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.

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Posted: September 18th, 2009 under Adventure Trips, Canoes, Power Boats, Power Tris, Sailing, Sailing Multihulls, Trimarans.
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Fuel Efficient Power Boating For a New Economy

I’ve been getting a significant number of inquiries for the power version of my Gato Especial sailing cat. I let it slip out, some time back, that there would be an engine driven version coming along, but time got away from me and so, the project sat idling on the design table.

I’m kind of drawn to cars and boats that can solve a host of utility needs, as well as provide a comfortable, transportation experience. I’m about to sell my venerable Toyota Landcruiser and get myself into something that makes a lot more sense when it comes to utility and fuel efficiency. As a result, I began to think of a motorized version of the Gato platform as a Crossover/SUV type of vehicle with a big interior volume aft of the helm station and truly fuel-efficient engines to complete the picture.

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Posted: March 5th, 2009 under Power Boats, Power Cats.
Comments: 16

Over the past couple of years, as I’ve been drawn into the world of boat design, I’ve made a concentrated effort to confine my work to both sail and human powered vessels. I’ve been a multihull sailor and canoe/kayaker for a long time and have found most of my experiences in that part of the boating world. My design portfolio reflects that background.

Recently, after successive readings of the exploits of many different guys and their construction of the nearly legendary Tolman Alaska Skiff, I was pulled into the potential of designing a multi-purpose power boat. It wasn’t just the Tolman form that enticed me so much. It was the complete enthusiasm for the design and the potential that the design represented to the user/builders in the pursuit of their boating dreams, that got me all caught-up with the fever.

Like a moth circling a back porch light, I searched the web and found dozens of references to the classic skiff form that were available as finished boats, as well as plan sets for homebuilders. Gosh, there were ultra deep vees, asymmetrical catamarans, mislabeled party barges, pseudo bass boats, flat bottom ski boats posing as off-shore hulls…Wow!, the parade of hulls being offered as suitable for near offshore conditions was bewildering.

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Posted: July 5th, 2008 under Power Boats.
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One day I was driving around the industrial area near my boat shop and happened to pass the local power boat center. Sitting out front of the store were two, rather homely looking aluminum skiffs that are typically used around these parts to hunt ducks and geese and perform general boating duties for outdoorsmen.

 I had never really taken a good look at the type before as I had more pressing matters in front of me trying to finish the build on a sailboat. For some reason, I pulled over to just get an idea as to how these metal boats went together and to understand the shapes that went into the hull. Most folks refer to the form as a Jonboat, although I’ve also seen it as Johnsboat and Flat-Bottomed Skiff, by various other sources.

Jim Michalak’s version of this simple skiff has been a real hit with homebuilders and there’s a bunch of good reasons why that’s so. They’re easy to build, provide hours of trouble free operation with the simplest of outboards and can do just about anything you could ask for a utility boat.

I went home that night and dialed-up the design software and started fooling around with a few ideas as to how I would design one of these boats for my portfolio. The result is that I came up with two versions that are very much alike except that one is a bit longer than the other for added carrying capacity.

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Posted: July 5th, 2008 under Power Boats.
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