Historical multihulls

Maxi 85 foot catamaran Royale's huge chord wing mast; here at Plymouth, shot taken by David Barker. Royale capsized in 60 knot winds in the 1986 Route du Rhum while being singlehanded by Loic Caradec.

 

Anyone find this John Patterson 6.5 metre trimaran beyond interesting?

 

Patterson 21

Yes. http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/patterson-21-trimaran-plans-52364.html and more.....

 

Yep, I like it a lot. I tend to like boats that are a fresh take on design. I'd really like to sail on it.
Russell

 

I'd love to see Rob Denneys face when he reads that !

I've been in contact with Mr Patterson, he is in the Caribbean, the plans are in a shed in a relatives back yard under snow in Michigan. They may come to light, they may not.

 

I'm a bit confused Red. Either you think that I'm a fuddy-duddy because I don't like rob or his boats or maybe you were hoping to start another **** fight. Either way, I think there are more productive things for you to do and say.

 

A little audacious to call this historical but these are the remains of Tennant designed 32 x 18 foot Bamboo Bomber Supplejack .... after savage blow in Auckland, early 1970s. That's the other hull to left. And here are a couple of images of the catamaran in happier times.

 

Was that the end of Supplejack? I remember this boat from Multihulls magazine. Not a great magazine, but it had great stuff in it sometimes. The Bamboo Bomber looks a bit like the Stiletto, except better looking. Is that your bay?
I would call the early 70's historical.
Russell

 

The remains of the starboard hull was recycled into 20 x 20 foot tri-foiler Flash Harry and the intact port hull was also used, after a myriad of alterations, as main hull for Groucho.
Bamboo Bomber was Malcolm's very early catamaran design, after 36 foot Vorpal Blade (his first ... along with a collaborated Given/Tennant/Fay A Class) and before his Great Barrier Express cat. Well, the original open wing deck Bamboo Bomber was a drawing he published in a 1975 Sea Spray and later, I said I didn't like some parts of the design and asked him to draw a more race oriented version - which he did. Two were built, Superbird and SJ, launched 1977. The first GBE came out that year too. I'm pretty sure this was a few years before the Stiletto appeared in the US. Over here we really liked Stiletto but didn't like the central daggerboard, however we were very impressed/envious of the very high technology materials used, Nomex honeycomb and so on. We poor Kiwis only had bent ply.

 

Supplejack must have crashed on your beach if you built two boats from the wreckage. That's the way things happen, so it must be so.
The stiletto was light, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't up to Kiwi conditions. My experiences on the Stiletto were that things broke at very inopportune times. Give me bent ply!

Russell

 

Russell,

Could you talk a little about what kind of things broke on Stiletto?
I only had one glancing experience with the boat and was always interested.

Marc

 

I sailed a Stiletto in the day charter Buck Island run in St Croix, USVI. It was bought by the company I worked for as a toy, but I used it for some charters. I liked sailing it, but had some memorable near-wipeouts. The most memorable was gybing in Christiansted harbor on a really windy day and having the tiller crossbar assembly somehow end up in the wake.
I had the boat on a mooring about 12 seconds later, but there was some quick action involved. The other issues were all hardware related and so long ago (1979 or 80) that I don't recall the specifics.

 

The Stilleto was and probably still is the most high tech built production boat ever built in the US, possibly the world. I suppose with carbon the Gunboats may be higher tech but I don't think they used pre preg/nomex with high temp cure. I think the Stilleto has held up well over the years though probably not any better than cats like the GBE. They would make the basis of a nice little cat if you plumbed the bow, increased the beam and replaced those stupid looking cabins and of course daggers in the hulls. Guys in NZ have done similar things with the GBE but of course they were much better looking cats to begin with.

 

My experience with the Stilleto was limited and a very long time ago. I don't know enough about them to be talking critically about them, so I'm sorry I did.
It would be interesting to know specifics about how they were built. That was a long time ago to be using high temperature pre-pregs. I wonder how the molds were built.

 

Russell,

My question was aimed at whether the issues were related to be composite construction or fittings which could have been fixed without changing the basic nature of the hulls.
Position of the single centerboard vs daggers was known long ago.
But issues like the fittings of the tiller setup could have been improved with relatively small changes - and should have been. Might have been for all I know.