s 60’s and 70’s heyday. He had a gift for experiments - building wind tunnels out of bailing wire and desk fans, and tank testing his ideas for a miniscule fraction of the cost of a typical university. He published his results in the famous AYRS newsletter, a peculiarly British institution that printed all manner of demented English sailing fantasies as well as serious research into sailing, and since absolutely no one else was interested in the topic, they had the field mostly to themselves.

Bruce first posited the idea of using angled hydrofoils for balancing heeling force back in 1965, and it is an idea that is ever so slowly catching on. Now ocean racing trimarans sport angled boards in the amas, and so do the latest A Cats. I’m sure Edmond Bruce would be very pleased. A Bruce foiled outrigger is unique because the foil pushes up on one tack, and pulls down on the other.

Testing with Models

The Year in Proas

2009 was a good year for the proa “virus”. We witnessed two proa “messabouts”, and the launch of a truly spectacular “giant”.

The 2009 Texas Proa Championships featured four proas in attendance, and a race between Kevin O’Neill’s 21’ Skate and Laurent Coquilleau’s 21’ proa. The First New Zealand Proa Congress had a turnout of eight outrigged craft, including several canoes of Gary Dierking’s design. James Brett’s Free Radical took home the trophy. Both events are planned to repeat in 2010.

Inigo Wijnen launched the 71’ Gaia’s Dream in Oz, and capped 2009 with the maiden voyage from Coffs Harbour to Sydney.

A Proa for Ariadne

On the Greek island of Naxos, fabled home of Dionysus and Ariadne, Helmut Mueller is building an 8 meter proa. Unusually for its size, it is actually a half-displacement model of a 10 meter proa Helmut intends to build. However, we decided it was best to build the 8 meter model first and test it thoroughly. Besides being a lot of fun, the 10 M proa is intended to be practical transportation between the islands of the Cyclades, with the ability to carry several hundred kg of cargo- so it needs to work, and work well.

This proa is laid out along the general lines of the Kiribati proas, with the famous “Kiribati dimple” in the lee side, and a 40 mm lateral camber to the keel. The only hydrodynamic innovation is the use of a “vortex tunnel” keel, which Dieter Shulz and John Dalziel developed some years ago, to get better windward speed from hulls without daggerboards. Dieter built and tested aerodynamic models which showed promising lift/drag characteristics, but as far as we know this will be the first full-size test of the concept.

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Gary Dierking on a Sail About

Gary Dierking, the New Zealand based author of Building Outrigger Sailing Canoes and one of the primary nodes of modern appreciation and adoption of ancient Pacific canoe forms, is back in Fiji, doing his delightful version of backpacking/cruising - which entails flying to an island of your choice and building a small, sailing magic carpet, using indigenous material when possible, and where that fails, ship the epoxy ahead. Then sail about, soak up the inimitable island culture, and as a sort of "balance of payment", leave the canoe. A creative alternative to Carnival Cruise Lines, IMHO.

Tahiti Douche

A 58' vintage Atlantic racing proa has become available in the Lesser Antilles. 'Tahiti Douche' (also campaigned as 'Lessives Saint Marc') was launched in June 1980, to compete in short-handed races across the Atlantic such as the TwoSTAR. One of the few racing proas to survive the carnage of that period, he's been sailing ever since in the idyllic trade winds of St. Martin.

'Tahiti Douche' was designed by Daniel Charles of Belgium for French yachtsman Alain Gliksman, and was built using the WEST wood/eopxy system by Starberry Ltd. of Ipswich, England.

We decided not to take the risk of too wildly diverting from the 'Cheers' concept, with which designer Newick had so brilliantly proved his ability.

Like 'Cheers', the boat has identical hulls in length and beam, two "dagger-rudders" and a free-standing schooner rig. The windward pod guards against capsize from being caught aback, as well as providing a bit more interior volume.

'Tahiti Douche' has always been one of my favorites, and the sleek proa is still reported as wicked fast. It would be interesting to know what modifications and improvements have been made in those 27 years, and I'd love to see recent photos. Contact the seller through Bob Wise at Boat Bits blog.

Tahiti Douche (as launched)

LOA: 55'-9"/17m
LWL: 46'-0"/14m
BOA: 27'-6"/8.4m
Displacement: 5,885 lbs/2,670 kg
Sail Area: 784 sq. ft./36.5 s.m., plus selected headsails

Larger pics after the jump.

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June Launchings

After an extensive refit (that included sawing the hull in half and adding a few feet), Harmen Hielkema's Toroa is back in his element, testing a new crab claw rig. Toroa steers by weight shift and adjusting the immersion of two daggerboards. Read more at Canoes of Oceania.




Gaia's Dream. Only one year after construction began, a 70' modern Pacific proa has been successfully launched in NSW Australia. The innovative variable geometry rig should be in place in August, according to the builder, Inigo Wijnen. See more at Inigo's site.



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Proas by James Brett

Marine Designer James Brett of Auckland, New Zealand has updated his day sailing proa with a new polytarp junk rig. He reports the 16 footer with modern, high aspect junk rig can match a Laser in upwind pointing angle and has serious power downwind. James has also completed a design for a 16m cruising proa while at Massey University, and has built a sweet 1m R/C proa that shunts on a dime.

The model has demonstrated self-righting ability via a streamlined lee pod, and also uses twin counter-rotating ogive section foils for steering and lateral plane. Ogive section foils are symmetrical fore and aft, so ideally suited to a proa.

The rudders are very interesting, because ogive proa rudders usually have the shafts running through the center of the rudder, which cause the foil to be "over-balanced". The fact that the rudders are joined and counter-rotate may ameliorate this tendency, delivering a null total result, and I'd like to hear opinions on that, anyone? In any case, at the scale of this model proa, the effect is easily overcome by the servo motor, and the proa shunts more quickly than any I have seen. As I said... sweet.

Sailrocketry

"To one who has turned lifeless materials into a thing alive and forced it to do his bidding against the resisting forces of nature in silence, without fuel and without defiling air or water, there can never be anything more wonderful than the sailboat. "The sailboat never offends the senses of fish, fowl or man. To make it move faster is to make it more a thing of freedom and beauty."
--Bernard Smith, "The 40-Knot Sailboat," 1963

When I was a kid, I read 'The 40-knot Sailboat' by Bernard Smith, who introduced me to proas and sailing hydrofoils and all kinds of amazing ideas about boats that fired my imagination in the same way that race cars or starships fire others. Flying over water, using only the power of the wind... it seemed like magic. Magic that might actually work...

I even made a balsa wood model of an aerohydrofoil when I was fourteen, which didn't go anywhere at all, let alone fly. Discouraged, I soon turned my attention to baseball, but fortunately, others kept at it. Paul Larsen is behind the Vestas Sailrocket speed sailing proa - a project inspired by Bernard Smith.

Vestas Sailrocket averaged 47.36 knots (nearly 55 mph) over a 500-meter course on Dec. 3, and it just goes to show that practice makes perfect. It's a brilliant name, since Bernard Smith was a rocket scientist.

"I am now safe in the knowledge that no one can dispute that this is a very viable concept of enormous potential. In fact, I think it is perhaps one of the most significant speed sailing craft of all time. The concept behind this craft is future proof." --Paul Larsen

Rozinante II

A considerable amount of credit/blame for my love of small boats goes to L. Francis Herreshoff and his book 'The Compleat Cruiser'. I fell in love with his ideas about a simple yet refined cruising lifestyle, epitomized by Mr. Weldon and his whaleboat type ketch - Rozinante. Rozinante is beautiful, fast, seaworthy and handy, and I was musing recently about how a proa version of Rozinante might work out.

Rozinante Il is a mono-proa - a bilaterally asymmetric monohull. Her dimensions, style and intent are all within the ballpark of the original. She's the Rozinante from the alternative proa-centered universe.



LOA: 28' | LWL: 25' | BOA: 6'-10" | Draft: 2'-10" | SA: 285 sq. ft.

She's a lugsail schooner, which gives us a well-balanced rig that is easily handled, reefed and shunted, and the character is in keeping with the small gaffs of the original ketch. The cockpit is 8' long and deep enough for comfortable seating, yet the floor is above the waterline which allows it to be self bailing (unlike the original). Also unlike the original, Rozy II does not have a weighted keel and her draft is 8" less, though the keel is still sharp and deep for good windward ability. Rozy II's ballast is in the form of a water ballast tank to windward, beneath the cockpit seat.



Rozinante II's most startling feature is the pronounced hull asymmetry. It looks daft, but there's good reason for it. A traditional monohull's waterplane becomes more asymmetrical the more it heels, with the lee side bulging out, creating wave drag and a weather helm, usually counteracted by a large rudder (creating more drag). Rozy II follows the Micronesian practice of keeping the "flat" side to leeward, which creates a leeward turning force (and balancing the windward turning force of the schooner rig). The flatter lines create less drag, and best of all, the waterplane shape becomes increasingly symmetrical as the boat heels, not less. Heeled to 14 degrees, the yacht's waterline beam shrinks from 53" to 44", yielding a 7.6:1 Length:Beam ratio. I expect considerably better speed from this finer and much lighter Rozinante when compared to the original.



Accommodations are spartan below, as was the original. A single berth with sitting headroom and storage locker in one end, and an enclosed head in the other. Though L. Francis would prefer a cedar bucket, I'm including a marine toilet and holding tank as a concession to modernity. The galley box is in the cockpit, running the length of the leeward side.

Rozy II is steered via trimming the sheets and adjusting the two centerplate "trim tabs". In this, she follows the practice of Yakaboo, the record breaking sailing canoe of Frederick "Fritz" Fenger. She won't be "multihull" fast, but I think she'd make for a fun and rewarding boat to sail, and the looks she would get at the dock would be absolutely priceless.

Note: This is a sketch, a cartoon only. No plans are available. Page 1 of 4 pages  1 2 3 >  Last »