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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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Micro Cruising With Cindy

Miss Cindy is a 16 foot micro cruising catamaran designed and built by Tony Bigras of Vancouver BC in 2008. Tony cruised the little yacht from Baja California, down the Mexican Pacific coast, Nicaragua, Panama, up the Caribbean Sea to Cuba, and finally to Florida - quite the shakedown voyage! I’m reading Tony’s well written and photo documented account of the trip, and am currently somewhere south of Acapulco.

Miss Cindy is on the cutting edge of small cruiser design, employing a number of emerging features:

• Biplane rig - twin free-standing masts, one for each hull. The biplane rig has a number of benefits: the simplicity and security of an unstayed rig, a tendency to be self-steering and a lower center of effort. The downside is that the sails can interfere with each other on certain courses (reaching), and this problem is exacerbated by a narrow beam. Miss Cindy seems to be the exception to the rule, and that may have something to do with the choice of rig.
• Standing Lug - recently popularized by Matt Layden and his designs, the standing lug is balanced, powerful, close-winded, roller furling and very low aspect ratio - all good things, but especially on a biplane multihull cruiser.
• Lifting Body Hull - a sharp trapezoidal section combined with an extremely low aspect ratio keel gets Miss Cindy to windward. No daggerboard worries. This approach harks back to the beginning of the modern sailing multihull - the boardless beach cats of Waikiki.

Miss Cindy is now for sale in Florida!

Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!

Phil Bolger, 1927-2009

Philip Bolger took his life yesterday, and poor as I am at eulogies, Philip was a man worth eulogizing. Perhaps the most influential small boat designer in the world, Phil encouraged and inspired a host of would be builders and designers to pick up pencil and paper, plywood and epoxy, and get to work on their dreams. His design attention ranged across the board, and even though his boats were sometimes called homely, it is perhaps only because the viewer hadn't peered deeply enough to see the mathematical beauty of his parsimonious approach. In that sense, Phil was a devout modernist, and if a cube or a brick made the most sense for a certain vessel, then the eye would soon enough adjust.

Phil even once designed a proa, which appeared in the Jan 1990 edition of Small Boat Journal. In his usual style, the design was original and thought provoking. The rig, a sort of high aspect ratio, fully battened square sail, was a brilliant effort at harmonizing the unique geometry of the proa with the rig, in that it was symmetrical fore and aft, but asymmetrical side to side. The virtues and faults of what has become known as the "Bolger proa rig" has become a source of much discussion and even controversy among proa developers, which in hindsight, perfectly fit the muse of Phil Bolger - Inspiring and controversial.



His death has hit me harder than I would have thought, considering I never met him, and I know I'm not alone. It is curious that a man with no children has left so many "sons". Fair winds, Philip Bolger.

More here.

Astus Trimarans

Chantier Astusboats in France is producing a range of small trimarans that appear to successfully navigate the conflicting and dangerous shoals inherent in small boat design, especially multihulls. The boats are compact, simple, speedy, trailerable, comfortable, cruiseable, and even competitively priced! Thanks to Laurie McGowan for the heads up.

The Astus 20.1 was introduced in 2004 at the Salon de la Rochelle as a suitable vehicle for camp cruising, treks and raids. Since then they've expanded the range with a 14, 16, and a new 22 footer, so they seem to be on to something.



Astusboats makes good use of the Goldilocks Principle, neither too big or too small, too slow or too fast. Their tris are not full-on, fly the main hull affairs, but sport relatively low buoyancy amas and narrow over all sailing beam, yet still remain quite fast. The main hull resembles a planing dinghy, with relatively flat and wide sections. Interestingly, the 16.1 features low aspect ratio mini-keels on the amas which keeps the central hull as open as possible and allows the boat to sit upright on the beach. The other models use the more traditional center hull daggerboard. Besides the standard high roach and full battened main and furling jib, sail options include a furling gennaker and asymmetric spinnaker. The boats use a simple sliding tube mechanism to retract the beam to legal width, and thanks to their light weight, are towable by even the smallest Renault.

I have only one complaint: Astusboats are not imported into the States. UK agent: Ex Aqua. More pictures and video after the jump.

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The Spark

Spark is from the drawing board of Richard Newick - which he describes as a "three-hulled Rozinante", and I couldn't agree more. It's as if the spark of Herreshoff's inspiration was passed along and reinterpreted through Newick, resulting in this outstandingly elegant trimaran. These images are of Jim Conlin's Damfino, launched last June in Westport Point, MA. She seems a perfect steed for sailing the coast, perhaps tilting at a few windmills along the way. The Man of La Mancha rides again!

More tri porn after the jump.

LOA: 27' 11"
LWL: 27' 4"
BOA: 22' 5"
Draft: 1' 3" (6' board down)
Sail Area: 350 sq. ft.
Displacement: 3000 lbs.
Bruce No.: 1.3

Images via the Woodenboat Forum

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Old School

Beach cruisers are single gear bicycles with upright posture and balloon tires that put more emphasis on ride comfort and style than ultimate performance - the alternative to the ubiquitous road and mountain bikes. In that spirit, I present Beach Cruiser, the alternative beach cat. 19' LOA by 8'-6" beam, Beach Cruiser fits nicely on any beach cat trailer. The sail area of 220 sq. ft. also means that any beach cat rig can become a suitable power plant. However, that is where the similarity to the usual beach cat ends.

I found inspiration in the 1960's design work of C/S/K - the California based team responsible for classics like Aikane, Patty Cat II and Polycon. Beach Cruiser has narrow and boardless asymmetrical hulls, which while not the ultimate in efficiency, are beach friendly, and these deep and narrow hulls also deliver a terrific ride. The hulls taper into integrated rudders at the stern that should leave a clean wake and equally important, gains style points. The reverse sheerline sweeps forward to wave cutter bows, giving a nod to the Polynesian roots of the craft, and of course, everyone onboard wears Aloha shirts and boardshorts.

Beach Cruiser has actual raised seating and a solid bridgedeck between, which will make it an order of magnitude more comfortable than the typical beach cat. The wing area forward of the main beam will help keep spray down, as will the high 18" bridgedeck clearance.

The seats have big hatches to access the storage lazarettes in each hull, with more storage fwd of the main beam. Plenty of room for everything a beach cruiser could need (including tiki torches) with enough space to sleep a couple under a boom tent in the cockpit. Hang loose!

Lunada Design

Chris Ostlind, who has contributed several great articles to Proafile, has been blogging and sharing his work at Lunada Design for a while now, but it's news to me, at least. So in case you haven't been there yet, go check out his body of work, which includes all manner of small plywood stitch-n-glue canoes, trimarans, outriggers, cats and more. It's like small boat Candyland, so consider yourself forewarned.

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

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