Hey Kimbal,

Thanks for your nice comments.  Scampi is definitely feeling good.  Sometimes I worry that I’m trying to pack too much into a 24’ package.  Like a very small car, you have to play tricks with the proportions to make it work out.  If you’ve seen a Moretti 500, you know what I mean.

http://bringatrailer.com/2009/09/03/smarter-restored-1969-fiat-moretti-500/

Personally, I’m feeling the unstayed schooner rig for the little cruiser these days.  Tightly spaced, it keeps weight out of the ends, but provides lots of opportunity for steering with the sails coming out of a shunt.  I also like the lower CE on a cruising boat for SF bay.  It does get windy here. 

One thing I like about the schooner a single hatch, which I like—less scrambling around in a shunt—the helmsman can just sit, legs dangling inside, pulling the strings.

But the rotating beach cat rig is undeniably attractive.  Maybe it just needs to be mounted on the windward seat—and I can still have my single hatch—but that ruins the aft end of the bench, and it means we need sheeting struts and….

I’ve been looking for a self draining locker to put anchors, fuel and other crap (literally) I’d rather not have in the small cabin.  I’ve been working on a new version that has that to windward of the cockpit, under the windward bench.  It does compromise the aesthetics a bit, but it means having all that stuff at hand.  I think its a stronger structure as well—with the continuous deck connecting the cockpit and pod.

This latest Scampi also has a Frank Smoot style machined foam bottom so that the whole boat can be built, flat on a table, like a rockerless sharpie, until you turn it over and glue the bottom on.  Besides the huge composite backbone structure and loads of floatation, the smoot bottom gives you a flat floor that is a little wider than the stitch and glue one.  It also brings the cabin top down a bit.  Though stitch and glue may still be the right way to go structurally—I don’t know.  I’ve also flattened the decks (more aesthetic compromise) in order to instal inspection plates for hardware.  But I’ve added a way to attach the beams that won’t leak and provides dry ventilation for the cabin with the hatch closed.  Hopefully I’ll get around to finishing that model soon.

I like mirage drives too.  But I think that the place for them is in something more like Pinto—with an open cockpit in the middle, where the drive well can act as a drain too.  I’ve been drawing a little 20’ beach cruiser that could have a mirage drive.  I’m not sure I want a hole into the water inside my cozy cabin.  But it would make it hard to swamp!

I definitely dig the idea of sitting up on that bench, clawing to windward.  Btw—you don’t need a tiller extension.  Sitting still, with the aft rudder down, you just push the existing pushrod out, and bring it with you up to the bench before sheeting away on the new shunt.

Welcome to the forum!

Chris

Here are some pix of my “smoot” bottomed, flat decked, draining lockers to windward, continuous pod deck version of scampi.

The smoot bottom is described here for those who have not seen.

http://www.diy-tris.com/2012/10-24-footer.htm

Instead of carving it, I’d CNC the foam and just stick it to the bottom.  That’s how I built the amas for my Wa’apa, and I really liked the method.  I’d also add keel and major bulkhead “stringers” of plywood, below the cabin floor.  Instead of making the foam bottom tangential to the sides, I’ve opted for a semi circular section in the middle, with a hard chine, lofting into a gentile rocker, and finally into a little eliptical, tangential stem.  This looks pretty to me, but I don’t know if its any better than the 3 chine stitch and glue Scampi.

I like the visual split between the cockpit and pod that previous scampis had.  But I think I might like the lockers better.

cheers,
Chris

more Scampi…

Dear Chris
Love what you are doing with Scampie and the speed with which you are developing your ideas.

In my humble opinion for simplicity I would go balanced lug rigged schooner, and for a little more performance your Gunter rigged schooner with wishbones looks good.

With regard hull shape IMHO I like a bottomed dory style vaka. Simple construction, good internal room etc

There is a good discussion at
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/dory-catamaran-hull-31279-7.html

One comment that gets me is
‘I have done extensive comparison of the semi-round and flared rectangular sections with the hulls pictured in the speed range 6 to 9kts. The one with the rectangular section performs marginally better overall’
From Richard Woods

But it could be a case that if you look long enough on the net you will find someone who agrees with you

Hope you don’t mind my input

TINK

Proasail

It is true that there are a lot of trapezoidal hull shapes among high performance multihulls these days!  Just about everything from VPLP (including dogzilla) looks that way.  Nigel Irens’ recent work (e.g. IDEC) does not.

Frank Smoot’s design strategy on his 24’ tri is very VPLP.  He has made the foam bottom tangential to the sides, and created a radiused chined bottom.  My take, which is still basically dory-like, is to leave the chines sharp and provide a little volume with less wetted area.  But the thing I really want is a nice transition from the stem. 

It bears mentioning that the smoot bottomed boat is even easier to build than a rockered dory hull—at least until you put the bottom on.  Since the floor is flat, it can be built on a flat table (the same one that the sides and floor are built on). 

On the other hand, one of the strengths of multi chine stitch and glue boats is that the multiple chines add strength and reduce the need for stringers, compared to flat sided/bottomed designs.

FWIW I like lug rigs too.  I’m putting one on my wa’apa.

Thanks for your thoughts,
chris

Sometimes the design spiral feels like a circle.

Since I last worked on Scampi, I’ve entertained a lot of ideas.  That’s how the process works sometimes.  Have lots of ideas, stand back, hold up your thumb, and squint.

I’ve been chasing the simplicity of rudderless (at least upwind) proas like Equilibre, Proud Mary and of course, the real experts in the Marshall Islands.  I’ve tried to take out control lines, and the system duplication that plagues push me pull you sailboats.  By the time you solve for that, sometimes you find yourself painted into another corner.  Its not the same corner, but you’re still painted in a corner.

So this next iteration brings me back to a lot of things I’ve thought about before.  I’ve just moved the compromise chess board around a little.

I love Scampi.  Its probably the best proa I’ve drawn.  But it has always felt like 5lb of sugar in a 2 pound bag.  After looking at a lot of wet but light proas for a while, I wondered, what if I abandoned the interior space of Scampi, and just made a daysailer out of him.  What if it was all cockpit underway, with a dome tent at anchor.  Obviously P52 is a big influence here.  A boat you sail in, not on. 

But the scampi daysailer owes a lot to the Core Sound monohulls that have done so well in the Everglades Challenge.  Their easy to handle cat ketch rigs and cozy-for-an-open-boat design is a big influence.  That’s the kind of boat I want: one for small boat cruising and RAID type events.  Its hard to expect more from a 24’ proa.

And with Kevin, Lauren, Skip and Sven all talking about the virtues of a schooner rig for proas, it feels like maybe its time to climb the complexity slope a little.

So the Scampi Day Sailer is the love child of the schooner Scampi and the VERY first idea I posted here, the Flying Apple Cart.  The windward side cockpit is a simple box, now augmented with scampi’s salty hiking seat.  The best spot on the boat, the middle, is a big, comfortable, open space surrounded with benches.  The floor is 4 inches above the 1400lb waterline, so she’s self bailing.  A whole bunch of structure disappears while we concentrate the loads of the mast and akas on either side of the main bulkheads—just like cheers!  And there’s precious little rigging in the almos 8’ x 4’ cockpit.

I think unstayed, rotating masts with sprit or wishbone booms make a lot of sense.  But a fully battened boomless system like the weta (and my Nacra 5.8) could be cool too.  I’m showing about 170 sq feet here on 19’ masts.  Not quite two moth rigs, but close.  It has to reef easily, so that probably means sail tracks.

Anyway, it won’t go on top of my car, but this could be a sweet little daysailer on SF bay, without requiring a wet or dry suit for everyone…at least a lot of the time.

chris

Hi Chris, cool update! Now that I’m living in the SCAMP homeland, I see them around quite a bit, so I’m much more familiar with the concept. Your latest version is more true to the original, which features a wide open yet high-sided cockpit that can easily fit 4 or even more (though the WL will suffer). There is no “interior”, just good storage, and the cockpit becomes the cabin with a boom tent. You already know all that, just saying it again, in case others are reading the thread for the first time.

Scampi is exactly twice as long as the 11’-11” SCAMP, and I imagine at least 3 times as fast. However, it will take three times as long to rig on the ramp, so that’s your handicap in the theoretical race from trailer to sailor to the island campsite off yonder. Not that SCAMPs race!

I do think the schooner rig is a natural for a Westernized proa, as long as it is as simple as possible. Free-standing masts help a lot in that department.

One more thing… On Jzerro, Russell’s cockpit, central and just to windward of the hull, was definitely the best seat in the house. Very little spray, and the center of gravity, so less movement. This is a good feature of Scampi, IMHO.

Hi Chris, I really like the new pared-down version. Skimpy ?

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Michael.  The open cockpit really does transform the look.  I’ve lowered the “house” by 6 inches and the cockpit sides by just 2, to create my breakwater on the cabin top.  The lower house, freed from the constraints of sitting headroom inside, makes it look longer.  And the breakwater helps to differentiate the forms of the house/pod and the cockpit box.  Aesthetically, its better.  And being under a tent in the cockpit will be infinitely better than the tube like accommodations inside.

And has it got storage!  I drew the pod locker open, but I think I might enclose that too and add a hatch in case real bad stuff happens.

No doubt Scamp will be off her trailer and sailing before Scampi.  But on a voyage of any duration, I bet I catch up!

When you think about it though, the unstayed schooner rig means zero standing rigging.  You’d put in the akas, attach the ama, step the two short, lightweight masts (shorter than a weta’s!), run some lines, raise the sails and go!  I guess netting between the akas would be nice too.

I’ve been noodling on taper fit attachments for the aka/hull and aka/ama connection.  The female part that goes in the hull and ama is molded right onto the aka, for a perfect fit, and then glued into the hull or ama.  A single bolt for each connection, axial to tha aka, would keep them snug in their tapers.  Shouldn’t take too long to put that together. 

It might be a little big for a EC boat.  But it might not.  I know it would be perfect for anything inshore in Nor Cal.

Skimpy… I love it.  Compared to recent boats I’ve been drawing its rather luxurious.  But in truth, there’s not that much there.

chris