Hi everyone,
After some time lurking the forum I bit the bullet and signed up. I thought I would do the polite thing and introduce myself. I am an avid sea kayaker that has been looking for a way get to interesting places for a while. The logical solution for me always seamed a sailing boat, but i want to be able to carry a couple of sea kayaks. A monohull with enough space to fulfill this demand is beyond my means at any meaningful timescale so the idea of sailing to the places i want to kayak has stayed a pipe dream. Then I came across a video of John Harris Madness. That boat looked completely right, to my kayaker eyes. It spoke directly to some buried need and awoke my curiosity and i have since been reading anything and everything about proas I could lay my sticky mittens on. I am in the process of getting the materials together to construct a Gary Dierken wa’apa to get me started. I have no sailing experience and friends of mine that sail tell me that small dingy sized boats are the best way to learn about sailing.

My entire boat building experience amounts to one Greenland kayak i built for my first daughter who promtly outgrew the boat before construction was complete. Not to worry her much younger sister will eventually grow into that boat.
I am afraid that I will not be able to contribute much more than questions to the insightful discussions found on this forum. I hope that no one will mind.
Mikey

Welcome Mikey!
Questions make us all think, and that’s good. And fun. You may discover that you have unique insights into proas based on your kayaking experience.

Yes, welcome Mikey. Thanks for joining and thank you for your introduction. I’m sure your questions will be most welcome. It is often the most elementary questions that are the most insightful and the most interesting.

Welcome, welcome.

I live in Copenhagen, too, but I am only in the proa dream stages.
I used to have a dinghy, and if ever I get time and opportunity, I’d like to make a proa daysailer, preferably folding.

Rasmus in Brønshøj

Thanks to everyone for the welcome and hey Rasmus it is good to know that there is someone else in Copenhagen who got bitten by the proa bug. I will let you know when i get around to building something if you are interested.
Mikey

Thanks Mikey,

I’ll let you know, too. I guess I’d start by making working models.

And I live just across the bridge, in Malmö!
Welcome by the way!  (:

I hope to get my model done in a month or so, but so little time to work on it…
See you around!

/Garg

More scandinavian people!!
There seems to be a lot of interest in proas in our cold countries.

Welcome Mikey!

Johannes

It is so cool, that there are so many of us dreaming about a Polynesian craft this far north. Those palm trees do however look dead persuasive in the debts of the Scandinavian winter, especially round our area, where the weather is more concrete grey cloudy horror show of existential angst than the picture postcard snow scenes found in other bits of our region. I digress. If we all got building we almost have the potential to give the sturdy Poles a run for their money in organizing a Baltic Proa event.

Personally I am looking to start small, as I want to get some sail time as quick as I can. I am a child of the sea before i am a child of the builders workshop. For that same reason I will start by going where others have gone before even though I almost regret being the boring conventionalist amongst all you intrepid designers. I am looking at Gary Dierkins book wondering what to build first. I like the wa’apa for load carrying capacity and modularity and i am leaning in this direction. However the T2 is a very sexy looking craft, but the Ulua paddles and surfs well, a desierable feature to me. As a kayaker I can tell that the Ulua is a thing of joy even though it is not a proa.
From grillabongquixotic i get the impression that the T2 i an amazing sailing craft, but that it lacks the load bearing capacity to drag a kayak along for the day.