The Multihull

[MMNETSEA]

Apart from the Polynesians one of the greatest designers and proponents of the multi hull and monohulls was the American Nathanael Herreshoff, who began to build catamaran boats of his own design in 1877 (US Pat. No. 189,459), namely 'Amaryllis', which immediately showed her superior performance capabilities, at her maiden regatta (The Centennial Regatta held on June 22, 1876, off the New York Yacht Club's Staten Island station[1]). It was this same event, after being protested by the losers, where Catamarans, as a design, were barred from all the regular classes[1] and they remained barred until the 1970s.

It has taken a long Time !

More about Multi Hulls :-

24 YEARS BEFORE THE 1st OLYMPIC REGATTA

While multihulls are a very old branch of sailing, and Britain's Royal Society timed a 20-foot multihull at 17 knots in 1662(!), multihull racing in the modern era began on 23 June 1876 in New York.

The greatest of all boat designers, Nathaniel Herreshoff, brought his catamaran "Amaryllis" to the Centennial Regatta in New York. Never having seen a catamaran before, the other skippers merely scoffed at this oddity.

The race was two laps of a 10-mile triangle course off Coney Island, with thousands watching from the beach.

Here are excerpts from the actual mark by mark race report and editorial published in The World, June 24, 1876:

Race Report: A Yachting Wonder

Sudden Development of the Fastest Craft in the World

"The catamaran "Amaryllis", "constructed by Mr. Herreshoff, of Providence...fairly flew along the Long Island shore, passing yacht after yacht as if they were anchored.

As "Amaryllis" "dashed over the line a winner she was saluted by guns from the yachts that were lying at anchor, and the excursion steamers screeched their loudest in honor of her victory.

After the race was over, the captain of the Clara S. protested against the "Amaryllis", on the ground that she is neither a yacht nor a boat."

Editorial: A Revolutionary Yacht

"Nobody protested against entering her for the race yesterday, for the reason probably that everybody expected to beat her, but everybody seems to have objected to being beaten by her.

It behooves the owners of the large schooners, however, to take counsel together lest somebody should build an "Amaryllis" a hundred feet long and convert their crafts into useless lumber. It is a matter quite as important as keeping the America's Cup..."

BANNED

The owners did take counsel together and catamarans were banned from racing. And, the effect of the ban is shocking to consider.

L. Francis Herreshoff wrote:

"While AMARYLLIS won easily boat to boat, she was protested by several of the competitors and subsequently ruled out.

At that time, the papers called AMARYLLIS a life raft and several things, but created all at once an interest in catamarans.

However, their popularity was short lived, principally because they were barred from all the regular classes".

Catamaran racing would certainly have been a very active branch of sailing 1900 if there been no ban and Herreshoff had continued to focus his genius on the development of lightweight, high performance boats.

Instead, the early enthusiasm and market for catamarans was destroyed.

Nathaniel Herreshoff wrote, later in his life:

“There is no doubt the catamaran outclasses the ordinary craft as to speed, but it is deplorable the clubs did not recognize them and arrange for special classes.”

Multihull development and participation in racing did not begin to recover until the 1950s, when the Prout brothers first brought their Seawind catamarans to Cowes.

90 YEARS LATER

In July 1967, the International Yacht Racing Union held observation trials at the Catamaran Yacht Club, Sheppey, Great Britain for two of the four 'box rule' catamaran divisions.

To some degree, the trials are the culmination of interest that began building in 1955, when the Prout brothers' "Endeavour" was sailed at Cowes with HRH Prince Philip aboard.

In the A Class, Graham Johnston's "Australis" won 3 of 7 races to beat out the Prout-designed "Bambi". The Australis Association was formed shortly afterwards, but it progressed slowly and lost it's International status in 1973.

Instead it was the open, dynamic, innovative A-Catamaran box rule boats that succeeded. And, these boats have long defined the pinnacle of all single-handed International class sailing.

In the B Class, Rodney March's "Tornado" displayed overwhelming superiority in all conditions. It became the first double-handed International multihull class; and 40 years later, it remains the highest performance production B Class catamaran.

100 YEARS LATER

100 years after "Amaryllis" changed the reality of racing sailboats; and 76 years after Sailing became an Olympic sport, the first multihull event was included in the 1976 Olympic Regatta.

In 1976 and at each Olympic Regatta since Kingston, the multihull event has been the highest performance event in the Olympics.

It is also the event that has evolved the most. The Tornado is still the most modern, highest performance equipment used in the Olympic Regatta.

100th ANNIVERSARY OF ISAF

In November 2007, ISAF celebrated its 100th Anniversary and the inauguration of the Sailing Hall of Fame.

Four of the six inductees have great achievements in multihulls: Paul ELVSTRÖM, Sir Robin KNOX-JOHNSTON, Dame Ellen MACARTHUR, and Éric TABARLY.

Yet less than a week later, ISAF decided to remove the multihull event from the slate of events for the 2012 Olympic Regatta.

AN INDEPENDENT CRITIQUE

Famed sailor and yacht designer Garry Hoyt once wrote in Sailing World:

"On the face of it one might reasonably assume that better speed is a natural goal for racing sailors and that progress in that direction would therefore be warmly embraced by the racing sector.

Dead wrong. The first reaction of the racing sailors was to ban "Amaryllis" for her high crime of better speed… banning is always a popular reflex to unwelcome progress.

Perhaps to cover the inherent illogic of their position, to the ban they added social scorn, false rumor, and the discredit of risk, to create the totally unfair image under which multihulls have labored ever since.”

Garry Hoyt's observations still hold true, and the performance benchmarks set by the Tornado have not been warmly embraced; nor has there been any serious effort to increase the number of multihull events at the Olympics.

[imagine2frolic]

Lack of knowledge sometimes scares people. I am of Hawaiian blood, and it seems naturaul to me to have more than one hull. I can only imagine the word going around on deck when a sailing canoe passed Captain Cook while approaching Hawaii.

Having sailed my cat for nearly 10,000 miles. I know it has limits, but they are few. I have learned to respect those limits, and enjoys it's pluses. Every boat is a compromise, and a multi is included. Saying that I would never go back to a mono unless I was going to high latitudes.

[Tabs]

For a cruising forum, the above history of multihulls seems rather racing orientated! What about the cruising multi pioneers, such as Arthur Piver, James Wharram etc, Eric de Bisschop's pioneering voyage from the pacific to France in the thirties, or the first multihull circumnavigation by David Lewis in Rehu Moana back in the sixties? More recently the smallest cat to circumnavigate: Rory Mcdougal in 21' Cookie?

Alongside the attention grabbing racing multihulls, designers such as Pat Patterson with the Heavenly Twins, Rod Macalpine-Downie with Iroquios, The Prout brothers, Bill O'Brien etc produced hundreds of cats that safely sailed the world, often with family crews, relatively un-noticed, while the racers chalked up their spectacular successesand failures!

[MMNETSEA]

Hello Tabs,



That particular post was really reflecting one part of the early history of the Multihulls. True, all the designers you mention - the Brits in particular, certainly provided the ground work and the impetus for the Cruising catamarans one sees today.

As with most technologies the designers and the construction materials changed in terms of geography and content over time. The latter day designers in the forefront to be found in France and in the Southern Hemisphere with the materials being developed in the US.

Perhaps, an analogy to the development of today's safer passenger vehicles can be attributed to the design an development of racing cars - the same may also be the case for what we find in the modern Cruising catamaran which is capable of much higher average speeds, points better, is more comfortable, has higher bridge deck clearance, factors that were enhanced by the development of racing multihulls - not to exclude those multihulls that regularly break records traversing the southern oceans.

Tabs, welcome again - always happy to have another multihuller on board - Have a look at this link to one of our topics Cats in rally Also this one for the last ARC rally where we see an extract of multihulls participating - ARC Rally

Richard

[Silver Raven]

MMNETSEA Gooday all - especially Richard & all. Silverraven here. Sure enjoyed your article. Didn't know there were many who would even know about Herreshoff's Amaryllis. I read about it when I was 7 & am now 70 & still in love with multihulls both racing & cruising. These are rather abstract terms though. Spent most of my life building yachts, racing, cruising & enjoying the great oceans we have on the planet. Am about to embark in the re-building of a 'Tennant - GBE' just out of Darwin & hope to enter the 2011 Darwin to Ambon. At only 70 - I'm not done yet. My idea of 'cruising' is to go rather quick as most all sailing is something like - The faster & more comfortable one sails the more fun & enjoyment one really has. Might have put athis in the wrong place but I hope it gets through & not to many get upset by my error. Ciao, james PS I'd sure like to go 'cruising ' on Nokia. It would make the 'getting-there' a tad quick & allow for more time to enjoy the destinations.

[MMNETSEA]

Originally Posted by Silverraven' date='05 August 2010 - 08:52 AM

MMNETSEA Gooday all - especially Richard & all. Silverraven here. Sure enjoyed your article. Didn't know there were many who would even know about Herreshoff's Amaryllis. I read about it when I was 7 & am now 70 & still in love with multihulls both racing & cruising. These are rather abstract terms though. Spent most of my life building yachts, racing, cruising & enjoying the great oceans we have on the planet. Am about to embark in the re-building of a 'Tennant - GBE' just out of Darwin & hope to enter the 2011 Darwin to Ambon. At only 70 - I'm not done yet. My idea of 'cruising' is to go rather quick as most all sailing is something like - The faster & more comfortable one sails the more fun & enjoyment one really has. Might have put athis in the wrong place but I hope it gets through & not to many get upset by my error. Ciao, james PS I'd sure like to go 'cruising ' on Nokia. It would make the 'getting-there' a tad quick & allow for more time to enjoy the destinations.

Hello Silverraven, Welcome !!!!

Very interested in your Tennant GBE - I spent some time with Malcom Tennant in Whangarai NZ when I was looking for a designer- later his daggerboard design were incorporated in a boat I had built in Brisbane (designed by Robin Chamberlin) I see that there are 2 separate rallies from Darwin, one to Ambon and a longer one to Bali.

Richard

[Silver Raven]

Originally Posted by MMNETSEA' date='06 August 2010 - 03:13 PM

Hello Silverraven, Welcome !!!!

Very interested in your Tennant GBE - I spent some time with Malcom Tennant in Whangarai NZ when I was looking for a designer- later his daggerboard design were incorporated in a boat I had built in Brisbane (designed by Robin Chamberlin) I see that there are 2 separate rallies from Darwin, one to Ambon and a longer one to Bali.

Richard

Gooday MMNETSEA & to y'all. Tnx for the reply Richard. Thank-goodness I can sail a boat cause I sure have difficulty navigating this computer - we'll blame 'older-age' please.

Re: 'ZORRO' - Sure hope he didn't buy that cat. I feel there are much better boats available, younger & with much less to be spent on them for his safety & for a far better price than the 1 he was looking at. "Let the buyer be ware" The same for 'AVONBUSSE' - the 'tall-people' - there surely is the boat they are looking for some where out there. Wish them all a lot-of-luck. "Repent at leisure" so don't hurry to throw their money away as it's hard to 'get-rid-of' the wrong boat when they find the 'right' one.

Re: Malcom - I am sure I read (maybe in the Tennant Design site) that he fell off a ladder & subsequently died some 18 months ago. I seem to remember that David Barker (also of NZ) & Malcom & I were discussing multihull designs. You may care to look-up 'Sundancer' & 'Sundreamer' both still in NZ. I have great respect for David's ideas & overall sailing design criteria that have proved to work so well since 1967 in Sydney.

Re; GBE. Plan is to go to Darwin Sept/Aug to start project. Lengthen by 5 to 7', ( light, stiff & strong enough to hang rudders off & 'keep empty'), widen to 17', cant hulls by 7 to 9*, larger, stiffer, curved beams(installed to get 'great' stiffness), main-beam 5' farther aft, new c/b's & rudders (c/b's to be 'tacking' @ 6 to 10*). Some years ago Bob Miller & others built many 'working model' c/b's & rudders with some moderate success (thus the birth of the 'wing-keel') which I seem to favour but hope to talk to Martin Fisher & David Barker before I start as it's very important to the overall performance & enjoyment of sailing the boat. New rig (wing section) & sails & gear along the lines of the new F18's (see AHPC C2 site) c/w extendable center mounted spinnaker pole (for a Code 0) for 'very light' airs only as 'dead in the water' for hrs & days is not conducive to 'enjoyable' cruising. Add some kind of 'anti-cancer' cover for sailing in the tropics c/w minimum wind-age so I won't die before my time & 'OFF-I'll-go' !! Darwin to Ambon 'race' is on the cards, then cruise through Indonesia & maybe a short trip to New Caledonia to talk to Martin Fischer. All that will be much cheaper than my 'dream' (& one must keep their dreams alive - at all cost) of a 12 to 16 mtr multihull (weighing 3500 ks dry) for fast cruising - - the faster/safer & more comfortable one sails - proportionally - the more the enjoyment & bigger the grin (on the inside as well). A new 'Barker design' looks like costing some A$ 450 to $550/sq mtr & at 600 sq mtrs is a tad by 1/2 outside my current budget. Heck & that's just the boat. Then there's the 'times 5' factor of getting it into top sailing nick. WOW. Champers taste on 'boiled water' income, DARN. Sure hope I don't get to much negative 'flack' from sending this to you.All my very best from "Pililani property" in FNQ. Enjoyable sailing & fine winds to all. Ciao from down-under, james PS - Richard I couldn't seem to get the 'site-system' to accept my 'Silver-Raven' pen name which is our family crest from Scotland, 1457 or so. I'll just keep it as it is until the boat is launched, jj