Catamaran Design Books and Software

[Pirate Rob]

I'm a recently graduated aerospace engineer with a fair amount of experience sailing and racing all types of sailboats. I'm interested in refining a small catamaran design of mine (Similar to A-Class cat) and I'm looking for more information. I don't have any specialized boat design books yet so I need to build up my collection.

My question for the professionals out there is this:
What are the most valuable books and software (preferably free software) in your library that relate to small catamaran sailboat design?

Thanks in advance.

[yipster]

from my librairy i'm now reading "the cruising multihull" from Chris White, good books in the boatdesign.net index and do a search at amazon books
use the search button above and for software try freeship, get michlett too, experience is valuable and i'll stay posted here with you for more advice

[Çemberci]

Dear
A example catamaran hull is attached..File is valid for HULLFORM Program
http://www.hullform.com/dl-hullstat-demo.html
Take a VISKI then begin to use AutoCad
Oktay Cemberci

[designz]

Technical books specific to catmaran design are very few and far between. I have almost given up looking for technical books on this subject, - however I have found a wealth of information in the library journals. Look at the journals from Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME), - the American professional body for naval architects and marine engineers. You can even do a search on their website to get the details of the paper, then go the University Library and look them up.

The English professional body is the Royal Instiute of Naval Architects (RINA). I have found SNAME to be far superior to RINA, but I guess it depends on your personal preference. I thing the SNAME papers are much clearer and straight to the point, where the RINA papers often tend to waffle and not get to the bones of the issue as succintly.

I could not find the software "michlett" that Yipster mentions above, maybe he can give us the URL (web address) to download it?

[masalai]

Any marine design apps ported to linux yet?

[marshmat]

Michlet link: http://www.cyberiad.net/michlet.htm , version 8.07 (current) is free courtesy of Leo Lazauskas.

[masalai]

Thanks for the thought Marshmat, but no good to me. I will NOT touch windows. It has more holes & infections than all the worlds prostitutes.

[Leo Lazauskas]

Originally Posted by masalai

Any marine design apps ported to linux yet?

Michlet was originally written in C/C++ to work on Unix workstations. I still use it on Unix machines when I need to do long optimisation runs on multiple machines, sometimes in remote locations. Unfortunately, when I wrote Michlet there were no good Unix systems for PC's, so I went the Windows route to implement some rudimentary graphics which people wanted. I never understood why they wanted graphics - what's wrong with a table of numbers and gnuplot?

So, yes, there are Unix based codes, but they are not cheap.

Regards,
Leo.

[masalai]

I am not that serious in desire except to have a capacity to view some of the designs presented as a cad package file.

Thanks for the thought and interest

[marshmat]

what's wrong with a table of numbers and gnuplot?

Tables of numbers don't justify forking out for a $500 graphics card and $300 operating system I plot up Michlet results in a spreadsheet anyway, where I can do what I like with the data.... although the built-in graphics are handy to see what it's thinking during a Godzilla run

[yipster]

what's wrong with a table of numbers and gnuplot?

nothing... but... my first thought was, eh... take the figgers of a woman... i feel you sort of have to see them...

BTW the AYRS had / has a wealth of info against a small cost

[masalai]

Thank you Yipster, I couldn't have put it more succinctly.

marshmat, I have the graphics capability sufficient to drive better than screen at 1920 x 1200 pixels. I refuse to use MS because of its flaws & vulnerabilities.

[Leo Lazauskas]

Originally Posted by marshmat

Tables of numbers don't justify forking out for a $500 graphics card and $300 operating system I plot up Michlet results in a spreadsheet anyway, where I can do what I like with the data.... although the built-in graphics are handy to see what it's thinking during a Godzilla run

Yes, it is often instructive to watch where Godzilla wanders, especially for multihull layouts. I have a reasonably useful 20 parameter hull series that I will include in the next release. It is a little more interesting to watch than the 8 parameter series.

Cheers,
Leo.

[masalai]

Leo, what are the chances of making the code available to, say the folks at Ubuntu, so it could be ported to Linux - please -

[Leo Lazauskas]

Originally Posted by masalai

Leo, what are the chances of making the code available to, say the folks at Ubuntu, so it could be ported to Linux - please -

Sorry, but I don't have time to get involved in that sort of enterprise.

Cheers,
Leo.