Historical multihulls

Great historical photograph, Blackburn; apologies but I cleaned it up a little.

 

What an absolutely fascinating little craft ! Yes beautifully built, the bowsprit is stunning ! Love to see her off the breeze !

Now that is a wooden boat !

 

I agree, Redreuben! The mast, the tiller arm, the hulls... it all looks exquisitely designed and built. Tensioned by struts à la Amaryllis, the links from the crossbeams to the hulls, are they fixed, or flexing?

...

Another thought. The name Duster, painted on the hull, gives a good indication of the competitive, maverick, idiosyncratic attitude of the owner!

One of the online dictionaries includes a definition of 'to dust' as "to defeat badly (as in a race)". link.

And since the expression 'to bite the dust' dates from the 1700's then there can be little doubt what 'Duster' meant at the time, and that the catamaran was given its name in the delightful expectation that it would soundly defeat everyone else in a race.

So here we have yet another multihull pioneer with the typical (arrogant?) attitude that his peculiar craft is going to show up all the more traditional boats and consign them to oblivion.

It's pretty funny to consider how I myself long harbored the same attitude, but over 100 years later!

lol

 

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Great stuff Blackburn! I'm amazed that this is the first time I've ever seen that boat or even heard of it! Looks like a small Amaryillis? And the guy's wearing a top hat!

 

Would you have him racing bare-headed? This sailor is most likely very ambitious and well-to-do. Of course he's going to finish with his hat on!

lol


I agree it is an amazing photo, all the more so since Amaryllis had only made headlines the year before!

It raises some questions:

Is this in fact a Herreshoff design, built on the East coast and shipped around Cape Horn, as had happened with several famous San Francisco racing boats?

Or is it a remarkably quickly-built smaller copying of Herreshoff's ideas?

Both scenarios suggest the owner has plenty of money - Herreshoff denied that he made plans available to people in his 1877 article in the New York Herald:

Wealthy yachtsmen in San Francisco (who gambled big money on raceboats) were a feature of the time. Either someone paid Herreshoff enough to get this 'Duster' prototype from him, or went ahead and built their own variant on Amaryllis? That's my speculation. Amaryllis was about 23ft and this boat looks closer to 16-18 ft.

I've found out that there is another photo of Duster from the same collection, it is not online but I'm going to apply to see if a copy can be made available. The photo in my post above was taken by William Letts Oliver (1844-1918) and is part of the 'Oliver family photograph collection', of which details are given on this page of the Online Archive of California.

 

...

Here's another question about that photo: How do we know it really was taken in 1877? Could it have been some time later?

There's a copy of it (flipped horizontally) on a website for the San Rafael High School Alumni Association. On that page the photo is described as "catamaran Duster off Sausalito, 1880's".

In a French article about catamaran history is the following paragraph, mentioning San Francisco:

 

The name doesn't look like Duster to me.
I also think the cat is longer than 16-18 feet, No?

 

Well that was my best guess as to the length, and when I compared it to photos of Amaryllis it is clearly smaller. I think it looks designed to be a one man boat, which Amaryllis was not. But the designs are so close that it has Capt. Nat written all over it.

I've set a request today to the curator of the Oliver Family Photograph Collection, and if they respond it could be very interesting to see what additional information that may give us.

The name 'Duster' comes from the catalogue of the archives, which includes W.L. Oliver's own notes, so I don't find that questionable.

 

No, not being critical at all, Blackburn, about your research and observations regarding your most interesting and fascinating find.
The name looks like Vaston? - but it could just as easily be Duster.
Amaryllis, I think, had a mast height around the same length as the hulls and Duster here, looks to have a rig around 21 feet (rough measuring off the skipper) - so maybe that is the length of the cat.
Agreed, has to be a Nat Herreshoff design - but the central board is not like the in-hull boards of John Gilpin and Amaryllis.
Here's the handwriting inverted.

 

Thanks for your exposure-adjustment of the handwriting (of the full image linked to in my first post above, for those new to the thread). Now it is clear that 'Catamaran' is the word to the left of 'Sausalito'.

The centerboard, and just as much the entire center hull of 'Duster', are very different compared to the 1876-78 designs of Herreshoff.

Where Amaryllis could be said to have more of a pod resting on top of the structure of the boat, Duster has full blown center hull, don't you think? I think that center hull looks pretty good - is it a big improvement on the pod? Again I wonder; Who built this contraption?

What is receiving the mast compression on Duster?

How is that centerboard casing reinforced and stiffened? Here's a detail closeup of the picture; look at the underside of the center hull where there are dark lines: is it some kind of bracing for the lower edge of the centerboard case?



While the Amaryllis pod didn't bear the load of the mast, the Duster center hull looks as if it does? What happens with that center hull when sailing to windward? It's resting on the crossbeams at the bow and stern, so it could be light, and strong, and stiff; all those wonderful things.

 

Duster

"Duster" is the most exciting historical revelation in this whole thread ,in my opinion-just fantastic. Blackburn thanks for finding it and trying to find out more.....

 

Looks to me as if the mast base support is actually a long keel of the central boat/platform - and that central boat/pod has reinforcing struts to stiffen the central board case - (but don't actually link with mast base?) also appears to be two struts running fore and aft, halfway out on the two sprung looking main beams with shrouds attached there too. What you think? Gets confusing. Need another photograph of this little beauty. No, am wrong; the shrouds are Veed to hulls.
Actually am wondering if this really is a Herreshoff because the differences are quite marked compared to John Gilpin, etc.

 

Duster

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I noticed the Hobie 16 hulls----well, same "type" maybe?

 

I am just gobsmacked, really, there is so much on this boat that is way ahead of it's time. What a revelation.
I do hope more info comes to light, simply amazing.
Ha, I wonder what Derek Kelsall would make of the central foil, and Hobie Alter the hulls and.............and the prodder lol what a gem !

 

I am wondering if the nacelle is an existing flatfish type craft suspended between the cat hulls ?