QB and the Texas 200
Skip Johnson sends in a report of the launch of his new proa QB, and running of the 2024 Texas 200. See the previous QB article here.
It’s been almost a month since QB (Questing Beast) and I ventured out on this year’s Texas 200; now that I’ve caught up with some of the other things in life it’s time to say something about the adventure from a proa perspective, I’d already written something for the Texas 200 website.
First off we…
The Proasis Project
Henrik Richter-Alten has submitted a new proa development project to Proafile called Proasis. His team has recently completed the launch and a successful test sail. Henrik explains:
“I’ve started the Proasis Project together with Christian Arriens, a good friend of mine. We are both involved in the Low Carbon Sea Transport Project at WAM*. My contribution was the WAM Catamaran design, he did the recently launched solar-electric…
Mini Cargo Ferry Prototype
Mini Cargo Ferry prototyping and development in the Marshall Islands, by Harry Proa. This is the first step on the road to getting the zero emissions 24m cargo ferry built and hauling passengers and freight.
The mini cargo ferry was designed in response to a need to replace the outboard powered fibreglass skiffs which are ubiquitous in the Pacific. These boats are expensive to run, difficult to maintain and have almost completely…
LaShunk from Balkan Shipyards Update
Rael Dobkins of Balkan Shipyards sends us a video update on his shunting junk rigged proa:
WE MADE IT! The new proa rig from Balkan Shipyards. Pacific proa ‘Make
O’Break’, LaShunk rigged and showing off….. No secrets! Keep Shunting -BSY.
Congratulations BSY. Reconciling the world’s easiest handled rig to the world’s most difficult hull platform. Who’d a thunk?
Rael’s driving concern with this rig is shifting the CE (center of…
First of the 500
The 500 Sails Project has launched their first wapa. The Sakman Neni is a modern recreation of a traditional Mariana sailing canoe - or flying proa - as documented by Anson in 1734. It employs a Derek Kelsall KSS method fiberglass composite hull combined with bamboo connectives and lashings.
The name “500 Sails” was inspired by the arrival of the Spanish galleon San Pedro at Guam in 1565, when it was met by the Chamorros in their…
Mareinoa: a proa for cruising
A report on a new cruising proa build by Manfred Meier, designed by Othmar Karschulin of multihull.de. Thanks to Manfred and Othmar for the submission! —Editor
I became aware of the proa when reading a book about multihulls, named “Mehrrumpfboote” (multihulls) written by Klaus D. Kurtz. I expected that this book would deal with catamaran and trimarans only. But instead it started with a report of William Dampier, one of the earliest…
Hocus Pocus trailerable proa
Rafael and Heidi Francke update us on their latest mega-trailerable multihull - this time a proa. Congratulations on a quick build and a successful first sail. -Editor
Here we go again. This time it is NOT a folding catamaran like Cat2Fold. There is a change in wind direction. It is a Pacific proa.
Last year we were playing with the idea of a “folding” (actually “demountable”) power catamaran. The playing got serious to the point of…
Gold Coast launches new Bieker 53 cat
Gold Coast Yachts of St. Croix, USVI, have launched the new Bieker 53 performance cruising catamaran. The polarizing aesthetics aside, we are very interested in this build. The curved boards are a moderate use of hydrofoil tech that is extremely promising. Unlike the fully flying Gunboat G4, FUJIN’s foils do not lift the hulls completely free of the water’s surface. The boards augment righting moment and pitch stability, making the…
The Trickle Down Effect
I’ve had an interest in hydrofoil sailboats ever since I ever heard about them, when I found ‘The 40-Knot Sailboat’ by Bernard Smith in the Kirkland Public Library as a teenager, which I must have checked out a dozen times. A few years later I was glancing through the Whole Earth Catalog at the neighbors and I saw an entry for ‘Flying Hydrofoils’, published by the AYRS in 1970, which I promptly ordered. So it has been with considerable…
The Sultans of Wing
Just to prove that we aren’t complete small boat snobs over here at Proa File, here’s a yacht that’s well over our usual cut-off in length and opulence. This is the sort of thing that Nigel Irens Design has been up to lately, and we have to say it: the A-65 is probably the loveliest luxury sailing catamaran launched since the turn of the century.
The challenging brief from a client in the Emirates was to design a truly exceptional…
