Historical multihulls

Williwaw still holds the record for the most ocean miles for a full flying ocean foiler.

 

Lady Helmsman. My favorite of all time. I loved this boat, so perfect, so eleguant.
Sad I didn't find a better pictures. I find this one on Google.
All the one I had are lost due to too many moving

 

Manfred,

I stand corrected. Actually the Double Wedge is what I saw recently but did not know it was related.

Most everything in Popular Science doesn't last even so. And the proported value is very often exaggerated out of reason. It is an interesting game to try and look at todays magazine and try to understand what has been exaggerated and why the item will not last/ succeed.

 

It is fascinating to see how often things have to be "invented" till the idea will become practicable and will be used.
The first doublewedge patent I`ve found was from 1894 - not quite the same but somewhat similar from Mr. MILLS.



The second (US Patent 6 158 369) was from a Mr. Alberto Alvarez Calderon in 2000 and a similar idea was used from an Australian who made a model (16ft ?) to test it with different outboards. He reported a speed of 15kn with 8hp and was very satisfied with the hydrodynamic charateristics of the trimaran. The boat developed nearly no bow wave and the sternwave was very low.
The angle at the bow is 13 degrees and can be achieved by tang. 13. The opposite kathete (1m Ankathete) is ~23cm. A hull of 6m will be ~1,35m and a 10m hull ~2,30m wide at the stern. Hope someone will controll it as I`m too soft in math. Not much space for the inhabitants.

 

+ 5 characters to keep the boatdesign.net gods happy!

 

Great pictures of Lady Helmsman, thanks very much.
I never realized how much it was like a giant Tornado in the hulls.
That must be a great museum.

I came across a C-class locally, must not have been very successful since I had never heard of it. The boat was stored outside, assembled, and sitting on tires. The hulls were so thin that they were gradually sagging into the shape of the tires. They still sailed it with that hull shape occasionally.

Its great that the museum was available to save Lady Helmsman.

 

The museum is in Falmouth UK

Try here

http://www.nmmc.co.uk/index.php?/collections/featured_boats/c_class_catamaran_lady_helmsman

Richard Woods

 

I don't really consider Sea Knife related to the Double Wedge vessel at all. Sea Knife was a strick monohull that grew out of some multihull experiments,...not a trimaran as doulble wedge appears.

Here is some more discussions on her:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/powerboats/peter-r-payne-sea-knife-blade-hulls-36781.html

 

Sorry to introduce this Sea Knife vessel to the 'historical multihull' subject thread. It occurred when I tried to link those Popular Science magazine articles.

But now that its done, I will eventually show how this Sea Knife vessel concept arose from some experiements with a multihull form.

And then go one step further with the possiblity of 'new concept' RIB being based on this sea knife hull form?,....might be a fun small boat project to play with?

 

You are right, it is my failure because as a multihull fan I`ve posted pics of a trimaran similar to the patented hull of Alberto Alvarez Calderon. The following picture is somewhat more similar to the knife-blade-hulls.

 

Weird.

 

Many thanks for the pics!!!!

 

I am completely confused.
Sea knife is clearly a monohull, no matter what it developed from.
The pictures (or video clip) of what I believe was double wedge was clearly shown in the water was a monohull.
Someone make it simple for the simple-minded.

 

Thanks Moggy. We tried a catenary curved wing mast with the first rig I built for Supplejack, true catenary like Lady Helmsman's (which was inspirational to me in those early days) with 30 inch chord in the middle section, big mast, and built too heavy (because we didn't know any better). It worked but we always had a slight problem of the upper section mast to sail not air flowing as sweetly as the middle and lower sections. That was because, compared to LH, Supplejack had a much larger, longer footed sail compared to the mast. LH's is near 50/50 and very fine in the upper sections.
Those UK blokes in those days: MacAlpine-Downie, White, Mazzotti, March, Farrar, way ahead.
left: Lady Helmsman - right: Early Bird - both MacAlpine-Downie designs

 

Here's Tom Coville's latest Sodebo, (photograph from Course au Large) de Kersauson's old VPLP maxi trimaran.
What will they change on the boat to make it today competitive?
Probably not much. New rig, foils, stripped and altered for single handing?