Spirit of America

[old dog]

Hi Corley. As far as I know the first of Lock's boats to use FG for beams was the spirit. As some of his earlier tris also had gullwing beams to go with the submersable floats I would imagine Lock used the method in subsequent boats.

[old dog]

scan0007.zip 1st

scan0008.zip 3rd

scan0009.zip 2nd

[Corley]

Thanks for posting it makes very interesting reading. In an interesting aside Nigel Irens floats on his modern trimarans could be considered semi submersible. He has gone on record as saying these days he favours racing multihulls which are less stiff with narrower beam and have more ability to submerge their (low drag) floats under load at least partially.

[warwick]

wasn't there another Kraken 55 built about 1988, that competed in the round austrailia race.

From memory it was called yumi maru

[redreuben]

There was, infamous for enormous masthead kite and a pitchpole capsize in Brisbane to Gladstone. (I believe).
RR

[warwick]

I remember reading about a capsize. Didn't they later on fit larger floats to it later on,
an did some thing happen during the round austrailia race.

[Corley]

They had some anxious moments on the Round Australia race when crossing the great australian bight but no capsizes they went directly to Westernport Bay rather than down to Tassie. Yumi Maru was a Kraken 55 like Spirit of America not sure if they made any float mods though. Mark Pescott was on the boat with Phil Smith if I recall correctly.

[trimaraner]

Corley, as far as I am aware Spirit of America and Youmi Maru were the only 2 kraken 55's ever built. Must be some sort of syncronicity going on because over the weekend I started didgitising boxes of old multihull slides and found some of Spirit of A in Plymouth UK ! I will post when I work out how to. Mike Kane built a large, 50 or 60' Cross Tri called Crusader after Spirit but what happened to her I do not know. I delivered Youmi Maru from Melb to Cairns with Phil and Youmi,Phils wife, We showed her off in Sydney to Rob Mundle and some other boating journalist and had her 2 sail reaching at 25kts over the top of a camera man in a dinghy! Now those pics would be something special. We had a top speed of 28 kts during the delivery. Phil capsized her during a race but not the B2G and afterwards built bigger floats. She was last heard of in Guam with solid decks instead of the nets and tourist seats doing charters! Love to hear from anyone with more up to date information. Cheers all.

[warwick]

I believe there was an article in a Austrailian magazine called cat or catamaren sailor about the mid eighties, about yumi maru, and the capsize.

[Corley]

In the book by Gavin LeSeuer "The Line" Phil is quoted as saying they sailed the boat over when using that massive masthead kite it was a broach and the boat capsized to leewards over the float (very slowly apparently). It makes sense that he went on to build larger floats. Yumi Maru was called "power brewing" temporarily for the duration of the Round Australia Race whether Phil actually extracted any sponsorship or beer out of them I dont know

Trimariner I found an interesting article the other day which talked about the foundation of MYCV my father Graeme was a member in the early days and was building a Piver Lodestar with Arthur Burrage he went on to own the Kraken 25 that I'm currently rebuilding. I'll see if I can scan it in.

[old dog]

My eldest has been scanning all my old slides and sent me this gem. It's the scale model I built of Lok's proposed A class. The rig is only dowel and string but you get the idea.

[trimaraner]

Thanks guys. Thats what I call a couple of blasts from the past. In fact I think that article was the first one I got published, in the Age I think, as the new Publicity officer of the Trimaran Yacht Club of Victoria. I recall complaining at the first meeting I attended that they had no phone No under Yacht Clubs in the Telephone book and I had been looking for information and like minds for some time. Locky got up next and said, Well I nominate John as our Publicity Officer.
That was the start of a beautifull friendship and a life time interest and love of all things Multihull. Tris in particular. In those days we all thought that in 5 or 10 years at the most! everyone would be sailing Multis. In 88 after the AC win for Dennis Conner in the wing sail cat I thought, How can they not go to Multis.
Well it took a little longer! But nobody said anything worth while does'nt take a life time. Nathanael Herreshoff, designer of the revolutionary catamaran Amaryllis back in 1876, which beat everything and was promptly banned by the New York Yacht Club, Hopefully is getting a laugh out of it all! I know I am. Cheers all.

[redreuben]

Ha the idealism of youth, as a petulant teenager I decided I would not become a naturalised Australian (i'm English) until Australia became a republic ! Ha I'm 52 and still waiting !

[Corley]

I had my supernova beach tri on an MYCV promotional stand at the Melbourne Summer Boat Show over the weekend. I mentioned that I had a buyer for my boat and my dad instantly wanted to buy it instead, he reckons it will be just the ticket to sail off the beach and go club racing and cruising around on calm days on Port Phillip Bay with my mum. Once its in your blood no getting rid of the bug, not bad for 76 years old

[old dog]

Interior maybe Spirit of America 1973.zip

BoatDec73.zip

1974002.zip