Sarabi had double curved tempered safety glass put on her front windows. They are beautiful and strong. Not everybody can find it though. I got a call from a group from New Zealand expanding in the US. Not sure of price but…www.durashieldmarine.com and
| New Zealand Head Office |65-67 Woodcocks Rd | P.O. Box 358 | Warkworth 0910 | New Zealand | Freephone 0800 883 336 | f: +64 9 422 2566
A few things recently combined to create a huge transformation in how I view the nature of design plans. The first element came from David Smith. He suggested putting bar codes on the plans so that smart phones could link to specifications and the like. Nice.
Then, I had to get the new printer; a fast color printer. Just-in-time printing is possible instead of copying off of old originals.
The last idea came from attending a Native sketch comedy group, the 1491slast Friday. They had most of their sketches on and playing from YouTube. YouTube has been around a while yes, but seeing it used this way inspired me. Just-in-time prints could not only have specifications linked by Q-codes (barcodes), but also the latest how-to video from YouTube. Or even video of the design actually sailing. All on a smartphone, so totally portable. Or right on the shop floor with no other infastructure needed. No PC nor video screen is needed. That was one take-away from being in Uganda; smartphones are everywhere. Technical papers could have references or even useful video embedded in them. I think this is pretty big. A shot of the printer again.
Ok Ok, I once designed a steel freighter. For some Russians. Was about 12 years ago. Not sure if it ever got built. About 120 feet long as I recall. Cut-away view here. Looks interesting.
Looking for some pictures for a customer, I stumbled onto these. Mark Evans with his tri Tachyon at Kelly’s Landing here in Seattle, in 1977 or 1978. Mark was a sort of guru for a generation of PNW multihull builders and sailors. Design is a Sally Lightfoot 26.
One of the best sails I ever had was with Mark. We were sailing in a snowstorm here on Lake Union. December ’78. Utterly silent.
The latest edition of Multihulls World. http://issuu.com/multihulls-world/docs/127mw
Maybe someday they will have one of my boats in it. I probably have as many projects going at any moment as any other designer out there.
I have mixed feelings about these pictures. I just got them from the builders of my 46′ power cat design in Estonia. They took my 3D model and hired a kid to finish it up, as he works for much less than I do. The earth is indeed flat. The kid did good work. I get to see it on the water at the Helsinki Boat Show I hear.
A few years back a multihull sailor friend wanted to face the recession proactively by building teardrop trailers. Its really a pretty good idea to use boatbuilding technology to do that. I designed one using a sandwich of 3mm plywood faces with 3/4″ pvc core. Biaxial corners and glass cloth on the exterior and wear surfaces. I recall he built it bright. It is light, strong, quiet and insulated. He had a budget of one hour design time, so the 3D model is pretty spare. A little time spent scaling the wood grain and adding some homey details like windows would have helped the cuteness. There it is.
I might have included these guys long ago, but they have been busy building my passenger ferry and other projects so here they are again. I go there to see the latest on my passenger ferries for Uganda. http://www.thainboats.com/
They are also now building the catamaran houseboat hulls that I designed for Rod Gibbons. See http://www.eco-seacottage.com/
The new Design Portfolio makes a great gift. Order online at http://www.multihulldesigns.com/portfolio.htm I see that my posting of this new book on the website got overwritten with the old book. You will get the new book. I will fix that on the site as soon as I can.
