The story of the fabulous Dick Newick designed Proa "Cheers"

09/06/2008 - La fabuleuse histoire du prao Cheers by Voilesnews

Interesting range of sailing catamarans listed for sale at seaboats.net

James Burwick has contacted me to let me know of some of the fabulous performance catamarans they have for sale at the moment.  The listings include the fantastic David Barker catamaran "Sundreamer" and a classic and a beautiful Peter Spronk 50' catamaran in ply/epoxy.

The classic 57' performance catamaran Sundreamer by David Barker

http://www.seaboats.net/17.5m-david-barker-catamaran-xidp625200.html

David Barker, Sundreamer

The classic Peter Spronk designed 50' cruising catamaran

http://www.seaboats.net/50ft-sailing-catamaran-xidp617843.html

Peter Spronk, 50' cruising catamaran

A very interesting semi pod style performance 63' cruising catamaran designed/built by Chris Kinzel under the guidance of Walter Greene

http://www.seaboats.net/63ft-performance-cruiser-catamaran-xidp620381.html

Chris Kinzel, 63' performance catamaran

The super impressive "Hi Octane" designed by Malcolm Tennant

http://www.seaboats.net/16m-tennant-sailing-cat-xidp620317.html

Malcolm Tennant, 52' performance catamaran

Excellent article on Sail Magazine examining Multihull designer Nigel Irens design history and current projects

From the following article on Sail Magazine by Paul Gelder:

http://www.sailmagazine.com/racing/nigel-irens-designs-some-fastest-racing-multihulls

Tucked away down a narrow alley in the picturesque town of Ashburton, on the edge of Dartmoor National Park in England, is a tiny building called the Tenter loft, a relic from the ancient wool industry when cloth was stretched on tenterhooks. It’s now the quirky office of British multihull designer Nigel Irens, the man behind some of the fastest sailing boats on the planet.

“The only things stretched in here are catamarans and trimarans,” says one of his team in a play on Irens’s maxim on multihull design that can be paraphrased as “design the longest boat you can possibly accept and then add a few feet.”

For 40 years, Irens has been at the cutting edge of multihull ocean racing. His name is on a string of record-setting catamarans and trimarans that are bywords among multihull aficionados everywhere, including ENZA, the 92-foot cat on which Peter Blake and Robin Knox-Johnston set the first Jules Verne sailing record in 1994; iDEC, on which Francis Joyon became the fastest man to circumnavigate solo; B&Q Castorama, on which Ellen Macarthur became not just the fastest woman around the world but, for a while, the fastest person, period. These and many other designs have long been celebrated as a kind of fusion of art and science. Irens’s designs, built for speed and endurance, have been called poems of flowing function, and for decades have been sought after by the hottest sailors on the race circuits.

read more here

1980 OSTAR race, documentary on Bob Lush and Mike Birch

Singlehanders by Shelagh Mackenzie & by Kent Nason, National Film Board of Canada

The Gougeon's trimaran Adagio to race in this years Port Huron to Mackinac race

The Gougeon's trimaran Adagio is set to compete in the upcoming Port Huron to Mackinac race.  Originator's of the West System of epoxy sealants and adhesives Meade Gougeon and the late Jan Gougeon have designed and been involved in the building of a number of notable multihulls including the famous Dick Newick trimaran for ocean racer Phil Weld, "Rogue Wave".

From the following article by All Michigan

http://www.mlive.com/sports/bay-city/index.ssf/2013/07/adagio_sets_sail_this_weekend.html#incart_river_default

The 35-foot multihull boat owned by Meade Gougeon is in its 44th year of competition. This weekend Gougeon, and his crew, will have one of the oldest vessels on the water in the Bayview Yacht Club's annual Port Huron to Mackinac race.

Of the 230 boats registered Friday night, only six of them were built prior to 1970.
"The boat has held up pretty well," Gougeon said, laughing. "When it launched, it was actually the first all epoxy wood-sealed boat. All these years later, and we are still competitive.

read more here

The race is still running at the moment you can follow Adagio on the tracker here they are doing the Cove Island course about 66nm to go at the moment.

http://www.bellsbeer.com/bycmack2013/index.php

Golden Oldies Trophy 2013, article on Proafile by Fred Monsonnec

Article by Fred Monsonnec on Proafile in regards to the recent Golden Oldies multihull event held in Sete:

http://proafile.com/magazine/article/golden-oldies-trophy-2013

 

Every year since 2005, many French sailors passionate about “old multihulls”, but also Spanish, English… meet in the Mediterranean around their boats. These “fans” are members of the association “Golden Oldies Multihulls” (you can find an English page and many pictures and video on the Golden Oldies Multihulls website).

This association has a mission: to preserve these “glories of the past”. A “Golden Oldies Multihull” (GOM), is a multihull of at least 25 years of age, designed or modified for offshore racing, speed records or raids. But exceptional boats outside this definition may obtain an approbation, in this case, a “Silver” class has been created.

read more here

Golden Oldies Trophy 2013, photo courtesy Fred Monsonnec

Golden Oldies trophy 2013 in Sete, South of France

Lots of recognizable classic racing and cruising multihulls in this fantastic video from the Golden Oldies association.  Thanks to HASYB for the link to this great video.


GOT2013 by goldenoldies

America's Cup update, Interview with Max Sirena of Luna Rossa on thier AC72 program

Sailing Anarchy have provided this interview with Max Sirena of the Luna Rossa team:

http://sailinganarchy.com/2013/04/18/3-out-of-4-aint-bad/

Luna Rossa’s AC72 hits US waters for the first time, and San Fran SA’er “Monster Mash” was good enough to get the shot.  With ETNZ a few weeks away from the dock, we’ve almost got an AC full house in San Francisco. Well,  maybe more of a busted flush…

read more here

Extract from John Glennie's new book "Playboys of the South Pacific"

John Glennie has released two more chapters of his book "Playboys of the South Pacific" Chapters 26 and Chapter 27 on the excellent outrig.org.  This book follows John's adventures in the South Pacific on his early Piver trimaran in the sixties. 

Chapter 26 http://outrig.org/glennie_ejacket_psp26.html

Chapter 27 http://www.outrig.org/PDFfiles/glennie_ch27.pdf

The Proas of John Pizzey Part 1, proafile article

From the following article on the excellent proafile:

http://proafile.com/magazine/article/the-proas-of-john-pizzey

A few thoughts on cruising proas after many years absent from sailing them but hopefully about to get back to the misadventure. As can be seen from the literature, there are any number of possible rig, rudder and centreboard combinations that can be made to work, some easily, some needing a fair amount of skill and diligent attention. The trick is to get a combination that works well. If you can’t easily single-hand the boat I would question its usefulness Furthermore, there is obviously not only one correct solution, or for that matter any solution.
In three of my proas and in several guises I have sailed competitively in mixed fleets, such as the around the buoys Winter Series in Moreton Bay with several hundred monohulls and a few multihulls without causing chaos and in close company with many, mostly on Pi which we sailed frequently in bay and ocean races for more than a decade.

read more here

Boatsmith in Florida building a 48' Arika Wharram catamaran interview with James Wharram and Hanneke Boon

An interesting interview with James Wharram and Hanneke Boon on their design philosophy and on the currently under construction Ariki 48' foam sandwich catamaran which includes some discussion on James Wharram's early designs and making the first transatlantic crossing on a multihull.

http://www.boatsmithfl.com/a-conversation-with-james-wharram-and-hanneke-boon

Jan Gougeon passes away

Noticed on Sailing Anarchy, one of the true multihull and boatbuilding technique innovators has passed on.

Posted up by Vegas:

Some of you have been contacted personally, for others this will be very hard to continue reading.

Jan Gougeon fought a long hard battle with a respiratory infection for many years. He succumbed to his illness this morning at University of Michigan Medical Hospital.

A Memorial service is planned for Jan at the Bay CIty Yacht Club on Thursday December 27th.

Article on Rudy Choy and the development of the pioneering C/S/K Catamarans

From the following article on the excellent outrig.org site

 

http://outrig.org/multihull-stories/barry-choy-article-from-multihulls.html

 

25th Anniversary Issue • January/February 2000
MULTIHULLS Magazine

Tribute to the Living Legends: Designers
RUDY CHOY

After “Catamarans Offshore”
By BARRY CHOY



Aikane, photo courtesy of Proafile

In 1970 the MacMillan Company published “Catamarans Offshore,”
a watershed book written by Rudy Choy in an attempt to set forth
the legacy of his famed partnership C/S/K and totell the story
of how he and his partners, Warren Seaman,
Alfred Kumalae and Vince Bartolone, evolved their ideas
and principles of successful catamaran design. From the
earliest beginnings, specifically the late 1950s, they understood
what even some of the most skeptical and hardened
yachting traditionalists have only recently come to
accept: that multihulls are not only superior to conventional
yachts in many respects, but more importantly, are
the wave of the future. From the very beginning Rudy,
Warren, Alfred and Vince’s fundamental design standards
were creativity, simplicity and evaluation by careful empirical
observation, notions that today stand anyone desirous
of building anything operating according to the
laws of physics, in good stead. The acid-test of success for
each of their creations was conducted, not by using a slide
rule, or with the boat tied to some dock as a showpiece,
but in the open ocean.

read more here

There is also an excellent article on proafile on the C/S/K catamarans and it shows in a bit more detail some of the early craft with photos

http://proafile.com/archive/article/110

The Light Brigade, Light displacement and multihull development by Gary Baigent

This excellent .pdf by New Zealander Gary Baigent delves into the history of light displacement monohull and multihull design and is an excellent read.

http://www.coolmobility.com.au/Yacht/LightBrigade.pdf

Here is a link to one of Gary's interesting design and build projects the foiler Sid

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/alternative-marvelous-buccaneer-24-a-32382.html

and some photos of Sid

Reflections on Toria a landmark racing multihull.

46 years ago, Toria, designed by Derek Kelsall, won the first edition of the Round Britain Race... A significant event, especially as all the trimarans which followed were inspired by this fabulous and so precursory ancestor. Toria was the first boat to be completely designed by Derek Kelsall, and he continued designing numerous racing boats over the following decades. 

In the November 1966 Newsletter of the Multihull Yacht Club of Victoria (then the Trimaran Association) Derek Kelsall wrote about the race.  In many ways Toria was quite crude particularly in the rig and sails the later "Trifle" built along the same lines was a much better sailing craft as the rig issues were addressed but "Toria" was a defining moment in the history of modern multihulls.