The diversity of the rigs found on sailboats in the
Bismarck and the Louisiade Archipelagos, illustrated above and below with two
large proas, indicates strong influence from Indonesia.
These sails can also be found on ancient sculptures on Java. Without bringing
up any controversy on the original inventor of the rigid wingsail, these
particular ones were made of braided leaves, herego rather stiff. The whole
sail could swivel around its fastenings at the top of the masts, creating
optimal lift depending on strength and incidence of the wind.
These proas typically measured 10 to 15 metres in length, but larger ones
between 18 and 25 metres were also built, serving mainly for long passages or
for ceremonial use. The masts were also held in position by rounded buttresses
and by forestays fastened upwind on the outrigger. A Louisiade
"Lia-No", with a distinctive elliptical sail, also featured flaring
and clinker-built topsides that greatly reduced deckwash. The semi-circular
sections of the hull were also a perfect example of wetted surface reduction.
The Fidji catamaran
Following the long string of islands in the eastwards prolongation of New
Guinea, settlers finally found Fidji.
The catamaran of the Fidji islands was an assembly of two pirogues. If
disassembled, they could each be fitted with an outrigger. Each hull was made
of one or more dugout tree trunks, depending on the length of the craft
(between 12 and 24 meters), with a freeboard increased by the addition of
elements on the topsides, neatly adjusted and sewn up. The two hulls were
parallel but in a Quincunx, with one slightly ahead of the other. Like modern
multihulls, the bows were vertical. On large catamarans, the space between
hulls was covered with decking. The craft was steered by two leeward paddles,
one on each hull. The triangular sailing rig was set on the leeward hull, with
the windward hull used as an outrigger. To tack, the sail was stowed on the top
yard, the rake in the mast was decreased as the rig was carried over to the
other hull.
The
Tonga catamaran
The catamarans from the Tonga islands have been widely illustrated by the
first explorers, particularly Willem Schouten, Abel Tasman and James Cook.
Daniel Lescallier reproduced their plans in Traité pratique du gréement des
vaisseaux, but a few details were missed out.
The Tonga island catamarans were of large size, between 15 and 25 meters in
length, able to carry up to 150 passengers. A small dugout was usually kept
aboard and used as a tender. They were used to sail to destinations in
Melanesia and Micronesia. The platform was placed atop vertical boards and
stayed supports. Each hull would be decked and feature a long hatch giving
access to the bilges to scoop out shipped water whilst in rough seas or at high
sailing speeds. Typically, the boat featured a semi-circular hut with a cooking
stove near the mast foot. The mast was rather short, with a jawed masthead that
carried the topyard. The mast was held in position by two lateral deck
spreaders, reminiscent of the Open 60s with a wing mast. For short beats to
windward, the sail came naturally against the mast, similarly to lateen sails
on "the wrong tack", but for long tacks, the mast would be swivelled
vertically in order to pass the sail over from one side to the other. The two
paddles were always positioned to leeward.
The Zanzibar trimaran
Finally, the last example of these antique craft is a trimaran that was
prevalent along the African coast, the Comoro islands and Madagascar.
This particular trimaran was drawn in Zanzibar in the early 20th century, and a
few of this kind are still afloat to this day. If the loose-footed sail is an
Arab trait, the actual design of the craft the design is Indonesian. This
pirogue with double outrigger which the flat bottom was sloped outwardly,
similarly to waterskis or hydrofoils. The sail was set on a short mast, in the
centreline of the craft, and changed tacks on every beating leg. Measuring 7 to
9 metres in length, these machines could sail at similar speeds to modern
multihulls.
All these "light vessels", as described by our forebears, would ship
a lot of water and one crew member would necessarily be tasked with scooping
the water out, whether it be during fishing or on a open sea passage. But if
there was a compromise, it was all for speed.
Herreshoff era catamarans
If the catamaran, trimaran or proa instances of the pirogue were born several
thousand years ago in Oceania, the first modern catamaran of western design was
built in England for Sir William Petty in 1662, at a time when the word
"yacht" was a very new word. And it would take a yachtbuilder to make
the greatest leap in multihull design after that. The World's first multihull
with a racing designation was Nathanael Greene Herreshoff's, and this excerpt
from the New York Herald dated April 16th, 1877 is worthy of notice:
In the fall of 1875 I was thinking and thinking how to get great speed out
of single hulled boats, of the kind in common use. To get great speed, thought
I, one must have great power, one must have a great sail, you must have
something to hold it up, and that something must be large and wide, and have a
large sectional surface, and also a great deal of frictional surface. These
properties in a hull to give stability are not compatible with attaining great
speed. Indeed, the more one tries to make a stiff, able hull the less speed
will be attained, even if corresponding additions are made to the sail. So
then, there are two important principles of speed which constantly work against
each other. If we increase the power to get more speed we must increase the
stability of the hull correspondingly. An increased hull has more resistance,
both from sectional area and surface friction. So what we would gain one way we
must lose in the other. Well, a boat must have width, and the wider she is,
generally speaking, the more stable she will be. But a wide boat cannot have
great speed, however much power you will apply to her. So the next thing that
is to be done is to decrease the sectional area and, in a measure, retain
stability; the boat would have power to lift at a distance each side of the
keel, where it would do great work. I kept on following this principle, getting
the keel higher and higher, until by and by the keel came out of the water,
when, lo and behold! there was the double boat! Nothing else to be done but
take a saw and split her in two, spread it apart a little way, and cover all
with a deck, and there you are! That was the rough road which I travelled, and
having arrived thus far I abandoned my ill-shaped hulls, and in their place
substituted them with two long, narrow, very light boats and connected them at
the bow, stern and middle.
Even as Mr. Herreshoff was reinventing the catamaran, it is surprising that the
catamaran was not a firmly established concept - The testimonies of explorers
in previous centuries had unanimously described the craft's performance - but
was merely the result of a reflection on the optimization of performance in
monohulls.
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©François Chevalier 2012
Starting with the monohull in (1), Mr. Herreshoff increased the beam to
increase stiffness (2); As the beam is further increased the keel is raised and
the maximum draught is offset from the centreline to either side (3) until the
keel is completely out of the water. It could have been simpler to split the
boat along the centreline and spreading them apart (5), but evidently Mr.
Herreshoff eventually proposed two narrow hulls (6).
On June 24th, 1876, the day after the Centennial Regatta, The World
printed a column on page 2, of which this excerpt:
The catamaran Amaryllis, constructed by Mr. Herreshoff, of Providence
[…] fairly flew along the Long Island shore, passing yacht after yacht as if
they were anchored. As Amaryllis dashed over the line a winner she was
saluted by guns from the yachts that were lying at anchor, and the excursion
steamers screeched their loudest in honor of her victory.
The World also printed an editorial on page 4, excerpt:
A Revolutionary Yacht
Nobody protested against entering her for the race yesterday, for the reason
probably that everybody expected to beat her, but everybody seems to have
objected to being beaten by her. It behooves the owners of the large schooners,
however, to take counsel together lest somebody should build an Amaryllis
a hundred feet long and convert their crafts into useless lumber. It is a
matter quite as important as keeping the America's Cup.
The previous subject on pirogues and the new small catamarans would have seemed
very distantly related to the subject of the America's Cup, event if
similarities and influences can be found between the different concepts of
sails and hulls of the early Pacific multihulls, but the question regarding the
future of America's Cup was raised on the first day that an American catamaran
was raced. Eventually, and a 112 years later, Dennis Conner defended the
America's Cup with a catamaran in 1988.
John Gilpin (Nathanael
Herreshoff)
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| ©François Chevalier 1992 |
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The lines and sailplan of the John Gilpin
(1877) were first published in 1870-1887 American and British Yacht Designs
(François Chevalier & Jacques Taglang, 1991). The drawings emphasise the
elaborate and subtle design of Herreshoff catamarans. Besides the two narrow
hulls, the complex assembly with spherical joints and tensioners made the yacht
an expensive purchase.
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| François Chevalier 1992 |
John Gilpin
Catamaran
Designer: Nathanael Greene Herreshoff
Builder: Herreshoff Manufacturing Company
Introduced: 1877 (four built)
Length: 9.75m
Load Waterline Length: 9.37m
Beam:5.28m
Draught: 0.50m / 1.26m
Displacement: 1.5T
Upwind sail area: 85sqm
It is interesting to delve into the designer's thinking, and to stop at step
(4), where the centreline keel was raised in effect above water: Mr.
Herreshoff's "ill-shaped hulls". In 1898, twenty-three years after
the launch of the Amaryllis, Canadian designer George Herrick Duggan
sought to reduce the wetted surface of his one-tonner to defend the Royal St.
Lawrence Yacht Club's tenure of the Seawanhaka Cup. The rating rule only took
into account the load waterline length. With their extremely long overhangs,
powered up yachts would heel and in effect increase their sailing waterline
length. To benefit from this, the deck would look increasingly rectangular from
overhead.
In Dominion Duggan created a double-hull by raising the centreline keel;
With a wetted surface reduced by 30%, he easily defenced the cup! Facing the
pressure of angry contenders however, the Seawanhaka rating rule was amended to
ban double hulls in subsequent races, by requiring the maximum draft of
sections to lie on the centreline of the yacht. This however did not prevent
another naval architect known for bold designs, Bowdoin B. Crowninshield, to
exploit this loophole and engineer the trimaran Hades in 1902 for the
Quincy Cup, though incidentally she would prove fruitless in the face of
competition given by Starling Burgess' defence candidate Outlook, one of
history's most extreme scows.
Though catamarans threatened to change the course of yachting history both in
1876 and in 1898, to no avail, they failed to convert yacht clubs as rating
rules were amended to prevent them.
One-tonner Dominion
(George Herrick Duggan)
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| ©François Chevalier 2012 |
Dominion is a development of the scow, measuring 10.85m
overall and only 5.28m on the waterline. By raising the centreline keel above
the water so as to increase stiffness and reduce wetted surface, the designer
created a catamaran.
Dominion
One-tonner (Seawanhaka Cup)
Designer: George Herrick Duggan
Launched: 1898
length: 10.83m
Load Waterline Length: 5.28m
Beam: 2.31m
Draught: 0.28m / 1.70m
Upwind sail area: 45sqm
Hades (Bowdoin
Bradlee Crowninshield)
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©François Chevalier 2012
Hades, measuring 16.75m overall and 6.40m on the waterline, is a
pseudo-trimaran, the vaka or centreline keel only present to exploit a loophole
in the rating rule which requires maximum draught of the sections to lie on the
centreline of the yacht. The plateform is so thin that it needs a supporting
tensile structure above decks.
Hades
Hybrid catamaran (Quincy Cup)
Designer: B. B. Crowninshield
Launched: 1902
Length: 16.75m
Length overall: 22.40m
Load Waterline Length: 6.40m
Beam: 5.18m
Draught: 0.36m / 2.5m
Upwind sail area: 185sqm
If multihulls did not achieve a popular success in the 19th century, they were
never actually abandoned. Every edition of the American Register of Yachts
listed in excess of ten cruising or racing catamarans.
The Sailing
Machine (Lewis Francis Herreshoff)
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©Fraçois Chevalier 2012
In Lewis Francis Herreshoff's (1890-1972) book The Common Sense of Yacht
Design (published 1848), he denounced the controversy endured in 1876 by
his father Nathanael Herreshoff, which created a void in the development of
fast sailing yachts. In his chapter titled The Sailing Machine, which
assesses the future of yachting, he proposed several catamarans, including the
above, with two hulls borrowed from power yachts, and two swivelling and
rotating wingsails set on a quadripod rig.
The Sailing Machine, which L. Francis Herreshoff proposed in 1848,
demonstrated that besides the designer's great drafting talent, capable of
turning out plans of utmost precision, he also had a very creative imagination:
He would give proof of this with his next catamran, Sailski.
The Sailing Machine
Wingsail ketch catamaran
Designer: Lewis Francis Herreshoff
Proposed: 1948
Length: 9.15m
Load Waterline Length: 8.85m
Beam: 5.35m
Draught: 0.67 / 1.15m
Upwind sail area: 44sqm
Sailski (Lewis
Francis Herreshoff)
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©François Chevalier 2012
By designing the more prosaic catamaran Sailski L. Francis
Herreshoff proposed many new ideas which became commonplace forty years later.
The plans for the Sailski were published in The Rudder magazine
between May 1949 and February 1950, and three were built between 1952 and 1966.
The Sailski's asymmetric hulls served as lateral lift and her tripod rig
reduced the load of the mast on the crossbeams, all of which were
aerodynamically faired. She was the first catamaran to feature a trampoline but
the crew did not likely somersault like on modern-day AC45s!
L. Francis Herreshoff met the demands of The Rudder readership who
wanted a version of the Sailing Machine catamaran that would be cheap,
lightweight, fast and easy to build. The Sailski measured 27 feet in
length and announced the development of beach catamarans.
Sailski
Catamaran
Builder: amateurs
Designer: Lewis Francis Herreshoff
First built: 1952
Length overall: 8.23 m
Load Waterline Length: 7,33m
Beam: 4.71m
Draught: 0.20m / 0.93m
Upwind sail area: 23sqm
After discussing the origins of multihulls with the pirogues in Oceania and
with 19th/early 20th century racing multihulls, let us delve into the post war
catamarans. Out of hundreds of beach catamarans developed in this period, with
some built in a few numbers locally and with others seeing worldwide success,
we shall shortlist only a few here. While the history of catamarans has already
been told by others, the idea here is to relate the evolution of hull shape
through a couple of models which have characterized production.
It may be surprising that Nathanael Herreshoff never mentioned Oceania pirogues,
but in Australia, dinghy builders Charles Cunningham and his son Lindsay, then
a student of engineering, were fascinated by these early Pacific multihulls. In
1952 they built a prototype, which, two years later, they developed into a 20ft
(6.09m) catamaran, christened Yvonne after Charles' younger sister. In 1956
Charles & Lindsay won the first national championships in the class, which
is still raced actively to this day.
Designed for amateur building, with a V deadrise, almost flat aft, and with a
distinctive bow overhang, the Yvonne is particularly at ease in a seaway. The
class established itself very fast, despite strong competition and new
production models developed by her designers, and was always adapted to
innovations, offering a double trapeze and a spinnaker in 1960.
Yvonne
Catamaran
Designer: Charles & Lindsay Cunningham
Introduced: 1954
Length Over All: 6.09m
Load Waterline Length: 4.66m
Beam: 2.73m
Hull beam: 0.45m
Draught: 1m / 0.18m
Air draught: 7.83m
Weight: 236kg
Mainsail area: 12.8sqm
Jib area: 4.8sqm
Asymmetric spinnaker area: 23sqm
Build: marine plywood or GRP
The Patin a Vela was born during the 1920s near Barcelona. It all started
from a paddleboat on which one would have stepped a mast and set a sail,
without adding a rudder or a centerboard. After the Second World War, a class
was eventually created to normalise all the different types that had developed
in Catalogna. There is nothing more convenient than a simple boat that can go
as soon as the sail is set!
By moving from forward to aft, the crew changes the centre of drift and the
boat heads up or bears away. For tacking, the crew positions at the foot of the
mast and rolls the boat on her forward sections.
Initially designed for the warm climes of the Mediterranean sea, the Patin a
Vela eventually achieved a worldwide appeal.
Patin a Vela
Catamaran
Introduced: 1943
Length of Hull: 5,60m
Load Waterline Length: 5.06m
Hull waterline beam: 0.25m
Beam: 1.60m
Draught: 0.32m
Air draught: 7m
Weight: 110kg
Mainsail area: 11.70sqm
Build: marine plywood or GRP
Brothers Roland & Frank Prout were first known as British canoe
champions and also as olympians. Later, they started building double hulled
boats by assembling kayaks with bamboo shoots, before creating the Shearwater
catamaran in 1954 with which they won the Burnham dinghy regatta. In 1956, the
developed the Shearwater III and won the Cross Channel dinghy race.
The sleek bows and lifting aftersections made this boat prone to negative pitch
angle, but the elliptical shape of the sections eased her movements somewhat,
all the while keeping a large reserve buoyancy.
Shearwater
Catamaran
Designers: Roland & Francis Prout
Introduced: 1954
Length of Hull: 5,06m
Load Waterline Length: 4.85m
Hull waterline beam: 0.36m
Beam: 2.25m
Draught: 0.15m/0.84m
Air draught: 7.14m
Weight: 140kg
Jib area: 4.22sqm
Mainsail area: 10.34sqm
Upwind sail area: 10.56sqm
Build: moulded wood or marine plywood
In France, Lucien Gomez is known as the godfather of sport multihulls. In
1957 he designed and built the Exocet, a larger and loftier catamaran than the
Shearwater.
Her lines were more full-bodied, she also featured deflectors on
each bow that reduced spray and pitch-poling. A lenticular floater on the
masthead prevented the Exocet from turning turtle during capsizes.
Exocet
Catamaran
Designer: Lucien Gourmez
Builder: La Prairie (France, 1961)
Introduced: 1956
Length of Hull: 5.13m
Load Waterline Length: 4.87m
Beam: 2.35m
Hull beam: 0.58m
Draught: 0.13m/0.75m
Air draught: 7.82m
Weight: 140kg
Upwind sail area: 17sqm
Build: GRP
In 1959, Rod Macalpine–Downie (1934-1986) took commission of his first
catamaran, christened Thai III, which outclassed the Shearwater. In
1962, the Thai Mk.IV won all six regattas in the European one-of-a-kind
regatta. In the same year, his C-Class Hellcat won the first Little
America's Cup at Sea Cliff, NY. Thereafter he endeavoured to promote the Shark
catamaran, designed by his business partner Dick Gibbs, throughout the USA,
earning a lot of silverware, including the One-of-a-kind regatta in Miami in
1963.
The Shark, a folding boat, was a fast and safe catamaran that earned a
resounding success. Gibbs & Macalpine–Downie furthered their business with
another 80 different designs with a career production in excess of 150,000
boats. Macalpine's final model, the third version of the Crossbow, was
created as a record breaking craft with a design speed of 60 knots.
Shark
Folding catamaran
Designers: Rod MacAlpine Downie & Richard Gibbs
Introduced: 1962
Length Overall: 6.09m
Load Waterline Length: 5.43m
Beam: 3.05m
Hull beam: 0.54m
Draught: 0.76 / 0.16m
Air draught: 9.34m
Weight: 136kg
Upwind sail area: 25.5sqm
Build: moulded wood
In 1967, the International Yacht Racing Union introduced the B-Class
International championships (crew of two, 20ft LOA, 10ft beam, 21.8sqm of
sail). Reginald White & Bob Fisher won the first edition on a Tornado,
designed in the previous year by Rodney March. This boat became an olympic
class in 1976 at the Montreal Games, and was used at every summer Olympics
until the 2008 Games. The Tornado is the only B-class that achieved such
success, and is widely considered to be the fastest production catamaran of the
20th century.
As an olymic class, the Tornado evolved naturally and over time underwent
several technological developments. Famous olympic medallists include Swede
Goran Marstrom (1 bronze medal), Brazillian Torben Grael's brother Lars (2
bronze medal), Frenchman Nicolas Hénard (2 gold medals with a different crew),
Austrians Roman Hagara & Hans Peter Steinacher (two gold medals);
Australians Darren Bundock, Mitch Booth and Glenn Ashby all won olympic medals
too and are now active sail the AC45 World Series.
Tornado
Catamaran
Designer: Rodney March
Introduced: 1966
Olympic class: 1973-2008
Length Overall: 6,09m
Load Waterline Length: 5,70m
Beam: 3,05m
Hull beam: 0,42m
Air draught: 0.80m / 0.16m
Air draught: 9.66m
Weight: 153kg
Mainsail area: 17sqm
Jib area: 7sqm
Spinnaker area: 25sqm
Build: moulded wood or GRP
The Skate 14 is an old project that I had kept in the drawer. The Patin a
vela had appealed to me when I was studying architecture at the Beaux Arts de
Paris. I imagined my own take of the same concept, with shorter length and more
elaborate asymmetric lines, but keeping in scope with the original, with
minimal few deck fittings, and also easy and fast to step the rig and set sail.
The idea was to create sufficient volume when heeling to compensate for the
shortened hull, while maintaining lateral lift on the after sections.
I completed a hull mould and tried to persuade an uncle who managed a shipyard building GRP Vauriens and Caravelles in Southern Brittany, but he resented innovation, so I take the opportunity of writing this story to modernise the rig of this small Patin a Vela.
Skate 14
Catamaran
Designer: François Chevalier
Introduced: 1969
Hull length: 4.30m
Load Waterline Length: 4.05m
Hull waterline beam: 0.16m
beal: 1.80m
Draught: 0.25m
Airdraught: 6.55m
Weight: 80kg
Mainsail area: 7.66sqm / 8sqm
Build: GRP
At 21 years of age, Hobart "Hobie" Alter opened his surfboard
shop at Dana Point, CA. Two years later, in 1956, he developed a method to
shape polyurethane foam core and became a reference for surfboards.
In 1968, he
introduced the Hobie 14, which featured asymmetric hulls with a distinctive
banana sheerline and trampoline set on a raised anodised aluminium frame. The first
Hobie was a foam core and GRP sandwich build with retracting rudders and no
daggerboards. In the following year, the Hobie 16 was developed and a
distribution network was established throughout the American territory. In
1972, the Hobie Cat became the World's best selling catamaran.
Hobie Cat 16
Catamaran
Designer: Hobart Alter
Builder: Hobie Cat Europe
Introduced: 1969
Length overall: 5.04m
Load Waterline Length: 4.10m
Hull waterline beam: 0.22m
Beam: 2.41m
Draught: 0.25m
Air draught: 8.45m
Weight: 145kg
Mainsail area: 13.12sqm
Jib area: 4.38sqm
Upwind sail area: 17.5sqm
Build: GRP
In
1969, Ian Fraser & Kim Stephens became partners to build GRP Tornadoes
under the Panthercraft trademark. In 1973, after a successful commercial and
racing debut, they commissioned yacht designer Rodney March to design a new
double-handed catamaran for series production, hoping for a similar success to
the Laser. With the help of Terry Pearce & Keith Musto, they worked out a
first prototype of the Dart 18 which was introduced at the Paris boatshow in
January 1976. Two years later, 70 boats were entered in the European
championships at Carnac in Southern Brittany.
Designed for a mixed crew, or singlehanded crew with only the mainsail, and
without daggerboards, the Dart was designed as a performance compromise that is
easy to handle, easy to rig and easy to trailer.
Dart 18
Catamaran
Designer: Rodney March
Introduced: 1973
Length overall: 5.48m
Load Waterline Length: 5.01m
Hull waterline beam: 0.26m
Beam: 2.30m
Hull beam: 0.35m
Draught: 0.25m
Air draught: 8.56m
Weight: 130kg
Mainsail area: 12.92sqm
Jib area: 3.16sqm
Upwind sail area: 16.08sqm
Build: GRP
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