Early Cat Racing in California

Before Steve and Linda Dashew became famous for their innovative blue water cruising yachts, both power and sail, they raced catamarans at the center of the growing multihull movement - Southern California in the early 60’s. Steve has put up a page at Set Sail with some great archival images of the catamaran racing scene back in the day. Rudy Choy, Warren Seaman, Bob Reese, Mickey Munoz, Phil Edwards, they knew and raced them all. Go check it out.

Footprint - Where No Boat Has Gone Before

I’m conflicted. On the one hand, Footprint Boats is doing everything right:

The Footprint Boat was created to revolutionize the boating world… Using a form must follow function philosophy, this design focuses on what it must do, not how it should look. The Footprint Boat is a lightweight, low maintenance, fuel efficient, affordable “working man’s yacht.”

On the other hand, well… look at it! Considering all this yacht can do, all the while sipping teaspoons of fuel, I do see a certain empirical, practical beauty, but it takes seeing her without eyes, if you catch my drift. I think I’d paint NCC-1701/7 on the side just to nip all the shuttlecraft jokes in the bud.

Can Your Trimaran Do This?

Frank Smoot is the ultimate DIY sailor. He began his sailboat design career in 2009 with this and has progressed to this in only two years. His latest is the most ingenious small trimaran I’ve ever seen. If he continues at his Moore’s Law rate of improvement he should be building America’s Cuppers out of plywood/epoxy in about 6 months. Story via Small Trimarans. See more at DIY-Tris.com

Blackout

Proafile will be blacked out on January 18 in protest against proposed legislation in the United States – the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate. We’re also supposed to be getting a huge snow storm in Seattle tonight, so if Proafile is not back online by Jan 19, you’ll know why!

The Golden Gate - Mini Camper

I found this electric-powered mini-camper by architect Jay Nelson at Tiny House Blog. I like the faceted, polyhedron style, all done up in plywood, plexiglass and epoxy. See more of his work at JayNelsonArt.com

The ArcSail Proa

Malcolm Smith always has something really tasty cooking in his workshop. His latest project is a force-balanced design utilizing a ‘ring wing’ that he calls the ArcSail. The concept has huge potential for boats both large and small, and I’m very pleased that Malcolm has opted to share it with us at Proafile:

Our Blue Canoe

The first teaser trailer for the documentary film, “Our Blue Canoe” currently in production and due for 2013 release. The film is part of a larger initiative called the “Vaka Motu” project, by Pacific Voyagers. The vision is to connect all Pacific Islands in a sustainable, carbon-neutral fashion via Vaka Motu, thus gaining independence, better infrastructure, and more economic opportunities for remote island communities.

Santa’s New Sled

Well look at that, Santa’s got a new sled! Hope everyone got the present they really wanted this year… *checking stocking* nope, just more coal. Ah well… hope yours was a merry Xmas, and happy new year!

Santa pic straight from the horse’s mouth.

The Life Pneumatic

I have a longstanding interest in pneumatic (pressurized) engineering structures. Blame it on Jacques Cousteau and his Zodiacs making a strong impression at an early age. For boats, inflatable hulls make all kinds of sense, being unusually light, strong, tough, and repairable. I even made a concept sketch of an inflatable hulled proa.

Here is Kurt Heiligenmann’s design for an inflatable beach cat - the Smartkat. Hate the name (I always hated the Smart Car because it implied that whoever purchased it was also “smart” and conversely, those of us who didn’t were less so), but this boat really IS brilliant. A 14’, 93 lb. rocket that fits into two canvas bags - store your beach cat in the closet, under the bed, or take it on your next flight to Ibiza.

String Theory

Proving his iconoclast chops once again, Jan Gougeon launched his newest baby into the Saginaw River last summer - to cries of both shock and awe. I reported on the launch of Strings - or Project X - as she was formerly known, earlier, but we finally get a much better look at the fascinating vessel in the new Epoxyworks No. 33.