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Spirit of Tradition Yachts Designed In Maine

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Das GunBoat: A Look At One Smart Carbon Cat.

and filed under Brokerage, Design, Marine Engineering

One of the early production Gunboat 55’s, VaiVai, is for sale. And our designer two-cents is, this cat is the steal of this glamorous, all-carbon multi-hull litter. VaiVai is one of what owners and brokers close to this fast-growing fleet estimate is about 20 Gunboats in various states of completion around the globe. These G-boats are mostly floating maids in waiting, as the assets of Gunboat International, VaiVai’s original maker, work their way through North Carolina Eastern Bankruptcy Court. For the record, major branding and tools were sold in May of 2016 to France-based Grand Large Yachting, which now claims management of the physical production […]

Photobombing the Vendee Globe.

and filed under Design, Marine Engineering

Might it be time for a Vendee Globe Cruiser’s class? All this time spent watching this latest Vendee Globe round-the-world race has got our Spirit of Tradition designer mind tingling: Might there be a way to channel the spirit of the original around-alone sailors of the Sunday Times Golden Globe race of 1969? If you recall, nine competitors started and only one finished, Robin Knox-Johnston. Could we update his original 32’ wooden double-ended ketch Suhaili with today’s highly-tuned racing machines? Let’s do a mini design brief for the Vendee Globe racers and find out. For the last few iterations, to better manage the risk and […]

Exposing Anna: Showing off 65 Feet of Truth and Beauty.

and filed under Construction, Design, Spirit of Tradition

With the holiday season upon us, we want to clue the world in on what we are thankful for: Family, friends, and the beautiful 65-foot Anna that is coming to life on the framing floor at Lyman-Morse Boatbuilding. Last week, we got a serious holiday treat. We stopped down to see how she was coming together, answer questions, and explain to the craftsman who actually build our boats what we were after. We took some pictures and some notes. And put them all together into a holiday designer’s photo album for Anna. What we hope — knock on cold-molded, hand-laid mahogany — will be […]

The Millennium Falcon Comes to Foggy.

and filed under Boat Nerd Tech, Marine Engineering

Not that long ago, in a boatshop not so far away, our former co-workers at Brooklin Boat Yard gave us a plumb gig: Engineer probably the single most complicated boarding system for probably the most unique sloop on the planet: the 74-foot, Frank Gehry/German Frers-designed Foggy II.  After a similar number of design hours that we’d put into the design of an average 40 footer — the Millennium Falcon was born. The Falcon, as we have come to call it, is the central fitting for the do-it-all, transom-mounted articulated boarding stair that could also reach out and dock with a dingy,  tender, or […]

Conrad Coleman sailing around the world unassisted and without diesel fuel.

Around the World, Unassisted, and Without Diesel Fuel.

and filed under Boat Nerd Tech, Marine Engineering

We are as rapt as any sailor with the 2016 Vendee Globe. Who can resist this most serious test of sailing ability? We’re glued to our smartphones and PCs, following the global match racing that every four years brings us bizarre and beautiful footage of the craziest, most daring, mostly French, solo sailors blasting around the globe, unassisted, in high-tech, insanely powerful machines. But we as boat designers have a deeper backstory to explore in this 2016 Vendee Globe. There’s a serious hybrid-engineering angle going on deep in the fleet. Foresight Natural Energy, skippered by 33 year-old Conrad Colman, is trying to lap of the […]

The Spirit of Tradition Calculator

and filed under Boat Nerd Tech, Holiday Post

If you’re into the kind of boats we do, you’re probably are into the kind of navigating we do: Global positioning and automatic chart plotters are great. But nothing beats working up a good old-fashioned dead reckoning. Sit down, break out the throw-back paper chart, estimate how far you’ve gone, at what speed, and in roughly what direction. And, after some basic calculations, you know where you probably are. But dead reckonings pose a strange 21st-century challenge: Doing the calculations reliably. In boats, traditional cheap electronic calculators can’t seem to stop dying from the moister and lack of use. Smartphone […]

Isobel: The 75-foot, 8-Inch Smile Machine.

and filed under Brokerage, Design, Spirit of Tradition

As a semi-regular feature, we thought we’d look back at some exciting boats from our past, talk about how they came to be, discuss why we love them so. And maybe, sometimes, help them find good new homes. Isobel is one of our favorites. She the fruit of a long relationship: the fourth boat we designed for the same client over 10-years.  As such, she is not just one boat. But evolution of several, with changes and refinement in tastes and style.   For the record the boats, in order are: Lena, a long-ended, light and skinny 47-foot daysailer; Goshawk, a […]

Top Ten Most Beautiful Classic Yachts.  

and filed under Design, Spirit of Tradition

The biggest. The fastest. The most expensive. That’s all child’s play when it comes to boating. Get the numbers. Put ’em in a table. And then it’s Excel’s job to do the rest. Depressingly, you’d be surprised how much of modern yacht design is ruled by those cruel, simple masters. Ever notice how many boats try merely to be really big, really fast and really pricey? It’s a lot. It’s too many. But beauty? Pure luxuriant pleasure that somehow emanates out of hulls and sails and engines? Oh boy, that’s trickier stuff. What makes that boat more beautiful than this […]

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