Cat 2 Fold 30

Three years ago I designed what I thought was a simplification to Rafi’s Cat-2-Fold beams. To make it less costly, I chose off-the-shelf mast sections as the connective beams in place of carbon fiber laminations. Rafi thinks it won’t work. I think it

will. It has never been tried. I publish it here with the understanding that if it is published, someone somewhere else won’t be able to patent it and prevent me from using it. I can’t afford to patent it, and besides this market is just too small to make it worthwhile.
So, some of the snapshots. Ignore the unstayed mast bearings.

perspective
X-ray view

 

exploded

Nice Note from Martin in Thailand

Hi Kurt,
here i am with the halves done. 10 people working we did it in 1 hr and 5 min or ten, each of them. Very happy. Super smooth, easy to bend and using Epotec Resin. It looks very ok. Meanly because these days is bloody hot here. 7 am alread

y 29 celsius arriving to 40 at 2 pm.
As soon as i get the time i’ll send you some pictures and maybe a short video.
A bad news is that some “visitors” got in my place and tooks some ply……

cheers,
Martin

ProBoat Radio

It looks like I will be on ProBoat radio again tomorrow morning. The topic will be my attempt to use boatbuilding technologies on land buildings. Turns out the Codes are apparently intended to keep anything new and different from even starting, or a

t least starting easily. See
The Lunar Lander Project
Tuesday, June 19, 2012 @ 11:30 a.m. EASTERN
“Multihull designer Kurt Hughes (Seattle, Washington) joins us to share lessons learned from his “Lunar Lander” project. “The mission,” he says, “is to build a line of habitable space landers providing creature comforts with low impact on the land and high amazement factor.”

Inside the lander, there is open space, with external modules for bath, galley, breakfast nook and storage. On top is a clear geodesic dome with queen size berth under it. The dome is suspended by carbon fiber tensors so the light can stream in down all around the berth.

Hughes will share the rest of the details of this project with us, and we’ll also discuss what the building industry might have to learn from boatbuilders, and the ways in which this project has become an education for Hughes.”

Please send your questions and comments now by emailing radio@proboat.com.

For more details, visit the ProBoat Radio blog page for this show.

Tune in to ProBoat Radio this and every Tuesday
at 11:30 a.m. Eastern. Just click and listen.

ProBoat Radio is a production of Professional BoatBuilder magazine.

And www.themarsoutpost.com

Electric Cat

Saw an unusual solar powered catamaran last month in Monaco. It had nice narrow, snakey wave-piercing bows but the transom was chopped off and at maximum hull beam. I guessed and later read that it would not do more than 14 knots. That kind of transom is all wrong for low speed displacement hulls. I guessed it was designed by a bored, rich illiterate who had seen some magazines. I found out later

was done by Craig Loomes who should know better. Now I'm really confused. It did make it around the world. What if it had been done right?

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Catamarans and Trimarans with Kurt Hughes