Sports Car Performance on the Water

 Having not published since January, it’s pretty obvious that I’ve recently taken a break from my design work. During that time, I’ve been able to reassess my connection to the craft of boat design. The last boat I designed was the Europa 20, which is a trimaran meant for vertical strip foam construction with sandwich style epoxy/glass laminates on both sides. The Europa is a boat for very fast day sailing with a very light hull and a very big rig. A boat that is not for everyone, to be sure, as it requires a level of skill that the average guy does not typically cultivate in order to fully realize the potential of the Europa.

Stepping away from the larger, beach type multihulls, I came around to the desire to produce a smaller, very quick and sensitive boat that would appeal to recreational sailors and not just those guys who want to blast around with their hair on fire (though I do suspect that in the right hands, this boat will do just that). The new design had to be easy to build with standard, marine plywood/epoxy/glass techniques that did not rely on exotic layups with spendy carbon cloth. ( Well, maybe the carbon will sneak in there a bit on the beams for the guys who want to play with a bigger rig )

Read more »

Posted: October 8th, 2010 under Sailing Multihulls, Trimarans.
Comments: none

The first Gato Especial has hit the water in Athens, Greece.

Alex and his father have done a sensational job building the boat. They can now begin using their comfortable, yet compact, 21′ catamaran to explore the Greek Islands of the Aegean Sea, do some fishing if they like and simply get outdoors on the beautiful blue waters surrounding their country.

Posted: October 8th, 2010 under Catamarans, Sailing Multihulls.
Comments: none

A trailerable, demountable, high performance multihull

 

 

 Regular visitors to this site know that in September of 2008 I got to spend an afternoon sailing out of La Trinite sur Mer, France on the 105’ French Maxi-Trimaran, Sodeb’O, with skipper, Thomas Coville.

 

Posted: January 18th, 2010 under Sailing Multihulls, Trimarans.
Comments: 7

Tom Raidna, the well regarded owner of the http://buildboats.com/ web site, has begun construction on the prototype example of the Solo16 Sport trimaran in North Carolina.

You can follow his progress as he builds this exciting new design on his web site through the following links:

http://buildboats.com/solo16/Solo16.html

http://buildboats.com/solo16/solo16buildlog.html

The Solo16S will provide Tom with a stable, fast sailing platform for spirited daysailing and interesting coastal adventure cruising. You can read more about the design of the boat at this link:

http://www.lunadadesign.com/index.php?s=solo16+s

Posted: November 30th, 2009 under Sailing Multihulls, Trimarans.
Comments: 1

The latest work on the Gato Especial build in Athens, Greece have just arrived. Alexis and his father have, once again, made significant progress on the completion of their crusing catamaran. It’s important to observe that they have continued their practice of doing excellent work with a creative set of adaptations on how they’d like to use their boat.

A cleverly built space for the porta-potti

Looking down into galley

Port Holes on port side

Foredeck anchor locker and access hatch

Posted: November 30th, 2009 under Catamarans, Sailing Multihulls.
Comments: 2

On the bank at Lake Powell

XCR owners, Kellan Hatch and Ben Algera have been putting their boats to good use over the last couple of weeks. If you have been following this site, then you have already been introduced to both of them through previously posted pieces.

Read more »

Posted: October 14th, 2009 under Canoes, Paddled, Sailing, Sailing Multihulls, Trimarans.
Comments: 3

 Just about ready to enclose the cabin

Cabin interior from companionway

The builders of the first Gato Especial have mades some really inspired progress with the building of the interior appointments of their boat. They have also completed the stringers needed to support the cabin roof, allowing for a foredeck access hatch from the cabin.

The cabin's center panel framing is completed

  Read more »

Posted: October 6th, 2009 under Catamarans, Sailing Multihulls.
Comments: 3

My friend, Kellan Hatch, has been busy this past year making his boat a lot more dialed-in for his personal adventure interests.

Kellan and Lily Hatch glide past Mount Moran in their XCR

Kellan recently returned from a wonderful, but all too short, cruise on Jackson Lake in Wyoming’s Teton National Park. Imagine a lake that is beautifully positioned at the foot of the stunning Teton range. Imagine primitive camping sites on the non-inhabited side of the lake with wilderness all around you in virtually the same state as it was when the area was visited regularly by the fur trapping mountain men of the early 1800′s.

Kellan had those images and much more running through his head when he joined his wife, Lily with their XCR, along with good friend, Mike Jackson and his Hobie Adventure Island, for a long weekend adventure of sailing and camping.

  Read more »

Posted: September 18th, 2009 under Adventure Trips, Canoes, Power Boats, Power Tris, Sailing, Sailing Multihulls, Trimarans.
Comments: none

A fresh photo update on the work being done in Athens on the Gato Especial Cruising Cat. With the boat upright, there are now bulkheads, cockpit seating hatches, cabin roof stringers and all but the last cabin roof panel in place.

Two additional stringers will be installed to stengthen the center roof panel. They will run from the mast stepping bulkhead (#4) down to the bow.

Read more »

Posted: September 18th, 2009 under Catamarans, Sailing Multihulls.
Comments: 1

Modern design, enhanced stability and creature comforts, along with remarkable utility make for a stunning trailerable beach camp cruiser for passionate multihullers.

Hobie Alter introduced the Hobie 16 catamaran in 1969 and the sailing world, as it was known, hasn’t been the same since. In 1992, with many of the beach cat lifestyle crowd having families of their own, the Hobie Cat company introduced a new boat called the Hobie 21 SC (Sport Cruiser) that was aimed at the more leisurely needs of beach cat cruising, rather than the well-known, hull flying beach cats.

Read more »

Posted: September 17th, 2009 under Catamarans, Open Bridgedeck Cats, Sailing Multihulls.
Comments: 6