Entries | News

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

First Flight

A working hapa model has finally been accomplished by Frenchman Luc Armant. It is the realization of the theoretically perfect sailboat: an airfoil and hydrofoil, tied together by a single line in tension. The massless sailboat has long been the dream of sailing pioneers from Bernard Smith's aerohydrofoil to D. Costes' chien de mer (seadog) to the hapas of J. Hagedoorn. The achievement cannot really be overstated, IMHO. Well done, Mr. Armant! The device is described in this (massive) PDF file. I look forward to the English translation.

Three CHEERS

The French love all things historical and nautical, so it makes perfect sense that they have become the curators of the first Atlantic proa in the world: the “giant killer” CHEERS. Today, he is kept in Port Saint Louis by Vincent Besin and the French government, which has declared him a "monument historique", one of less than 100 small craft, and the only multihull. CHEERS was relaunched last week, at a ceremony which included his barefoot designer, Dick Newick.

40 years ago, CHEERS arrived third in the 1968 Observer Single-Handed Transatlantic Race, beaten by only two monohulls, the 56’ Sir Thomas Lipton and the 50’ Voortrekker. It was a bellwether moment for multihulls, yet ironically, the proa has been virtually ignored in what became the Great Multihull Takeover, with greyhound trimarans dominating the race course and charter cat galleons dominating the “gold run”.

CHEERS was the inspired production of three men: the designer Richard C. Newick, called the “Wizard of Maine”; the sailor Tom Follett; and the financier, Jim Morris. The Dreamer, the Doer, and the Patron - a frequently successful trinity.

The French interest in such a uniquely “American” enterprise is not without precedent, consider the Statue of Liberty. Vincent Besin, you are a keeper of the flame, and for that, I salute you!

"I notice that you are taking steps to enable the crew to right the vessel when it has capsized, but my committee are more interested in any steps you may take to stop the capsizing in the first place. We are still of the opinion that to race along at 25 knots in between periodically capsizing is not a proper way to cross the Atlantic..."

--Race Committee letter, October, 1967: Royal Western Yacht Club of England

Pocket Envy

I just got some spy pics of the new Chesapeake Light Craft Pocket Cruiser abuilding at Two Daughters Boatworks in Maine. I guess I can't really call them spy shots because CLC president and designer John Harris sent them in, but it sounds good. John is one of those guys who couldn't draw an ugly boat if he wanted to, and this little ship is one of his best.
14'-10" LOA, plywood stitch-n-glue construction. Beautiful!

Check out John's video of the project. More pics after the jump.

continued...

Canoes of Oceania

Harmen Hielkema has joined the blogosphere at Canoes of Oceania. Harmen designs and builds proas in New Zealand with an artistic eye and an appreciation for prior native art. From his blog:

Every culture with very few exceptions, somewhere in its past has some connection with the sea and a technology for moving or sailing on it. The sailboat was the first machine to give men freedom of motion without harnessing muscle power. Few of us any longer recognize that the sailboat was truly the first instrument which freed us from bondage to the land ... the waka ama, the first sailboat that could move up wind. This invention made previously inaccessible areas of the world accessible to man, ... Neither do we recall, unless our attention is drawn to it that the sailboat was the first machine to achieve powered motion without rotating parts. Bernard Smith, The 40 Knot Sailboat, Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1963.

The Cat Came Back

Via the Boat Design Forum: Tornado sailors, Steve Lohmayer and Jamie Livingston, going under the team name of Lumpy and Bumpy, have won the annual Watertribe Everglades Challenge in a record time of just under 36 hours.

The Everglades Challenge is a 300+ mile adventure racing event that runs from Tampa Bay's Ft. DeSoto beach to Key Largo. The previous record for the event was set last year with a time of two days, 8 hours, 56 minutes by a 22 foot, double-handed skiff.

Lohmayer and Livingston passed fellow multihuller, Randy Smyth, about two thirds of the way down the course, when his trimaran suffered an unknown breakage, forcing Smyth to retire. Randy then found transportation to the finish line to greet the Tornado team upon their victorious arrival.

It's nice to see a multihull take the cup of this spectacularly challenging race. The Tornado class catamaran is (by multihull standards) an ancient design, from the drawing board of Rod MacAlpine-Downie Jr. 20' x 10' x 233 sq. ft. SA, the boat is one of those rare creations that somehow seems greater than the sum of its parts. A perennial Olympic class, the cat was recently eliminated - causing great dismay among multihull fans.

Sailing Over Melting Ice

Something about this project has captured my imagination - Sébastien Roubinet is attempting to sail the Northwest Passage (Alaska to Greenland) this summer - yea, SAIL it! Thus far, only nuclear subs and diesel-powered ice-breakers have managed the fabled voyage (a voyage that inspired many an explorer, including Captain Cook's Third Voyage (thanks to Peter for the correction), who met his bloody end in Hawaii - "stoned" by the irate islanders as a false god...) but thanks to global warming, Roubinet thinks it might now be possible to navigate the passage via sail!

His ingenious vessel is half sailing catamaran, half ice yacht, and somehow it seems appropriate to see Captain Cook's dream realized by an artifact from the culture that played such a big part in his life, and death.

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.

Page 2 of 5 pages  <  1 2 3 4 >  Last »