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.

James Wharram Designs Amatasi Launched

The team of James Wharram and Hanneke Boon launched their latest child, Amatasi, on Oct. 12, 2011. The award winning design, a 27’ double canoe is intended to be a practical and sustainable coastal fishing boat. As a proa designer, I certainly appreciate the elegance of the fine canoe sterns on this design, though I do find it somewhat ironic that it embraces the quarter rudder for steering, a design that harkens back to Viking long ships and even before. Modern proas sometimes use quarter rudders out of necessity because the bows and sterns must be identical. Many a time have I wished for a stern that remained a stern, so that a proper rudder could be hung.

Va’a Motu, a Tahitian Style Outrigger Canoe

Gary Dierking has made a speedy project of his latest outrigger canoe, and this one might be his most beautiful yet. The scale model of Va’a Motu was completed July 10, and the real thing launched Sept. 21, just over 9 weeks later!

I’ve been working on a new 20’ (6M) design lately that borrows some features of the Tahitian va’a motu.  The hollow clipper bow, the raised transom stern, the mixed attachments between the ama and the iakos, and the curved gull wing iakos are seen on the fast lagoon sailers in Eastern Polynesia.

Gary documents the build on his blog, Outrigger Sailing Canoes. More pics and the video after the jump.

One Step Beyond

John Harris of CLC announces the launch of Madness on Sept. 24, into a tributary of Chesapeake Bay. Madness is a 31’ racing/cruising proa designed by John with input from proa Jedi Master Russell Brown. The vessel was begun in the Chesapeake Light Craft shop and completed at Sea Island Boatworks in Charleston, NC. More pics and videos after the jump.