Son of Amaryllis
Jan Gougeon has finally revealed his radical new catamaran, seen here at the launch party in Bay City, MI. The wood, foam and carbon composite 40 footer includes water ballast, pivoting crossbeams for trailering, and rumor has it may even be self-righting! More details will be coming soon from the builder, I’ll update the post as it trickles in.
Via Sailing Anarchy
Evergreen - a Fast Expedition Catamaran
This year’s WoodenBoat Design Challenge III, “A Fast, Expedition Sailboat”, is a theme near and dear to my Proafile heart. Last winter, I was working up a design that fit the parameters pretty well, so when Canadian designer Laurie McGowan suggested we enter the contest, we chose EVERGREEN, a 6m (19’-8”) camp-cruiser cat. We had to really push to make the May 29 deadline but in the end we got the packet in the mail and had a great time…
Green washing
There’s a great rant over on Sailing Anarchy about the continuing use of wind energy and sailing in various vaporware investment schemes that make little sense except as tools to separate fools from their money. B9 Shipping is SA’s well deserved target, which perhaps should have replaced the 9 with an S? To counter that, here’s a little green lesson from the past:
1978: Sunburst (formerly Bits ’n Pieces) was built in St. Maarten, from…
Lord Vader your yacht is ready
Here’s the Wally Fulcrum 88’ Concept Yacht recently accomplished at the Art Center College of Design. One might easily presume from the continual output from Art Center that, deep down, all designers would really rather be designing starships, and they’ll quickly turn any vehicle of transportation into one at the drop of a hat. Note my own previous design concept as an example of this insidious impulse.
I’ve had a good amount of…
James Wharram Designs win design competition for eco fishing boat
This is old news, but I’m always happy to hear about another win for the team of James Wharram and Hanneke Boon. The brief from Classic Boat magazine was for an under 10m boat that would not require a license for fishing under sail or oar.
They chose the new Wharram Ethnic design, the 27ft Amatasi double canoe, the only catamaran entry. The design is developed from the 21ft Tahiti Wayfarer design and inspired by the Ethnic canoe craft…
Before and after
I love me a good boat restoration story. I’m glad there are people out there who can take a forgotten boat from derelict to Best In Show with a little patience, love and elbow grease. Unfortunately, old multihulls are rarely restored, but in this case, a forgotten Gougeon Tornado at the Oklahoma City Boat Club was saved from the chain saw by Andy Davison:
I have just about finished restoring a Gougeon Tornado. I have always had and…
Hypersprite 5.5 Sailing Transport
This design was inspired by the Delta-7 Aethersprite-class light interceptor that Obi Wan flies on a reconnaissance mission to the planet Kamino in Episode II: Attack of the Clones. The Delta 7 is a small, one-man starfighter not capable of light speed, so to travel great distances it uses a Syluire-31 hyperdrive ring. Obi Wan docks into the hyperdrive ring and zips out to Kamino, where once safely in orbit, he undocks and descends…
Micromegas 5
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.
—Voltaire
Emmanuel and Maximilien Berque have unveiled their latest Micromegas: No. 5. Earlier incarnations of Micromegas have all been self designed and built, unballasted small craft for minimalist voyaging, and this one is no different.
M5 is current with the latest thinking on high speed multihulls: hulls are surfboard-like planing surfaces; The central pod…
Beach Cruiser reloaded
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…
Micro cruising with Cindy
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…
