folding catamaran systems

I just looked at that Kurt Hughes system, hardly unproven, thats exactly how the Macgregor 36 broke down for trailering ecept the mac had the usual fabricated saddles for the fwd and aft beams. It was not easy though as it was one of those situations where when things would bind up if you didnt slide it evenly, it worked though.

Steve

 

What sized cat are you thinking about?
I've got a design for my beach cat / proa projects that hadn't been mentioned, or used before. There are other threads where it's listed, plus I have youtube videos of it in model form.

 

I was talking about 20-30' weekend cruisers with some basic accommodation. Woods' Sango/Wizard, Len Surtees, Takeaway (hard to get any more info on this one) and Cat2Fold are pretty much what I've been looking for, but (apart from Cat2Fold) I'm not really happy with accommodations they're offering. Non-folding cats of the same length offer so much more that folding looks like a bad compromise.

 

I'm glad you think my cat's accommodations are good.
I love it and think its quite comfortable, however having sailed on some other condomaran type cats, I agree that non-folding cats are WAY more comfy than anything else on the water.
Give me 5-10 more years and Cat2Fold may come up for sale again!

 

Well I'm from Europe and here we have 2.5m width restriction on roads (opposed to USA, where you have 8.5', which is ~ 2.78m), so even if Cat2Fold was for sale it's not really an option for me (it's 2.59m wide when folded, according to multihull-maven.com).

I wonder what happened to the idea of puting 30' Cat2fold in production. Kurt Hughes said on his web page that he was considering this idea with Rafi. Maybe there isn't big enough market for foldable catamarans after all.

Anyway, I had another idea for trailering an open bridgedeck cat. It's a bit odd at first sight but I wanna know what u think. A super quick sketch:


From number 1) on the water to number 2) on a trailer. Hulls are maximum 2.5m high. Hulls are put together (maybe with the same mechanism as in Cat2Fold) and flipped 90°, so when on trailer the whole thing is maximum 2.5m wide but more tall. There's less restriction in height then in width on roads (4.2 m clearance under bridges in EU, which is also the highest permitted car/trailer height), so this is where you can gain extra space (you could make more flare and gain more interior space).

I wonder how high are before mentioned cats which fold hulls under or over cuddy.

Trailer would need to have special mechanisms for flipping hulls, I don't know if this is big or small problem.
Anyway, what do u think? Worth a second consideration or not?

 

Just how "transportable" do you need? the MacGregor 36 and Stiletto come apart, along with others. From these you could fabricate some kind of center bridge deck room? ..... and the next question is : do you want to be out sailing now, or designing and building instead? It's certainly going to be a compromise of an answer with all things considered.

This is a model of my folding cat design. I still hadn't figured out exactly what to do with the masts. Being of beach cat size I thought I could just pick them up, out and move them by hand, think big windsurfing gear. In my folding proa, and there's more video of that in my youtube channel, I show my new position for the masts. In the models I don't show the details of the folding system but it's basically a splint joint that gets bolted together.


Wouldn't you rather have one of the existing folding trimaran designs? Those are ready to go NOW! and you can then have time to toy around with folding cats designs while you are already out sailing?

 

Well, I think that time of unfolding (from trailer to water) should be up to 1 hour, maybe an hour and a half at most. But not more.

Trimarans don't suit me because they actually don't offer much usable space, although I do admire performance. Catamaran platform is much better for cruisers.

Btw, I can go chartering now (although I don't own a sailboat), and also think about possible folding mechanism.

Do you need to fold it all the way to the end?

 

Not sure what you mean by that.

My designs are for a specific purpose, to win the Ultimate Florida Challenge, a 1200 mile small boat race around Florida. the folding part is for the 40 mile road portage where I'd tow the boat with a bicycle.

this design would not lend itself well to the larger boat sizes because my deck covers the top of the hulls. The cat2fold idea gets around that. Your trimaran folding adapted to a cat looks promising though! You don't really have a height restriction like I do so that folded beam up in the air shouldn't be much of a problem.

 

"I'd tow the boat with a bicycle."
Are you serious :?:

 

Serious? Totally. Here's a quick first portage test, enough to let me know it's possible. BUT, this is not a thread about my end goal but on folding . In my case I have to fold it so it's compact as possible, 3' width and not very tall so I can get under low bridges, thru blowdown on the rivers, etc. Think of it as a "mini-me" of cat2fold, but using a different way to fold it up.

 

Sorry SPD I was not trying to be rude.
Why can't you use that Cat you have?
Since you have to sail and tow any cat for 1200 miles, why can't you carry a pup tent and sleeping bag for when you have to stop on the way.

 

I still like the cat idea but the proa has better speed. I do plan on staying on the boat as much as possible so I'll be sleeping onboard all the time. Part of the reason for my folding system is so I have the center platform to live and sleep on. It can also store the wheels to the bike. If you don't understand the proa then you won't like the proa but once you do you'll be hooked! My proa uses the same folding system as the cat btw. In my youtube channel you'll notice what I did with the masts to make folding easier. the same thing could be done with the cat.

 

Rather than a Proa, which has control and performance limitations, I built a Piver Frolic trimaran. 16' X 8' and simple. I scrapped the dagger board box in favour of two fixed daggers on the floats, to allow a single berth IN the main hull for overnight camping. No need to fold for transport and could be carried on the roof of a car. (Cars were big in those days). My son used it for "Gunkholing" around Lake Simcoe in the mid 60's. He found it fast and safe to cross the Lake to visit his girl friend and return at night in any weather.

 

since I already had these model parts it was a quick matter to see how this vertical folding system would work.



sorry oldsailor, I'm not gonna get into the proa debate here on this thread, but there are others if you wanted to go there.

 

No debate intended. Horses for courses.