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Big Traditional Canoe in Tahiti

In Tahiti, a twenty meter va'a motu named 'Te Ara Taura' is being built to an ancient pattern in Koa wood. "I want to revive traditional navigation in the Polynesian triangle and encourage the vacant youth to travel in the wake of their ancestors", says Clement Pito, originator of the project. The outrigger canoe will set sail in July 2006. Tahiti Press

Wooden Eye Candy

Not much in the boating world is prettier than lapstrake smallcraft. The big green bow in the back belongs to Wawona - a lumber trading schooner.

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Cruising Blues and Their Cure

Their case was typical. After four years of hard labor their ocean-size trimaran was launched in Minneapolis at the head of Mississippi navigation. Six and one half months later they had brought it down the river and across the gulf to Florida to finish up final details. Then at last they were off to sail the Bahamas, the Lesser Antilles and South America.

Only it didn't work out that way. Within six weeks they were through. The boat was back in Florida up for sale.

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Seattle Oil Awareness Meet Up

Went to the Seattle Oil Awareness Meetup this evening. Had a great time meeting F2F with people who are tuning in to the Peak Oil "Long Emergency". About 15 of us made it this month. Lots of talk about gardening, becoming energy efficient, sharing info, and rebuilding local community, and a little about wars for oil. The difference between this and the endless internet PO hand wringing is that we're real people living in close proximity, who actually have a chance to do something about it. I volunteered to give some time this month.

Wharram Islander 55 Launched

Check out the new pics of Wharram's latest - launched in Indonesia. The yacht will most likely sail to Europe around the Cape of Good Hope, to be used for charter in the Mediterranean and/or Caribbean. It reminds me of a double-hulled Turkish gulet or Arab dhow. James Wharram Designs

Proafile v4.1

A new back-end for Proafile! The site has been upgraded to Expression Engine which doesn't mean much to visitors, but should make my admin more fun, meaningful, and productive! It also means that all Proafile pages are now search engine friendly.

The Endless Vacation

My husband, Barry, and I enjoy independent and isolated nomadic living. So we really thought we had it made 11 years ago when we bought a 40-foot ketch and began island hopping up and down the West Indies. Eight years later, however, we'd both had had our fill. The ketch was a constant expense and every safe anchorage for a boat of that size, we'd found, was too populated by curious natives and/or other ships and yachts for our tastes. "There must be a better way," we told ourselves. "There must be a way for us to enjoy an endless round of sailing, swimming, fishing, shelling, contact with wildlife, and -- most important of all -- solitude and privacy. And there must be a way for us to do all this on little more than pennies a day."

A classic article from the Jan/Feb 1977 Mother Earth News.

C/S/K

The yacht design partnership of C/S/K was responsible for some of the finest ocean sailing catamarans ever built. The firm was active in the 1960's - a decade of creative innovation everywhere - but especially in the amped up cultural milieu that was California.

They rode a remarkable wave of opportunity that embraced the California "surf" lifestyle, the public desire for modern "Jetsons" technology, and the South Seas "Tiki" fad that swept the country - From Trader Vic's to Gilligan's Island.

2 C/S/K cats beached in front of the Outrigger Canoe Club, Hawaii.
Photo: Scoop Tsuzuki, Catamarans Offshore.

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Build This Boat!

Chris Ostlind is offering a free set of plans to the first person who steps up to build his new 22.5 performance coastal cruiser/racer: Tribal Menace. Read all about it at Watertribe

PB Racer

PB Racer is a sail/paddle kayak double for expedition adventure races such as the Watertribe Everglades Challenge. I pulled the basic hull form from an expedition double I had designed to see how well the form could be adapted to a concept boat of this type. I just gave it a transom and some additional rocker and after a lofting of the new curves, the resultant sectional shapes yielded a surprisingly good hull for sailing after I ran the hydrodynamics. A small tweak here and there and it was very good.

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