Here are first photos of P12 launched. Some features are even not installed eg. the nets. If mast is set, I will post some more pictures.

He looks happy to be in the water.  Beautiful.

Congratulations!!! Handsome as a white swan.

Very impressive, Othmar. Congratulations.

Othmar, it looks great!
Congratulations.
It brings a truck load of questions, but maybe you have posted already somewhere else a lot of information on your new creation. If so, where can one find it? Info such as length, displacement, weight distribution (ama vs. vaka), etc, etc…
Also, could you shed some light on how you use the space below? Bunks? Kitchen, etc… The shape of your pod is really sweet. How did you determine the volume needed? For instance, how much of the displacement is taken care of by the pod, at let’s say 45° heeling angle?
So many more questions…

Cheers,
Laurent

Looks fantastic, well done

Hi all,
thank you for the kind comments. Hope the boat will fulfill our expectations in sailing during the sea trials next spring too. It’s located in the Eastern Sea in Northern Europe, where sailing season has ended now.

For Laurent.
There are some more informations about P12 available:
http://proafile.com/forums/viewthread/116/
http://www.multihull.de/proadirectory
http://www.multihull.de/proa12 (with Google translator)

The design of P12 I developed mainly with DelftShip, but I’ve also done a lot of calculations (as far as possible) to check the characteristics when heeling in different wind forces. For example here are two graphs, which show (statically and theoratically) the ‘skimming’ behaviour, and the righting/heeling moments at 16 and 17 knots of wind (no water ballast, all sails set).
The spreadsheet considers all main parts of the boat with their weight and changing leverarm, as well as the changing sail area and CE when heeling. If there are more questions, please ask.
Cheers
Othmar

That is a beautiful proa!
I like the clean lines and the very balanced proportions. If you ever get to sail the Swedish westcoast please send me a message! I would really love to see this proa in real life!
I hope we can see a sailing video soon.

Cheers,
Johannes

Laurent aks me about some sailing experiences with P12. Here a short report.

Because I live in Turkey it’s not easy for me to reach the boat. But I had a chance to sail the P12 on two days with Manfred (boat owner) some weeks ago in Baltic Sea .
The first trip was at very light wind, may 1 Bft., but summerly weather. We were four people aboard “Mareinoa” (http://www.mareinoa.de) for a report in the German magazine “Yacht”. The wind could rarely fill the sails, but the boat performes observably with around two knots.

What perfect works was shunting, also in this conditions. It needs less then a minute for two people to roll in the foresail, change the rudders, move the main to the other side, and unfurl the new foresail. All done very comfortable and relaxed from the big cockpit.

To go with the outboarder is a little bit tricky, especially to turn the boat in harbour. This will need more training and experiences.

The next day we got sailing again, only Manfred and me. Wind condition were better with 2-3 Bft, and some little gusts. Because the interior isn’t ready built, we had only a hand GPS and a hand anemometer for checking wind and speed.

Main surprise 😊, the yacht sails always barely slower than the measured apparent wind on board. That means at last we sail faster as the true wind. Some measurements:
Apparent wind ~ 5-6 knots - boat speed ~ 5 knots
Apparent wind ~ 8-9 knots - boat speed ~ 7,5 knots

During maximum speed the ama was barely lifted. The boat was always perfectly balanced, and need no rudder action. Altough we sailed without daggerboard, the leeway was low as we saw at the lane behind the boat.

On way back we tried reefing, and furled the sails in one third. The speed reduction was relatively small, indicating that the boot has a good light wind potential.

A problem occurs at the a-mast. Not the principle!, but the stifness of the single masts. Under pressure they will bend to much in the top sector. This needs some reinforcement. We tried hard to find someone who can calculate the rig, but without any result. Hence we have to use try and error method. And all know the old slogan: If it works, it’s to heavy, if not, it’s to weak 😉

I hope sometimes to show you some more pictures of the boat sailing, and hopefully a video.

Cheers
Othmar

Othmar,

Congratulations and enjoy!!!.......Please keep the sailing reports coming.

Rob