Maestro proa designer John Dalziel has an interesting new project - an 8m proa “workhorse” for the Greek Isles.
On the Greek island of Naxos, fabled home of Dionysus and Ariadne, Helmut Mueller is building an 8 meter proa. Unusually for its size, it is actually a half-displacement model of a 10 meter proa Helmut intends to build. However, we decided it was best to build the 8 meter model first and test it thoroughly. Besides being a…
The return of Beach Cruiser - in 3D!
The Beach Cruiser sketch from last March has progressed into a 3D model - my first 3D project in a long while - a good vehicle for relearning the ropes. To recap, Beach Cruiser is intended to be a multihull version of the popular “open boat” style of camping cruiser. Over the years, small cats have become somewhat the victims of their own success - evolving into pure race boats. It’s a bit of a…
Vintage racing proa in the Caribbean!
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…
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…
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…
The Golden Mean on three hulls
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…
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…
A 19 foot beach cruising catamaran
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…
“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…
A considerable amount of credit/blame for my love of small boats goes to L. Francis Herreshoff and his book ‘The Compleat Cruiser’. I fell in love with his ideas about a simple yet refined cruising lifestyle, epitomized by Mr. Weldon and his whaleboat type ketch - Rozinante. Rozinante is beautiful, fast, seaworthy and handy, and I was musing recently about how a proa version of Rozinante might work out.
Rozinante Il is a mono-proa - a…
