Odd story here. “A crew of three men, a woman and a dog were rescued by the US Coast Guard on Christmas Eve when their 53ft Wharram catamaran Nootka Dancer reportedly broke in half off Jacksonville, Florida. As reported by Yachting World”
http://www.noonsite.com/Countries/USA/usa-three-crew-and-dog-rescued-by-us-coast-guard-after-53ft-catamaran-2018broke-in-half2019-off-the-coast-of-florida

It says it had an Aerorig.  That must mean on in the middle.  I don’t see how a Wharram would have enough bury to support an Aero.  And an all carbon mast on a Wharram?  Why?

I can never believe anyone would buy Wharram plans, but he has sold more plans than all of us combined.

Odd.

“SAN JOSE, Costa Rica – A catamaran carrying dozens of foreign tourists on a pleasure cruise capsized off Costa Rica on Thursday, killing four people, emergency officials said.  The boat, which was on a day trip to the popular Tortuga (Turtle) Island, sank completely about 9 miles off the country’s central Pacific Coast.
Survivors reported that strong waves filled the boat with water and caused it to sink, he said.”

This could be another chapter in Stuff Done Wrong.  I don’t know any more than the above, but can speculate on forensics from the pictures.  Like most corporate designs, way too narrow overall.  Is it even 20′ wide?  Probably was a beam-on wave hit it.  Clearly it it metal.  Many places in South/Central America choose steel for budget reasons.  Surely would help it sink.  It also is stuffed from end to end with deck.  That also makes surviving the waves harder.  Compare to Holo or Kai Oli Oli.

I wonder if Derek will be upset that I was first to report this in multihull media again?  And that it sank?  And thanks, Lance.  My guys always seem to be first with the news.

I understand several emails to the company have failed today as well as earlier this week or more.
Ok there have been several fails over the last vew days.  Many email are getting to me, but many are not.  I have spent hours this week talking to tech and running diagnostics.  Apparently it is still a mystery to them.

If you get a fail, hit me at the Gmail of alpha3geko@gmail.com

or the old fashioned way of 206-284-6346.

I will keep pushing them to fix it.

I do need to set up a starships voyages category. For now, https://share.delorme.com/CourageWinter

I just got word that Charles Chiodi, founder of Multihulls Magazine passed away yesterday. For decades he was the center of gravity of multihulls. A quirky but tireless advocate. He really gve me my start when I created my 30′ performance trimaran design in 1983 I think it was. Nobody else was thinking that tight forestays were needed to go to windward. I had a kind of seastay inside the hull. Charles was intrigued and gave me a couple of pages as I recall. Was all rock and roll from there.
Keep a tight forestay Charles as you sail on.

I see on Steamradio that Russell Brown has just discovered tortured plywood chapter in Gougeon’s boatbuilding book. http://www.ptwatercraft.com/Begining%20Tortured%20Plywood%201-6.pdf  And Steamradio is typically in awe of anything multihull royalty do. I do see that if he had used the tortured plywood chapter of the CM construction manual, he could have saved a lot of work and mystery. I do understand that for many people the goal is not to have  the boat but to embark on a personal discovery.  I get that.  If the goal is to get into a developed ply (or other) multi, my builders and I have probably sorted out the mysteries long ago.  The KHSD CM Construction Manual has a chapter on tortured ply and of course the CM for bigger boats.  (Ever try to bend a 9mm sheet of ply?)

I will gather and post here some of the illustrative tortured ply pics in the Manual as soon as I get caught up on deadlines.

it It looks like catamaran  nets have become one of the trendy new bed styles. You have to work your way through a couple of pages to find.  But do they use NetSystems knotless spectra?   http://www.wittyfeed.com/story/2119/15-Extraordinary-Beds-In-Which-You-Would-Definitely-Like-To-Sleep

It looks serious. Like a halyard going aloft, the board hold-down must have gone aloft. Nick needed brave crew to climb up and retrieve it! When I designed the boards, I never expected to have to designed steps into the boards. Boards are for pointing. In this case I think it might not be Nick’s cat pointing, but the other boats in the bay.  KHSD 42 located SLO in California.

Again no website and no email today. Tech claims there were no interruptions yesterday and are looking into today. Waiting for tier 2 tech call back.

And my notes. Not nearly as poetic as Richard’s.

Every so often a catamaran design appears with its helm forward, usually just aft of the mast. The old Searunner trimarans had that configuration also. With a sort of amnesia, observers get quite excited about it as a new design phenomena, every time. And I now hear the phrase “If Gunboat does it, it has to be good.”

It does solve the classical problem of the helm person having to see over or through the house cabin. Beware however the unintended consequences.

There are several. And long ago I learned that just because the famous do something doesn’t make it right. Gunboat also eschews traveler cars and tracks.

Most important, protection from wind and water is almost totally gone. Especially monohull sailors have no idea that a sweet looking cruising cat can do 25 knots on a reach. Subsequently they have no idea how much exploded water will be deluging them at speed. With no protection, even with no waves, it is cold, especially at night.

In a storm, the connection to inside is a door on the front of the cabin. When there is a firehose of white water blasting the front of the cabin, nobody will dare open that door. 

On modern cats, the big sailing engine is the mainsail. That is aft of a helm forward. On a traditional helm aft, one can keep an eye on the mainsail trim and still watch where you are going. With helm forward, that will be cricking your neck to keep an eye on the power sail back up behind you. 

Related to the mainsail as the power engine is safety. How often does the traveler car or the mainsheet block jam during a tack? If the problem is out of sight and 7 meters behind you, that is a safety problem. More, if a mast fails, or a mast base block explodes, the helm person is right in that impacted area.

On modern, powerful catamarans, being able to release the mainsail in literally an instant in the event of a crisis is critical. Having the entire mainsheet line in clear view and easy access is so important.

 In the real world, the benefit of shorter halyard lines, and down low clear view is far outweighed by the exposed and dangerous location of that helm forward.