One of the reasons I’m slammed here. New foam/glass daycharter 79. Open deck concept.
Category Archives: New Designs
Out There Doing It
Still slammed here but a couple of quick ones.
Just got little story and pic of one of my cats from Jock, out there doing it.
“I’m still sailing around the Caribbean since 2010 on Unleaded a KHSD 30 ft cat.She’s still a delight.I like telling my “condomaran”friends that it took a year to use the ten gallons of gasoline I bought in Puerto Rico as Unleaded sails so well I only motor into and sometimes out of anchorages (sometimes sail in and out)because “I CAN”.
Met a nice young couple from Maine on the CM version of the 30 ft cat last spring in St. Maarten. (James and Emily) neat to see another KH design.
This year I made a mold and raised the hatches over the central part of the hulls a bit(2 or 3 cm)so now unless it’s a driving rain I can leave the hatches open a crack for ventilation as the rain streams away from the opening.
Here in the Caribbean I can still buy two stroke cycle outboards so I’m replacing my Suzuki 9.9 4 stoke cycles with Tohatsu 9.8 two stroke’s.That should take 20kg or so out of the boat.
The pic is looking towards St.Georges Granada”.
Sorry for Going Dark
Sorry everybody. Two rush 75 cats designs and a 58 major revision have left me in triage state. And a new 65 coming up next week. Blog here has suffered, and there are lots of new stories.
I will try to load a couple of quick ones.
New Dragonfly Amas
These are my new Dragonfly amas. I’m not working with the company; its just that I have been doing then since I had Magic Hemple and people keep wanting them. Longer than stock and more displacement.
Foam/glass. Vertical transom for ama rudders. These are going to Bellingham, WA.
Race To Alaska
Interesting event. Tracker link http://tracker.r2ak.com/
I see that the two most heavily media flogged boats, the Bieker proa and the little cat from Port Townsend have dropped out and never did well.
It really only looked like a very long Shaw Island Classic to me. Agility would be far more important than speed as I see it. The wind will be from 10 different directions in 10 minutes and you may have to tack 5 times in that ten minutes to dodge eddies or kelp beds. And typically it all seems to be uphill. Short tacking is often the rule. In this kind of race I expect that the old 34′ Smoholla might have been quicker than the F40 Geko. Imagine having to move the mast every tack as on the Bieker proa? What were they thinking?
That says 30′ or so trimaran to me. They tack faster than the cats. You see it firsthand at races in the San Juans. And with all the kelp I’m sure a foiler is off the menu most of the time.
And when there is no wind, I learned in the Tasmania race that you can move a small multi pretty well rowing.
Lil Explorers Delivering Tanks
The extended KHSD 53 cat Lil Explorers has been helping with the typhoon cleanup. Their most recent job was to deliver a pair of giant water tanks.
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Tanks for Vanuatu! Above & Beyond the Call of Duty.
When the crew of Sea Mercy’s Disaster Relief vessel “Lil Explorers” (Courage and Shannon) got word that the people living on two of the remote islands in Vanuatu were in grave danger and at risk (their water catchment containers had been destroyed by Cyclone Pam), they made a decision to find a way to help. Where everyone said it could not be done, they said they would find a way to help. The question was how to get the water tanks on their vessel and secure them enough to make the 80 mile sail to the devastated remote villages in order to deliver them? These pictures show that where there is a will there is always a way. Be warned, these pictures are not recommended to be viewed by the “faint of heart” sailors.
The good news is that containers (water tanks) made it safely, were offloaded safely (floated in), the remote island people were so grateful, and Lil Explorers and her crew came away unscathed and as hero’s. We’ll post the full story (along with offloading pictures and video) when they return to Port Vila and have internet again.
Thanks Lil Explorers!”
More Next Week
Everybody had a rush or an emergency this week. Lots of postings have arrived but no time this week to sort out and post. Might get better next week.
Bar Area Study
A quick space study of the beam and bar area of a 75′ cat.
Dragonfly Back
“Coming into cape fear inlet, NC after 20 hours of ocean fury.” A great battered seadog picture.
New Stiletto Catamaran
I was approached, along with the rock stars, I was told, to propose a design for the new Stiletto 10 meter catamaran. A kind of cruiser/racer with the iconic canopy as a kind of trademark. Said he had been in the Gunboat and J boat projects. The design brief was a bit unusual. It needed quick set up but must have no crossarms. The cockpit must be the crossarm. I did not know how that would work forward. I proposed Rafi’s fold system. Developer was not impressed I guess. I put standard tubes on it for now.
The rest of the design brief was to be like an M32 with a minimal interior. Begs question why not just have an M32 if there will be no interior? My flared hulls would allow a pair of doubles and keep a skinny waterplane for speed. I know nothing about marketing, but am sure it has always been true that if the toys are not shared, many of us would not have the toys.
It could have been simply trolling for ideas. I have had that happen several times before.
So I did a couple of quick models. M10 is pretty straightforward. M11 is very wild with defined edge lines.
and the wild one
