Brown's Sea Clipper 20 Jaganda

Interesting in it's ruthless simplicity! The folding system looks like it might allow a nice platform for camping. If I weren't into the double Tamanu design, this would turn my head.

Dan

 

It is a very interesting design, and Jim Brown does a great job of pitching the idea, in that audio file.

His pitch actually made me want to draw a cat to compete with Jim's tri-- a 20 footer designed to use a beach cat rig. The big problem would be the folding mechanism. Cats just don't fold as well as tris.

On the other hand, Jim has a lot of enthusiasm for the 20 foot tri's 8' by 8' camping platform, and I already have that on a 16 foot cat. Plus, the cat's platform is more stable. With a 20 foot cat, and 12 feet of beam, you could put a really big luxurious tent up.

I guess I need to start looking for a beach cat with a decent rig.

 

Perhaps you could support this statement just a bit?

 

I gotta imagine a stable platform at anchor, and one that heels less than a tri at speed. Now a Tri will have some performance advantages as we've seen again with the AC campaign, but it would be interesting to see if a tri can compete on an equal footing with a beachcat. If the rig was huge, I imagine it could. Tri's fold nicer to be sure!

I'm sure Ray has his list of reasons as well. For me the turning point is somewhere around where Ray is at right now. A small cat makes more sense in a quick setup 8'6" beam boat. Tri's make sense above that for folding, but for habitability at anchor, those amas ought to be immersed. For sailing the weather ama ought to be clear of the wavetops. No perfect boat, just one that fits you best in my opinion.

Dan

 

If you come up with a nice folding idea let me know as a 12x20 cat with my H 18 rig sounds great--as long as the boat is quick to set up. I'm currently thinking of an 8'6" beam for the double Tamanu to make for quick setup. Jones has a system based on the Shark, but adding doublers to each beam and tightening a minimum of 8 bolts sounds like it could use a better setup in terms of speed.

Dan

 

For a stable tri platform at anchor, I've always used inflatable bags under each ama. Blow 'em up, slide them under each ama with line on each end of the bag and tie 'em off. No flopping in the middle of the night. Next morning, pull them out, open the valve and stick them in one of the amas. Since the boat is already going to be a folder, or easy demounter, it has a much bigger platform on which to put up that same tent. AND it has a central hull which can be a great, hard surface on which to setup a stove and even a porta can. OR, you can forego the whole tenting thing and just get inside a hard cabin.

It wouldn't be too tough to make a tri as fast as a beach cat. I didn't have the impression that an H18 kind of speed envelope was the direction of the conversation, though. Tossing it around, it could be interesting to use a Europa 20 for coastal adventure cruising with a few minor tweaks to the setup.

In this area, it's my opinion that the French are about a hundred miles ahead of North America when it comes to using boats of this type for weekend camping excursions, family, or not. There must be nearly a dozen production trimarans in this general size range and another dozen + custom, or self-build, concepts out there in the French marketplace.

If anybody wants to scan through a great resource along these lines, hook-up to www.nauticaltrek.com and spend a few hours pawing through their catalog of different boat types along these lines. The site has been cranky of late, so be patient.

 

Probably should have said, more stable at anchor, for camping with a tent. The cat platform remains level when you move toward the edge, the tri tends to dip a little because of the lesser buoyancy of the floats as compared to the cat's hulls.

 

Yeah, and I'm dubious about the Jones system for other reasons. The hulls have to be packed just so before folding, which is a pain, and it requires a custom trailer. The system I'm currently working on allows you to use simple flat bunks like Slider's trailer, the hulls stay upright, and moving the hulls apart means loosening 4 compression bolts and cranking a winch. Unfortunately, the system is limited to an overall sailing beam of about 12 feet, so isn't suitable for a boat much bigger than 20 feet.

Size is a critical aspect of the problem, because being able to raise the mast single-handed and without drama is important. I've actually been looking around for a cheap beach cat; I guess I'll have to get serious. I haven't run across any deals as good as yours yet-- didn't you say you bought that H-18 for $600. I'm bitterly envious!

I have to be coy about my folding idea for a while, in case it turns out to be patentable. But the big problem with the design on my board now hasn't much to do with folding. Once again, it's a type of boat that doesn't presently exist. My experience with Slider tells me that this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the new idea is a lot more radical than Slider, which was pretty conventional except for the in-hull seating.

 

Good idea about the floats. The tri platform is HUGE, but it is also divided. I wish there was as much interest in the US as in France as these boats are hot! Other than the somewhat annoying slapping back and forth in various sea states that can accompany tris, I love 'em! I just like the speed and stability of the breed for both types. I prefer both types for different reasons. I like the tri for speed and potential for easy folding. I like the cat for a central deck that is unbeatable as a tent platform. Lots of reasons to like both boats, but without a slick folding system the tri's start to eek out an edge from about slider's size through a bigger cruising cat able to take a deck salon.

Dan

 

where is it

I did a quick Google search for the boat and can't find anything but this site. Where is something I can look at? Jim Brown is a design legend in my book.

cheers

Phil

 

The other big thing is that a tri of 20 feet or so can have a proper cabin with decent sight lines. Even the cleverest of trailerable cat designs so far have that tunnel-hull problem I talked about in another thread.

Phil, look here:

http://smalltrimarans.com/blog/?p=2259#more-2259

Down the page is a link to an audio file in which Jim talks about his idea for 29 minutes. Good stuff.

 

Here are the results of my google search of "Jim Brown Jaganda Seaclipper 20"

http://www.woodenboat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107787
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...eaclipper-20-trimaran-the-janganda-34718.html
http://smalltrimarans.com/blog/?p=2259
http://www.seaworthysolutions.net/f/SEACLIPPER_20_Study_Plans_PDF.pdf

The last link is most instructive as it shows plan, bow/stern, and profile shots.

Not sophisticated and modern, but cool in much the same way as a retro hot rod is cool to the car buff.

Dan

 

Jim's drawing is very much like a stretched, folding, Windrider 17 with the cockpit arrangement the way it is shown.

As to the separate sleeping areas should one use the tramps on a tri... There came a time, many years ago, when our kids got big enough that they preferred to not sleep in the same enviro as my wife and I. Truthfully, it was welcomed by us as our daughter tends to rock and roll when she sleeps and our son gets pretty cranky if his sleep cycle is disrupted. Both things contributed to outings that were less than fun sometimes.

We still have our big ol' family dome tent, but only use it for when we are plunking down somwhere for a bit of a stay. The big tent is really good for when large groups go camping, etc., as it serves as a kind of clubhouse for those times when the weather is junky and we just hangout playing cards, or games. Both our kids wound up taking a real liking to mountaineering weekends and take a lot of satisfaction in having their own shelters. This ranges from a plastic tube tent, all the way up through a set of very cool, single wall solo bivvy sacks, to four season domes for winter telly trips.

So, it's pretty much me and the lovely wife for most of our wilderness/water trips and when the kids are in the crowd, they do not want to hang in our sleeping zone all that much. Being able to stick them on one of the tramps, or out in the cockpit area if we are in the cabin, is truly great for all.

I know that your situation is different, Dan, with a much younger daughter, but sometime out there in the future (sooner than you think) she'll be dropping hints that you old farts are cramping her style to some extent.

Our boating and climbing activities have gone through a series of dynamic changes as our kids grew into their independence. Both of them are now out of the house completely, so Lorrie and I get to draw a new set of solutions for our own outdoor interests. We are considering the design of a new boating ride to meet our needs and the potential is wide open at present, so conversations like this one are great for kicking ideas around.

 

Jim's folding arrangement would make the tramps both small and in need of being removed prior to folding.

Good points. When my daughter was born she slept in out room in a basinette for about 1 night. I couldn't get two minutes of real sleep with the new noises of a baby. Pretty soon camping in the same tent as the parentals would be out.

I was just thinking of how Jim's folding system could be useful for either cats or tris. With a hard deck instead of the vaka the system woud work just as well. For kicks, I projected it on the board in my classroom and drew it without the Vaka--imagining my Tamanu hulls instead of the amas. The only point of concern that it raised was the single bolt in the deck of the hull for the amas in Jim's drawing, or the Tamanu hull in my imagination. Extend the folding beam a bit further and one could lash the boat on the inboard and outboard ends. That might be getting pretty fiddly for a supposedly quick to launch cat or tri with multiple lashing points and bolts too.

Still it's some creative thinking that might just work.

Chris, what happened to the A18? That looks like a fun machine for camping ashore. My double Tamanu will primarily be for that purpose too, but it's nice to be able to camp wherever if needs dectate.

Ray, your boat imagined boat must be the cruiser you've been speaking of with you refrence to tunnel hulls and sleeping. I wonder if the Jaganda concept would be workable with a Woods style cat--without the need to fabricate a special trailer to raise the salon to fold under the hulls.

Dan

 

It might, but my idea is both much simpler, and much weirder than that.

I hate to be so secretive, but I want to at least get the prototype started before I get specific.

My feeling is that a boat that takes more than a half hour to launch probably won't be used much unless it can be put in a slip or drysailed. The tris have a huge advantage in that respect, but I think the problem can be solved.