Samoan-American Terisa Siagatonu has brought her stunning poem Layers to Paris to connect racism, social justice and climate change. She is part of the Spoken Word for the World crew.
LAYERS - Spoken Word for the World
Samoan-American Terisa Siagatonu has brought her stunning poem Layers to Paris to connect racism, social justice and climate change. She is part of the Spoken Word for the World crew.
Russian Bombers Again Circle Guam
Moscow’s latest nuclear saber rattling follows buzzing of USS Reagan
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Russian Tu-95 bomber / AP
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Russian bombers circled the U.S. military hub on the Pacific island of Guam last week in the latest case of Moscow’s nuclear saber rattling.
“On Nov. 25th, two Russian bomber aircraft circumvented Guam, transiting international airspace,” said Army Maj. Dave Eastburn, a Pacific Command spokesman.
The latest bomber flights around the island were the fourth time in the past three years that Russian bombers circumnavigated Guam.
Earlier incursions took place on Dec. 13 and Nov. 12, 2014, and Feb. 12, 2013. During the 2013 incident, U.S. F-15 jets were scrambled to intercept the bombers.
Eastburn declined to specify the exact type of bombers involved in the circumnavigation and sought to play down the incident, noting that the flights “in no way” violated U.S. airspace around the island.
Other officials said the bombers were Tu-95 Bear H nuclear-capable bombers.
One defense official said Japanese jet fighters intercepted the bombers during an earlier stage of the Guam overflight.
Brian McKeon, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, told a House hearing Wednesday that Moscow is building up its military forces and engaging in nuclear saber rattling, including threats to use nuclear weapons.
“Moscow’s nuclear weapons saber rattling has raised questions about Russia’s commitment to strategic stability,” McKeon said.
He added that “reckless” statements about using nuclear arms “cause us to wonder whether Russia continues to respect the profound caution that world leaders in the nuclear age have shown with regard to the brandishing of nuclear weapons or nuclear-inspired rhetoric.”
In response to Russian provocations, the Pentagon is developing new unmanned systems, a new long-range bomber, a new long-range stand-off cruise missile, and a number of innovative technologies, McKeon said in testimony to a joint hearing of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees.
The pre-Thanksgiving Day flights by the Bear bombers come amid an increasing number of provocative Russian bomber activities in Asia, near U.S. coasts, and over Europe.
On Oct. 27, two Tu-142 Bear F maritime reconnaissance aircraft, a variant of the Bear H, flew within one mile of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in the Sea of Japan.
During the Reagan incident, four Navy F/A-18 jets were dispatched to escort the Bear bombers that were flying at an altitude of 500 feet.
The bomber incursions are part of stepped-up Russian attempts at nuclear intimidation of the United States that have included increased bomber flights near U.S. coasts and in at least one case a simulated nuclear cruise missile attack, according to defense officials.
On July 4, two Bear bombers came within 40 miles of the California coast in what U.S. officials said was an incident timed to the Fourth of July holiday. One of the Russians radioed “happy birthday” to an intercepting U.S. jet during that encounter.
Tu-95s are known to carry Russia’s new long-range Kh-55SM cruise missiles, which can be armed with either nuclear or conventional warheads and have a range of up to 1,800 miles.
The command said in a statement no U.S. jets were dispatched to intercept the Russian bombers since the aircraft were flying in international airspace.
The aircraft were identified by other defense officials as Bear H strategic bombers.
Russia conducted its operations around Guam in the past with Tu-95 long-range bombers,
“We do not typically discuss the type of aircraft in these situations, but what we can confirm is that the aircraft were flying safely in international airspace and in accordance with international norms,” the command statement said. “As such, the decision was made not to intercept them.”
The 36-mile-long island is home to Andersen Air Force Base, that regularly hosts deployments of B-52 bombers and temporary deployments of B-2 stealth bombers and F-22 advanced jet fighters. The Global Hawk long-range drone is also based on Guam.
The island also hosts a major Navy base where four attack submarines are deployed.
Guam is located some 3,800 miles west of Hawaii and will become the new home for 5,000 U.S. troops being relocated from Japan over the next seven years.
It is considered America’s most significant military outpost in Asia and a key element of the Obama administration’s shift of forces toward Asia.
Russia has announced that it too will be seeking to conduct a pivot to Asia by building up its forces in the Pacific. Russian military forces in the Pacific have declined sharply since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and are being built up under President Vladimir Putin.
Analysts say the Russians are also seeking to gain control over the resource-rich Arctic region from bases in the Pacific.
Russia announced this week that it is building 400 new military facilities on two Russian-controlled islands claimed by Japan, as part of a strategy to build up forces in the region, Japan’s NHK reported.
Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R., Va.), chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on sea power, said that Putin “seems intent on recreating Cold War-era tension between Washington and Moscow, right down to the same antiquated Bear bomber patrols.”
“Whether it is fomenting unrest in Eastern Europe, complicating efforts to resolve Syria’s brutal civil war, or supporting rogue regimes around the world, Russia has recently opted to play a destabilizing role in world affairs,” Forbes said. “Futile provocations only serve to deepen Russia’s growing isolation from the rest of the international community with no appreciable gain.”
Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon strategic arms policymaker at the National Center for Public Policy, said the latest flights suggest that Moscow views the United States and NATO as its main enemies.
“This has been made even clearer in their recent doctrinal publications concerning their military and naval doctrine,” said Schneider.
“They also believe that Russian clout is enhanced by direct and indirect nuclear threats,” he said. “Flying nuclear capable bombers into air defense identification zones is one of their standard nuclear threats.”
According to Schneider, Russia announced years ago that Guam is a key target of bomber flights and several years ago in in the context of a bomber flight around Guam, Russia announced that heavy bombers would now take on the mission of attacking aircraft carriers.
A B-52 bomber from Guam recently flew over the disputed South China Sea, where China is aggressively claiming 90 percent of the strategic waterway as its maritime territory.
Eastburn, the Pacom spokesman, said of the bomber flight that “international airspace belongs to everyone and is not the dominion of any single nation.”
“The United States matches our words and our diplomacy with operations like this one conducted by Russia,” he said. “The rights, freedoms, and uses of the sea, air, space, and cyberspace guaranteed to all nations in international law are essential to prosperity, stability, and security in the Indo-Asia-Pacific and we encourage all nations to exercise within the parameters of those laws.”
Navy and Air Force facilities on Guam will be getting a multimillion dollar upgrade in the coming months.
Steven Wolborsky, director of plans, program, and readiness at Andersen told Stars and Stripes last month that Guam’s two 11,000-foot runways were rebuilt in the past decade and that the base can handle more than 155 aircraft. Some 19 million pounds of explosives are stored on the base.
Six B-52s are deployed continuously for six-month periods, while jet fighters are rotated every four months. Five Global Hawks are based at Andersen.
[http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russian-bombers-again-circle-guam/]
Self-Determination Becomes a Hot Topic at UOG Conference
- Thursday, 26 Nov 2015 03:00am
- BY JASMINE STOLE | POST NEWS STAFF
The University of Guam’s Master of Public Administration program cordoned off two hours for the Guam constitution discussion on the second day of its Western Pacific Conference on Public Administration and Policy Solution but it was not enough. Organizers extended the forum another hour to allow questions and comments from attendees.
Former Gov. Carl Gutierrez and former Sen. Marilyn Manibusan were tapped to lead the roundtable but attendees including former Sen. Hope Cristobal, Guam Election Commissioner Kin Perez and current Sens. Jim Espaldon and Frank Blas who expressed their views too.
Chamorro people
Cristobal spoke earnestly and said the decision must be made by the Chamorro people.
Cristobal said Guam has been very generous in the past but when the right of self-determination is going to be discussed, the Chamorro people have to be at the center of the discussion.
“We are talking about the Chamorro people’s right of self-determination, a human right, a political right, a legal right that is internationally recognized,” Cristobal said. “We need to establish status – it becomes the foundation from which we will build this frame, our house.”
She said drafting a constitution is the prerogative solely of the Chamorro people. “There’s something to be said about drafting our own house rules, ourselves, where no one tells us what to put in there and what not to put in there,” she said.
Manibusan questioned why make the choice to draft a constitution and send it to the federal government and ask for approval. “Why do we need your approval? Isn’t it supposed to be our law of the land,” she said. “If we’re going to get ourselves to be true self-governing, we have to decolonize. How can you say you are self-governing and be a colony?”
Gutierrez said there should be more of a push from local government officials for progress on self-determination. He suggested bringing together Chamorros with institutional knowledge on the matter and have them meet regularly and have them meet with officials in Washington, D.C. “We have to do something,” Gutierrez said. “Get one brand new commission together of people who really want to be part of it and have one voice going out to the United States or the United Nations.”
People’s decision
Espaldon said that while he agreed a constitution would provide answers that the Organic Act cannot, the decision of self-determination is not necessarily one the legislature has to make but is one the people have to make.
“It’s not an easy topic to address,” he said. “To come up with what is a solution is not for us to say right now. ... And there’s still a lot of questions and there are some differences of opinion in terms of how to approach this and what to do.”
Blas said the island is at a crossroads, with the upcoming military buildup and the impending expiration date of the financial portion of the Compacts of Free Association.
The discussion has to continue, Perez said. He urged the young adults and youths at the forum to learn the history of the battle for self-determination and continue the conversation. He even suggested conducting self-determination forums on a monthly basis. “You have to learn what we know and light the fire,” he said. “It has to go on.”
Cristobal also said that the discussion on decolonization is not new. “The reason why we’re discussing political status in Guam is because of the historical denial of the right to self-determination to the Chamorro people,” she said. “It’s because the Chamorro people have been denied their dignity.”
Gutierrez concluded the session, urging participants to look toward taking action. “Today I think we are learning more from each other and hopefully something will come out of this,” Gutierrez said. “University of Guam, don’t stop now. I think it’s time to petition to the powers that be to do something in a more innovative way, put a group together that has some kind of viability to take this thing and make it work.”
[http://www.mvguam.com/local/news/43231-self-determination-becomes-a-hot-topic-at-uog-conference.html#.VlzTInYrKkk]
America’s Founding Myths
This Thanksgiving, it’s worth remembering that the narrative we
hear about America’s founding is wrong. The country was built on
genocide.
Under the crust of that portion of Earth called the United States of America — “from California . . . to the Gulf Stream waters” — are interred the bones, villages, fields, and sacred objects of American Indians. They cry out for their stories to be heard through their descendants who carry the memories of how the country was founded and how it came to be as it is today.
It should not have happened that the great civilizations of the Western Hemisphere, the very evidence of the Western Hemisphere, were wantonly destroyed, the gradual progress of humanity interrupted and set upon a path of greed and destruction. Choices were made that forged that path toward destruction of life itself — the moment in which we now live and die as our planet shrivels, overheated. To learn and know this history is both a necessity and a responsibility to the ancestors and descendants of all parties.
US policies and actions related to indigenous peoples, though often termed “racist” or “discriminatory,” are rarely depicted as what they are: classic cases of imperialism and a particular form of colonialism — settler colonialism. As anthropologist Patrick Wolfe writes, “The question of genocide is never far from discussions of settler colonialism. Land is life — or, at least, land is necessary for life.”
The history of the United States is a history of settler colonialism — the founding of a state based on the ideology of white supremacy, the widespread practice of African slavery, and a policy of genocide and land theft. Those who seek history with an upbeat ending, a history of redemption and reconciliation, may look around and observe that such a conclusion is not visible, not even in utopian dreams of a better society.
That narrative is wrong or deficient, not in its facts, dates, or details but rather in its essence. Inherent in the myth we’ve been taught is an embrace of settler colonialism and genocide. The myth persists, not for a lack of free speech or poverty of information but rather for an absence of motivation to ask questions that challenge the core of the scripted narrative of the origin story.
Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” celebrates that the land belongs to everyone, reflecting the unconscious manifest destiny we live with. But the extension of the United States from sea to shining sea was the intention and design of the country’s founders.
“Free” land was the magnet that attracted European settlers. Many were slave owners who desired limitless land for lucrative cash crops. After the war for independence but before the US Constitution, the Continental Congress produced the Northwest Ordinance. This was the first law of the incipient republic, revealing the motive for those desiring independence. It was the blueprint for gobbling up the British-protected Indian Territory (“Ohio Country”) on the other side of the Appalachians and Alleghenies. Britain had made settlement there illegal with the Proclamation of 1763.
In 1801, President Jefferson aptly described the new settler-state’s intentions for horizontal and vertical continental expansion, stating, “However our present interests may restrain us within our own limits, it is impossible not to look forward to distant times, when our rapid multiplication will expand itself beyond those limits and cover the whole northern, if not the southern continent, with a people speaking the same language, governed in similar form by similar laws.”
Origin narratives form the vital core of a people’s unifying identity and of the values that guide them. In the United States, the founding and development of the Anglo-American settler-state involves a narrative about Puritan settlers who had a covenant with God to take the land. That part of the origin story is supported and reinforced by the Columbus myth and the “Doctrine of Discovery.”
The Columbus myth suggests that from US independence onward, colonial settlers saw themselves as part of a world system of colonization. “Columbia,” the poetic, Latinate name used in reference to the United States from its founding throughout the nineteenth century, was based on the name of Christopher Columbus.
The “Land of Columbus” was — and still is — represented by the image of a woman in sculptures and paintings, by institutions such as Columbia University, and by countless place names, including that of the national capital, the District of Columbia. The 1798 hymn “Hail, Columbia” was the early national anthem and is now used whenever the vice president of the United States makes a public appearance, and Columbus Day is still a federal holiday despite Columbus never having set foot on any territory ever claimed by the United States.
To say that the United States is a colonialist settler-state is not to make an accusation but rather to face historical reality. But indigenous nations, through resistance, have survived and bear witness to this history. The fundamental problem is the absence of the colonial framework.
Settler colonialism, as an institution or system, requires violence or the threat of violence to attain its goals. People do not hand over their land, resources, children, and futures without a fight, and that fight is met with violence. In employing the force necessary to accomplish its expansionist goals, a colonizing regime institutionalizes violence. The notion that settler-indigenous conflict is an inevitable product of cultural differences and misunderstandings, or that violence was committed equally by the colonized and the colonizer, blurs the nature of the historical processes. Euro-American colonialism had from its beginnings a genocidal tendency.
The term “genocide” was coined following the Shoah, or Holocaust, and its prohibition was enshrined in the United Nations convention adopted in 1948: the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The convention is not retroactive but is applicable to US-indigenous relations since 1988, when the US Senate ratified it. The terms of the genocide convention are also useful tools for historical analysis of the effects of colonial- ism in any era. In the convention, any one of five acts is considered genocide if “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”:
- killing members of the group;
- causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
- calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Settler colonialism is inherently genocidal in terms of the genocide convention. In the case of the British North American colonies and the United States, not only extermination and removal were practiced but also the disappearing of the prior existence of indigenous peoples — and this continues to be perpetuated in local histories.
Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) historian Jean O’Brien names this practice of writing Indians out of existence “firsting and lasting.” All over the continent, local histories, monuments, and signage narrate the story of first settlement: the founder(s), the first school, first dwelling, first everything, as if there had never been occupants who thrived in those places before Euro-Americans. On the other hand, the national narrative tells of “last” Indians or last tribes, such as “the last of the Mohicans,” “Ishi, the last Indian,” and End of the Trail, as a famous sculpture by James Earle Fraser is titled.
From the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River and south to the Gulf of Mexico lay one of the most fertile agricultural belts in the world, crisscrossed with great rivers. Naturally watered, teeming with plant and animal life, temperate in climate, the region was home to multiple agricultural nations. In the twelfth century, the Mississippi Valley region was marked by one enormous city-state, Cahokia, and several large ones built of earthen, stepped pyramids, much like those in Mexico. Cahokia supported a population of tens of thousands, larger than that of London during the same period.
Other architectural monuments were sculpted in the shape of gigantic birds, lizards, bears, alligators, and even a 1,330-foot-long serpent. These feats of monumental construction testify to the levels of civic and social organization. Called “mound builders” by European settlers, the people of this civilization had dispersed before the European invasion, but their influence had spread throughout the eastern half of the North American continent through cultural influence and trade.
What European colonizers found in the southeastern region of the continent were nations of villages with economies based on agriculture and corn the mainstay. This was the territory of the nations of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw and the Muskogee Creek and Seminole, along with the Natchez Nation in the western part, the Mississippi Valley region.
To the north, a remarkable federal state structure, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy — often referred to as the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy — was made up of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk Nations and, from early in the nineteenth century, the Tuscaroras. This system incorporated six widely dispersed and unique nations of thousands of agricultural villages and hunting grounds from the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River to the Atlantic, and as far south as the Carolinas and inland to Pennsylvania.
The Haudenosaunee peoples avoided centralized power by means of a clan-village system of democracy based on collective stewardship of the land. Corn, the staple crop, was stored in granaries and distributed equitably in this matrilineal society by the clan mothers, the oldest women from every extended family. Many other nations flourished in the Great Lakes region where now the US-Canada border cuts through their realms. Among them, the Anishinaabe Nation (called by others Ojibwe and Chippewa) was the largest.
In the beginning, Anglo settlers organized irregular units to brutally attack and destroy unarmed indigenous women, children, and old people using unlimited violence in unrelenting attacks. During nearly two centuries of British colonization, generations of settlers, mostly farmers, gained experience as “Indian fighters” outside any organized military institution.
Anglo-French conflict may appear to have been the dominant factor of European colonization in North America during the eighteenth century, but while large regular armies fought over geopolitical goals in Europe, Anglo settlers in North America waged deadly irregular warfare against the indigenous communities.
The chief characteristic of irregular warfare is that of the extreme violence against civilians, in this case the tendency to seek the utter annihilation of the indigenous population. “In cases where a rough balance of power existed,” observes historian John Greniew, “and the Indians even appeared dominant — as was the situation in virtually every frontier war until the first decade of the nineteenth century — [settler] Americans were quick to turn to extravagant violence… Indeed, only after seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Americans made the first way of war a key to being a white American could later generations of ‘Indian haters,’ men like Andrew Jackson, turn the Indian wars into race wars.”
By then, the indigenous peoples’ villages, farmlands, towns, and entire nations formed the only barrier to the settlers’ total freedom to acquire land and wealth. Settler colonialists again chose their own means of conquest. Such fighters are often viewed as courageous heroes, but killing the unarmed women, children, and old people and burning homes and fields involved neither courage nor sacrifice.
US history, as well as inherited indigenous trauma, cannot be understood without dealing with the genocide that the United States committed against indigenous peoples. From the colonial period through the founding of the United States and continuing in the twenty-first century, this has entailed torture, terror, sexual abuse, massacres, systematic military occupations, removals of indigenous peoples from their ancestral territories, and removals of indigenous children to military-like boarding schools.
Once in the hands of settlers, the land itself was no longer sacred, as it had been for the indigenous. Rather, it was private property, a commodity to be acquired and sold. Later, when Anglo-Americans had occupied the continent and urbanized much of it, this quest for land and the sanctity of private property were reduced to a lot with a house on it, and “the land” came to mean the country, the flag, the military, as in “the land of the free” of the national anthem, or Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.”
Those who died fighting in foreign wars were said to have sacrificed their lives to protect “this land” that the old settlers had spilled blood to acquire. The blood spilled was largely indigenous.
Adapted from An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, out now from Beacon Press.
[https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/11/americas-founding-myths/]
romanticizing warriorhood
whenever we wounded any of those people with a shaft which entered their body, they looked at it and then marvelously drew it out, and died so forthwith.
antonio pigafetta, 1521
pigafetta, ferdinand magellan's recorder of events,
says that my ancestors "marvelously" drew shafts
out of their bodies wow
says that my ancestors "marvelously" drew shafts
out of their bodies wow
i then began to marvel at our warriorhood
at our encounters at our spears
at our encounters at our spears
the kind of spears my ancestors used
the kind I wanted to use
the kind my friend used
the kind I wanted to use
the kind my friend used
she showed me one
sketched on a paper pad
showed the sharp tip
the slim shaft
and said, "see, that's what we used"
sketched on a paper pad
showed the sharp tip
the slim shaft
and said, "see, that's what we used"
quiet thinking marvelled
i then shaped my
spear like my friend's
own
the spear is made of
ifet umbre nai, a solid
red wood
old decorated as benches, clocks and other things
around our homes everywhere, really
old decorated as benches, clocks and other things
around our homes everywhere, really
so i drive to a jungle in guam,
the island magellan
stumbled upon lost at sea: what he they you call "discovery"
the island magellan
stumbled upon lost at sea: what he they you call "discovery"
entering the jungle
i ask permission
from the spirits
i ask permission
from the spirits
with my machete
chopping away
i find an ifet tree
chopping away
i find an ifet tree
cut a piece
carrying the wood
to my truck
carrying the wood
to my truck
drive away
returning to the house
the outside kitchen, actually
returning to the house
the outside kitchen, actually
i begin shaping the wood
smoothing out splinters
cracks and chips
smoothing out splinters
cracks and chips
initially, the spear looks
like a baseball bat
which was part of my intention
like a baseball bat
which was part of my intention
i wanted something to play
with something to
hurt with
something to cut and trim
and sand and think
about how my spear will turn out
something to cut and trim
and sand and think
about how my spear will turn out
i want jagged edges on the sides
easy now one by one i don't want to cut myself
"looking" at the spear,
i know it's mine
easy now one by one i don't want to cut myself
"looking" at the spear,
i know it's mine
i also carve into the grains
the genealogies of
familian capili and pakito: what she us i call: "indigeneity"
the genealogies of
familian capili and pakito: what she us i call: "indigeneity"
raising the
spear breathing pausing
high above my head lowering quickly
high above my head lowering quickly
thrusting piercing my
abdomen
dazed i am in pain
it hurts you hear
me? it fuckin
hurts
i then "marvelously"
expunge the spear
from my body
expunge the spear
from my body
guts spill
intestines fumbling
through my hands
i then fall to my knees
gurgling coughing spitting
intestines fumbling
through my hands
i then fall to my knees
gurgling coughing spitting
looking
above me
stands antonio pigafetta
writing something
stands antonio pigafetta
writing something
his eyes filled with excitement
as if he were a modern-day
anthropologist
historian
maybe even journalist
as if he were a modern-day
anthropologist
historian
maybe even journalist
his hands move
faster than mine
they are quick
like his companions' hands
which pick and pick and pick at my entrails
faster than mine
they are quick
like his companions' hands
which pick and pick and pick at my entrails
i blink for the first time
falling to my side
falling to my side
slowly oh sooo
slowly
so I can view
the spaniards
become
the cannibals
they are
so I can view
the spaniards
become
the cannibals
they are
now i can barely open my eyes
glancing up
and noticing cl ou ds c a l m l y mo vi n g ac ros s
t he sky a nd in be tw een p a l m le aves
t he sky a nd in be tw een p a l m le aves
i blink again
and witness pigafetta
walking away
walking away
he has seen enough
i laugh
laughing hard you
hear me? fuckin
hard
because my relatives
and friends are also laying
on their sides
and friends are also laying
on their sides
withdrawing spears
from themselves
while drawing
these events
into their minds
from themselves
while drawing
these events
into their minds
and so we laugh
still laughing
still laughing
because we never "died so forthwith"
not then
not
now
not
ever
................................................................................
Keith L. Camacho is an assistant professor in the Asian American
Studies Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. He
researches issues concerning the sovereignty and survival of
Indigenous peoples in the Pacific Islands.
Copyright © 2010 University of Nebraska Press
A Skiff & Entrails
"The First Voyage Round the World / Pigafetta's Account of Magellan's Voyage"
Anthony Pigapheta, Patrician of Vicenza, and Knight of
Rhodes, to the very illustrious and very excellent
Lord Philip de Villiers Lisleaden, the famous
Grand Master of Rhodes, his most
respected Lord.[1]
"After having navigated sixty leagues[113]
by the said course, in twelve degrees latitude, and a hundred and
forty-six of longitude, on Wednesday, the 6th of March, we discovered a
small island in the north-west direction,[114]and
two others lying to the south-west. One of these islands was larger and
higher than the other two. The captain-general wished to touch at the
largest of these three islands to get refreshments of provisions; but it
was not possible because the people of these islands entered into the
ships and robbed us, in such a way that it was impossible to preserve
oneself from them. Whilst we were striking and lowering the sails to go
ashore, they stole away with much address and diligence the small boat
called the skiff, which was made fast to the poop of the captain's ship,
at which he was much irritated, and went on shore with forty armed men,
burned forty or fifty houses, with several small boats, and killed
seven men of the island; they recovered their skiff. After this we set
sail suddenly, following the same course. Before we went ashore some of
our sick men begged us that if we killed man or woman, that we should
bring them their entrails, as they would see themselves suddenly cured. CHAPTER
It must be known that when we wounded any of this kind of people with our arrows, which entered inside their bodies, they looked at the arrow, and then drew it forth with much astonishment, and immediately afterwards they died.[115] Immediately after we sailed from that island, following our course, and those people seeing that we were going away followed us for n league, with a hundred small boats, or more, and they approached our ships, showing to us fish, and feigning to give it to us. But they threw stones at us, and then ran away, and in their flight they passed with their little boats between the boat which is towed at the poop and the ship going under full sail; but they did this so quickly, and with such skill that it was a wonder. And we saw some of these women, who cried out and tore their hair, and I believe[116] that it was for the love of those whom we had killed.
CHAPTERThese people live in liberty and according to their will, for they have no lord or superior; they go quite naked, and some of them wear beards, and have their hair down to the waist. They wear small hats, after the fashion of the Albanians; these hats are made of palm leaves. The people are as tall as us, and well made: they adore nothing, and when they are born they are white, later they become brown, and have their teeth black and red. The women also go naked, except that they cover their nature with a thin bark, pliable like paper, which grows between the tree and the bark of the palm. They are beautiful and delicate, and whiter than the men, and have their hair loose and flowing, very black and long, down to the earth. They do not go to work in the fields, nor stir from their houses, making cloth and baskets of palm leaves. Their provisions are certain fruits named Cochi, Battate; there are birds, figs a palm long,[117] sweet canes, and flying fish. The women anoint their bodies and their hair with oil of cocho and giongioli (sesame). Their houses are constructed of wood, covered with planks, with fig leaves, which are two ells in length: they have only one floor: their rooms and beds are furnished with mats,[118] which we call matting,[119] which are made of palm leaves, and are very beautiful, and they lie down on palm straw, which is soft and fine.
These people have no arms, but use sticks,[120] which have a fish bone at the end. They are poor, but ingenious, and great thieves, and for the sake of that we called these three islands the Ladrone Islands. The pastime of the men and the women of this place, and their diversion, is to go with their little boats to catch those fish which fly, with hooks made of fish bones. The pattern of their small boats is painted here-after, they are like the fuseleres,[121]but narrower. Some of them black and white, and others red. On the opposite side to the sail, they have a large piece of wood, pointed above, with poles across, which are in the water, in order to go more securely under sail: their sails are of palm leaves, sewed together, and of the shape of a lateen sail, fore and aft. They have certain shovels like hearth shovels,[122] and there is no difference between the poop and the prow in these boats, and they are like dolphins bounding from wave to wave. These thieves thought, according to the signs they made, that there were no other men in the world besides them."
[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_First_Voyage_Round_the_World/Pigafetta's_Account_of_Magellan's_Voyage]
BALLOU'S PICTORIAL DRAWING-ROOM COMPANION, 1856
FLYING PROAS OF THE LADRONE ISLANDS.
To the mariner accustomed to European rigs, a fleet of these queer craft hurrying along shore affords a singular spectacle.
All the navigators who made known to us the existence of groups of islands in the Pacific, the Indian and other oceans, accompanied their narratives with descriptions of the canoes or other kinds of boats in use among the natives; and means are thus afforded for observing the various ways in which ingenuity is brought to bear on such matters.
Whether each nation or tribe made its own discoveries, and applied its own inventive skill, or whether one borrowed ideas from another and modified them according to circumstances, can now hardly be known; but it is probable that both causes led to the production of the object in view.
The proa we have delineated is used among the Ladrones and other eastern islands. In the account of Anson’s voyage, this proa is spoken of with marked commendation, "Whether we consider its aptitude to the particular navigation of these islands, or the uncommon simplicity and ingenuity of its fabric and contrivance, or the extraordinary velocity with which it moves, we shall find it worthy of our admiration, and meriting a place among the mechanical productions of the most civilized nations."
The proa seems to be constructed on a principle the very reverse of American vessels; for, while we make the head of the vessel different from the stern, and the two sides alike, the proa has the head and stern alike, but the two sides different.
There is one side of the vessel which is intended always to be kept to leeward, and this is flat, whereas the other side is rounded.
To prevent her oversetting, which is liable to happen from her narrowness of beam, and the straitness of her leeward side, there is a frame extending from her to windward, to the end of which is fastened a log, shaped like a small boat, and made hollow, The weight of the frame is intended to balance the proa, and the small boat, by its buoyancy, prevents the oversetting.
The body of the proa is made of two pieces joined endwise, and sewed together with bark -- there being no iron used about her; it is always about two inches thick at the bottom, and about one at the gunwale, the proa generally carries six or seven men, two of them placed in the head and stern to steer the vessel alternately with a paddle, according to the direction in which it is going; the other men being employed in baling out the water which she accidentally ships, or in setting and trimming the sail. The peculiar construction of these vessels arises out of the sort of navigation for which they are intended.
The Ladrones are a string of islands lying nearly north and south of each other, and the proas have scarcely to follow any other points of the compass than these two in maintaining intercourse between one island and another. Either end of the vessel may at pleasure make the head, and thus, by simply shifting the sail, it may go to and fro without ever "putting about" or turning round.
By the flatness of their lee side and small breadth, they are able to be much nearer the wind than other vessels, They have been known to progress, when a brisk tradewind was with them, at the rate of twenty miles an hour, and their amazing swiftness has earned for them the name of "flying proas."
[http://robroy.dyndns.info/boats/proa.html]
The Evolution of Sailing Multihulls, part one, by François Chevalier
French naval architect François Chevalier presents the evolution of
sailing multihulls in this first part of a larger and upcoming series.
Jacques Taglang & François Chevalier's original stories are here, here and here.
All content is courtesy of the author, I simply took the liberty of
producing this translation which was subsequently published in the
Journal of the Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology.
This series will be an opportunity for us to present a history of multihull design, showcasing some of their curious features, not all of them successful, and delving into the inventive mind of the speed-crazed mariner. We shall discuss the origins of the type in antiquity, the major evolutions of the 19th and 20th century, all the way to the 2013 America's Cup.
Origins
In parallel to our analyses of the drag-racing machines built for the
34th America's Cup, it is interesting to pursue their history. Their
origins lie in the Oceania pirogue: These catamarans, trimarans and
proas were already described as "flying objects" by Antonio Pigafetta,
who, serving as Magellan's assistant during the World's first
circumnavigation, was the first to describe these boats in 1521.
To understand the geographical distribution of these craft and how
their design evolved, I have plotted the island-hopping movements of the
Pacific peoples on the chart below, from Madagascar to the furthest
reaches of the Pacific ocean:
The migrations were carried out in consecutive waves over a period in excess of 50,000 years.
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The migrations were carried out in consecutive waves over a period in excess of 50,000 years.
The first wave saw settlers in Indonesia, New Guinea and Australia
during the last Ice Age: Indeed, between 50,000 and 35,000 BC, a 150
metre drop of the sea level enabled the Sunda and Sahul peoples to
progress towards the East and South (in green on the chart).
In 4,000 BC, other peoples came by way of the Taïwan Sea and
intermingled with established populations. From 1,600 BC, this
population scattered throughout Micronesia (the Marianas Islands,
Marshall Islands, etc…) and later in Melanesia; In 1,000 they reached
western Polynesia including Fidji, Tonga, Samoa (in blue on the chart).
Five centuries would pass before Polynesians would resume their
migrations, spreading to Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands. From these
archipelagos, a new migratory wave started: Settlers are believed to
have reached Hawaii and Easter Island circa 400 AD. Meanwhile,
migrations in the Indian Ocean reach Madagascar and surrounding lands
around the year 600. Finally, settlers landed on New Zealand around the
year 700 (in orange on the chart)
As the explorers of the "Old World" first ventured into the Pacific,
they were immediately baffled by the speed of the craft that they
encountered there. They were even more surprised to realise that the
same craft had been used to reach these distant islands at the far
reaches of the largest ocean.
If Pifagetta's account of the Ladrones island (modern-day Marianas)
is an entertaining read, his description of the proa did not elaborate
much. Thomas Cavendish also travelled there and was impressed by the
number of these craft. In 1616 Jacob Le Maire gave a picturesque
description of the catamarans that he came across in the Tonga Islands.
In 1686, William Dampier measured their speed, assessing that these
craft "are the fastest in the World, setting 18 knot averages over
hundreds of miles".
When William Funnell sailed about the Pacific islands in 1705, he
sketched a fanciful "flying proa", whilst Woodes Rogers disassembled one
and put her on display six years later in Saint James Park in London.
The first actual plan (featured above), though full of inaccuracies, was
drafted by Piercy Brett in 1742 whilst serving on George Anson's voyage
around the World. It appears that it was exceptionally difficult for
Europeans to understand how these sailing craft operate. François-Edmond
Pâris' works were the first to cover the subject in depth when they
were published in 1839; followed by those of James Hornell (1936) and
Jean Neyret (between 1959 and 1976).
Here we shall discuss six types of pirogues that best describe the
rich, versatile and inventive minds of these seafaring peoples.
The Marianas proa
The first of the craft to be discovered were the proa of the Islas Ladrones (nowaday Marianas), a thousand miles off New Guinea.
The Marianas proa
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The first of the craft to be discovered were the proa of the Islas Ladrones (nowaday Marianas), a thousand miles off New Guinea.
This model is chosen from a drawing by Piercy Brett, twelve metres
in length, featuring a dugout hull with two lateral boards and with two
symmetrical bows on either end: It is a double-ender. The boat was sewn
over with a watertight fabric (a skin) that covers the lateral boards
and the bows. The mast was maintained upright by a strut stepped where
the longitudinal stringers meet on the windward outrigger. A shroud
fastened in the same place also stayed the mast. The outrigger was held
in position by a vertical peg bound to each crossbeam by a lashing.
During tacks (or conversely gybes), the sail was moved from forward to
aft by swivelling the mast, and the paddle on the opposite bow would
then serve as the rudder. The hull could be made of several parts and
overlaid lateral planks. According to navigational needs, they sometimes
placed a board over the crossbeams; in other cases a leeward outrigger
was added, enabling the use of a much wider boarded platform. The
asymmetric hull and outrigger gave the craft remarkable upwind
performance, and George Anson wrote that these pirogues "are able to
close the wind better than any other known vessel", an astounding
observation given that the design of these boats were 3,000 years old!
The Bismarck & Louisiade proas
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The diversity of the rigs found on sailboats in the Bismarck and the Louisiade Archipelagos, illustrated above and below with two large proas, indicates strong influence from Indonesia.
These sails can also be found on ancient sculptures on Java. Without bringing up any controversy on the original inventor of the rigid wingsail, these particular ones were made of braided leaves, herego rather stiff. The whole sail could swivel around its fastenings at the top of the masts, creating optimal lift depending on strength and incidence of the wind.
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These proas typically measured 10 to 15 metres in length, but larger ones between 18 and 25 metres were also built, serving mainly for long passages or for ceremonial use. The masts were held in position by rounded buttresses and by forestays fastened on the windward outrigger. The Louisiade "Lia-No", with a distinctive elliptical sail, featured flaring and clinker-built topsides that greatly reduced deckwash. The semi-circular sections of the hull were also a perfect example of wetted surface reduction.
The Fidji catamaran
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Following the long string of islands in the eastward prolongation of New Guinea, settlers finally found Fidji.
The catamaran of the Fidji islands was an assembly of two pirogues. If disassembled, they could each be fitted with an outrigger. Each hull was made of one or more dugout tree trunks, depending on the length of the craft (between 12 and 24 meters), with a freeboard increased by overlaying elements on the topsides, all neatly adjusted and sewn up. The two parallel hulls were positioned in a Quincunx, with one slightly ahead of the other. The bows were vertical like modern multihulls. On large catamarans, the space between hulls was covered with decking. The craft was steered by two leeward paddles, one per hull. The triangular sailing rig was set on the leeward hull, with the windward hull used as an outrigger. To tack, the sail was stowed on the topyard, the rake in the mast was decreased as the rig was carried over to the other hull.
The Tonga catamaran
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The catamarans from the Tonga islands have been widely illustrated by the first explorers, particularly Willem Schouten, Abel Tasman and James Cook. Daniel Lescallier reproduced their plans in his Traité pratique du gréement des vaisseaux, but a few details were missed out.
The Tonga island catamarans were of large size, between 15 and 25 meters in length, able to carry up to 150 passengers. A small dugout was usually kept aboard and used as a tender. They were used to sail to destinations in Melanesia and Micronesia. The platform was placed atop vertical boards and stayed supports. Each hull would be decked and feature a long hatch giving access to the bilges to scoop out shipped water whilst in rough seas or at high sailing speeds. Typically, the boat featured a semi-circular hut with a cooking stove near the mast foot. The mast was rather short, with a jawed masthead that carried the topyard. The mast was held in position by two lateral deck spreaders, similarly to wingmasts on modernday Open 60s. For short beats to windward, the sail came naturally against the mast, similarly to lateen sails on "the wrong tack", but for long tacks, the mast would be swivelled vertically in order to pass the sail over from one side to the other. The two paddles were always positioned to leeward.
The Zanzibar trimaran
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Finally, the last example of these antique craft is a trimaran that was prevalent along the African coast, the Comoro Islands and Madagascar.
This particular trimaran was drawn in Zanzibar in the early 20th century, and a few of her kind are still afloat to this day. If the loose-footed sail is an Arab trait, the actual design of the craft is of Indonesian influence. The bottom of the two outriggers on either side were flat and faced outwards, similarly to waterskis or hydrofoils. The sail was set on a short mast, in the centreline of the craft, and changed tacks on every beating leg. Measuring 7 to 9 metres in length, these machines could sail at similar speeds to modern multihulls.
All these "light vessels", as described by our forebears, would ship a lot of water and at any oone tilme, at least one crew member would be tasked with scooping the water out, whether it be during fishing or on a open sea passage. But if there was a compromise, it was all for speed.
Herreshoff era catamarans
If the catamaran, trimaran or proa instances of the pirogue were born
several thousand years ago in Oceania, the first modern catamaran of
western design was built in England for Sir William Petty in 1662, at a
time when the word "yacht" was a very new word. And it would take a
yachtbuilder to make the greatest leap in multihull design after that.
The World's first multihull with a racing designation was Nathanael
Greene Herreshoff's. He explained his thinking in the New York Herald on April 16th, 1877:
[…] In the fall of 1875 I was thinking and thinking how to get great speed out of single hulled boats, of the kind in common use. To get great speed, thought I, one must have great power, one must have a great sail, you must have something to hold it up, and that something must be large and wide, and have a large sectional surface, and also a great deal of frictional surface. These properties in a hull to give stability are not compatible with attaining great speed. Indeed, the more one tries to make a stiff, able hull the less speed will be attained, even if corresponding additions are made to the sail. So then, there are two important principles of speed which constantly work against each other. If we increase the power to get more speed we must increase the stability of the hull correspondingly. An increased hull has more resistance, both from sectional area and surface friction. So what we would gain one way we must lose in the other. Well, a boat must have width, and the wider she is, generally speaking, the more stable she will be. But a wide boat cannot have great speed, however much power you will apply to her. So the next thing that is to be done is to decrease the sectional area and, in a measure, retain stability; the boat would have power to lift at a distance each side of the keel, where it would do great work. I kept on following this principle, getting the keel higher and higher, until by and by the keel came out of the water, when, lo and behold! there was the double boat! Nothing else to be done but take a saw and split her in two, spread it apart a little way, and cover all with a deck, and there you are! That was the rough road which I travelled, and having arrived thus far I abandoned my ill-shaped hulls, and in their place substituted them with two long, narrow, very light boats and connected them at the bow, stern and middle. […]
Even as Mr. Herreshoff was reinventing the catamaran, it is surprising that the type was not a firmly established concept - The testimonies of explorers in previous centuries had unanimously described the craft's performance - but was merely the result of a reflection on the optimization of performance in monohulls.
Herreshoff's thinking
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Starting with the monohull in (1), Mr. Herreshoff increased the beam to increase stiffness (2); As the beam was further increased the keel was raised and the maximum draught was offset from the centreline to either side (3) until the keel was completely out of the water. It could have been simpler to split the boat along the centreline and spreading them apart (5), but evidently Mr. Herreshoff eventually proposed two narrow hulls (6).
On June 24th, 1876, the day after the Centennial Regatta, The World printed:
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.
The World also printed an editorial on page 4, excerpt:
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.
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.
The Centennial regatta and the little catamaran aberration would have seemed very distantly related to the traditional America's Cup schooners of very large size, but the reporter spelled out a glaring premonition: the future of regattas, and indeed, the America's Cup itself, were put into question on the day that the very first American catamaran set sail. Eventually, the America's Cup was defended with a catamaran, Dennis Conner''s Star & Strioes in 1988.
John Gilpin (Nathanael Herreshoff)
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The lines and sailplan of the John Gilpin (1877) were first published in 1870-1887 American and British Yacht Designs (François Chevalier & Jacques Taglang, 1991). The drawings emphasise the elaborate and subtle design of Herreshoff catamarans. Besides the two narrow hulls, the complex assembly with spherical joints and tensioners made the yacht an expensive purchase.
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Catamaran
Designer: Nathanael Greene Herreshoff
Builder: Herreshoff Manufacturing Company
Introduced: 1877 (four built)
Length: 9.75m
Load Waterline Length: 9.37m
Beam:5.28m
Draught: 0.50m / 1.26m
Displacement: 1.5T
Upwind sail area: 85sqm
It is interesting to delve into the designer's thinking, and to stop at step (4), where the centreline keel was effectively raised above water: Mr. Herreshoff's "ill-shaped hulls". In 1898, twenty-three years after the launch of the Amaryllis, Canadian designer George Herrick Duggan sought to reduce the wetted surface of his one-tonner to defend the Royal St. Lawrence Yacht Club's tenure of the Seawanhaka Cup. The rating rule only took into account the load waterline length. With their extremely long overhangs, powered up yachts would heel and in effect increase their sailing waterline length. To benefit from this, the deck would look increasingly rectangular from overhead.
In Dominion Duggan created a double-hull by raising the centreline keel; With a wetted surface reduced by 30%, he easily defenced the cup! Facing the pressure of angry contenders however, the Seawanhaka rating rule was amended to ban double hulls in subsequent races, by requiring the maximum draft of sections to lie on the centreline of the yacht. This however did not prevent another naval architect known for bold designs, Bowdoin B. Crowninshield, to exploit this loophole and engineer the trimaran Hades in 1902 for the Quincy Cup, though incidentally she would prove fruitless in the face of competition given by Starling Burgess' defence candidate Outlook, one of history's most extreme scows.
Though catamarans threatened to change the course of yachting history both in 1876 and in 1898, to no avail, they failed to convert yacht clubs as rating rules were amended to prevent them.
One-tonner Dominion (George Herrick Duggan)
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Dominion is a development of the scow, measuring 10.85m overall and only 5.28m on the waterline. By raising the centreline keel above the water so as to increase stiffness and reduce wetted surface, the designer created a catamaran.
Dominion
One-tonner (Seawanhaka Cup)
Designer: George Herrick Duggan
Launched: 1898
length: 10.83m
Load Waterline Length: 5.28m
Beam: 2.31m
Draught: 0.28m / 1.70m
Upwind sail area: 45sqm
Hades (Boudoin Bradlee Crowninshield)
Hades, measuring 16.75m overall and 6.40m on the waterline, is a pseudo-trimaran, the vaka or centreline keel only present to exploit a loophole in the rating rule which requires maximum draught of the sections to lie on the centreline of the yacht. The plateform is so thin that it needs a supporting tensile structure above decks.
One-tonner (Seawanhaka Cup)
Designer: George Herrick Duggan
Launched: 1898
length: 10.83m
Load Waterline Length: 5.28m
Beam: 2.31m
Draught: 0.28m / 1.70m
Upwind sail area: 45sqm
Hades (Boudoin Bradlee Crowninshield)
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Hades, measuring 16.75m overall and 6.40m on the waterline, is a pseudo-trimaran, the vaka or centreline keel only present to exploit a loophole in the rating rule which requires maximum draught of the sections to lie on the centreline of the yacht. The plateform is so thin that it needs a supporting tensile structure above decks.
Hades
Hybrid catamaran (Quincy Cup)
Designer: B. B. Crowninshield
Launched: 1902
Length: 16.75m
Length overall: 22.40m
Load Waterline Length: 6.40m
Beam: 5.18m
Draught: 0.36m / 2.5m
Upwind sail area: 185sqm
Hybrid catamaran (Quincy Cup)
Designer: B. B. Crowninshield
Launched: 1902
Length: 16.75m
Length overall: 22.40m
Load Waterline Length: 6.40m
Beam: 5.18m
Draught: 0.36m / 2.5m
Upwind sail area: 185sqm
If multihulls did not achieve a popular success in the 19th century, they were never actually abandoned. Every edition of the American Register of Yachts listed in excess of ten cruising or racing catamarans.
The Sailing Machine (Lewis Francis Herreshoff)
In Lewis Francis Herreshoff's (1890-1972) book The Common Sense of Yacht Design (published 1948), he denounced the controversy endured in 1876 by his father Nathanael Herreshoff, which created a void in the development of fast sailing yachts. In his chapter titled The Sailing Machine, which assesses the future of yachting, he proposed several catamarans, including the above, with two hulls borrowed from power yachts, and two swivelling and rotating wingsails set on a quadripod rig.
The Sailing Machine (Lewis Francis Herreshoff)
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In Lewis Francis Herreshoff's (1890-1972) book The Common Sense of Yacht Design (published 1948), he denounced the controversy endured in 1876 by his father Nathanael Herreshoff, which created a void in the development of fast sailing yachts. In his chapter titled The Sailing Machine, which assesses the future of yachting, he proposed several catamarans, including the above, with two hulls borrowed from power yachts, and two swivelling and rotating wingsails set on a quadripod rig.
The Sailing Machine, which L. Francis Herreshoff proposed in 1948, demonstrated that besides the designer's great drafting talent, capable of turning out plans of utmost precision, he also had a very creative imagination: He would give proof of this with his next catamaran, Sailski.
The Sailing Machine
Wingsail ketch catamaran
Designer: Lewis Francis Herreshoff
Proposed: 1948
Length: 9.15m
Load Waterline Length: 8.85m
Beam: 5.35m
Draught: 0.67 / 1.15m
Upwind sail area: 44sqm
Sailski (Lewis Francis Herreshoff)
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By designing the more prosaic catamaran Sailski L. Francis Herreshoff proposed many new ideas which became commonplace forty years later. The plans for the Sailski were published in The Rudder magazine between May 1949 and February 1950, and three were built between 1952 and 1966. The Sailski's asymmetric hulls served as lateral lift and her tripod rig reduced the load of the mast on the crossbeams, all of which were aerodynamically faired. She was the first catamaran to feature a trampoline but the crew did not likely somersault like on modern-day AC45s!
L. Francis Herreshoff met the demands of The Rudder readership who wanted a version of the Sailing Machine catamaran that would be cheap, lightweight, fast and easy to build. The Sailski measured 27 feet in length and announced the development of beach catamarans.
Sailski
Catamaran
Builder: amateurs
Designer: Lewis Francis Herreshoff
First built: 1952
Length overall: 8.23 m
Load Waterline Length: 7,33m
Beam: 4.71m
Draught: 0.20m / 0.93m
Upwind sail area: 23sqm
Catamaran
Builder: amateurs
Designer: Lewis Francis Herreshoff
First built: 1952
Length overall: 8.23 m
Load Waterline Length: 7,33m
Beam: 4.71m
Draught: 0.20m / 0.93m
Upwind sail area: 23sqm
Beach cats
After discussing the origins of multihulls with the pirogues in Oceania and with 19th/early 20th century racing multihulls, let us delve into the post war catamarans. Out of hundreds of beach catamarans developed in this period, with some built in a few numbers locally and with others seeing worldwide success, we shall shortlist only a few here. While the history of catamarans has already been told by others, the idea here is to relate the evolution of hull shape through a couple of models which have characterized production.Yvonne
It may be surprising that Nathanael Herreshoff never mentioned Oceania pirogues, but in Australia, dinghy builders Charles Cunningham and his son Lindsay, then an engineering student, were fascinated by these early Pacific multihulls. In 1952 they built a prototype which, two years later, they developed into a 20ft (6.09m) catamaran, christened Yvonne after Charles' younger sister. In 1956 Charles & Lindsay won the first national championships in the class, which is still raced actively to this day.
Designed for amateur building, with a V deadrise, almost flat aft, and with a distinctive bow overhang, the Yvonne is particularly at ease in a seaway. The class established itself very fast, despite strong competition and new production models developed by her designers, and was always adapted to innovations, offering a double trapeze and a spinnaker in 1960.
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Yvonne
Catamaran
Designers: Charles & Lindsay Cunningham
Introduced: 1954
Length Over All: 6.09m
Load Waterline Length: 4.66m
Beam: 2.73m
Hull beam: 0.45m
Draught: 1m / 0.18m
Air draught: 7.83m
Weight: 236kg
Mainsail area: 12.8sqm
Jib area: 4.8sqm
Asymmetric spinnaker area: 23sqm
Build: marine plywood or GRP
Patin a Vela
The Patin a Vela was born during the 1920s near Barcelona. It all started from a paddleboat on which one would have stepped a mast and set a sail, without adding a rudder or a centerboard. After the Second World War, a class was eventually created to normalise all the different types that had developed in Catalogna. There is nothing more convenient than a simple boat that can go as soon as the sail is set!
By moving from forward to aft, the crew changes the centre of drift and the boat heads up or bears away. For tacking, the crewhand positions oneself at the foot of the mast and rolls the boat on her forward sections.
Initially designed for the warm climes of the Mediterranean Sea, the Patin a Vela eventually achieved a worldwide appeal.
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Patin a Vela
Catamaran
Introduced: 1943
Length of Hull: 5,60m
Load Waterline Length: 5.06m
Hull waterline beam: 0.25m
Beam: 1.60m
Draught: 0.32m
Air draught: 7m
Weight: 110kg
Mainsail area: 11.70sqm
Build: marine plywood or GRP
Shearwater
Brothers Roland & Frank Prout were first known as British canoe champions and also as olympians. Later, they started building double hulled boats by assembling kayaks with bamboo canes, before creating the Shearwater catamaran in 1954 with which they won the Burnham dinghy regatta. In 1956, they developed the Shearwater III and won the Cross Channel dinghy race.
The sleek bows and lifting aftersections made this boat prone to negative pitch angle, but the elliptical shape of the sections eased her movements somewhat, all the while keeping a large reserve buoyancy.
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Shearwater
Catamaran
Designers: Roland & Francis Prout
Introduced: 1954
Length of Hull: 5,06m
Load Waterline Length: 4.85m
Hull waterline beam: 0.36m
Beam: 2.25m
Draught: 0.15m/0.84m
Air draught: 7.14m
Weight: 140kg
Jib area: 4.22sqm
Mainsail area: 10.34sqm
Upwind sail area: 10.56sqm
Build: moulded wood or marine plywood
Exocet
In France, Lucien Gomez is known as the godfather of sport multihulls. In 1957 he designed and built the Exocet, a larger and loftier catamaran than the Shearwater. Her lines were more full-bodied, she also featured deflectors on each bow that reduced spray and pitch-poling. A lenticular floater on the masthead prevented the Exocet from turning turtle during capsizes.
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Exocet
Catamaran
Designer: Lucien Gourmez
Builder: La Prairie (France, 1961)
Introduced: 1956
Length of Hull: 5.13m
Load Waterline Length: 4.87m
Beam: 2.35m
Hull beam: 0.58m
Draught: 0.13m/0.75m
Air draught: 7.82m
Weight: 140kg
Upwind sail area: 17sqm
Build: GRP
Shark
In 1959, Rod Macalpine-Downie (1934-1986) took commission of his first catamaran, christened Thai III, which outclassed the Shearwater. In 1962, the Thai Mk.IV won all six regattas in the European one-of-a-kind regatta. In the same year, his C-Class Hellcat won the first Little America's Cup at Sea Cliff, NY. Thereafter he endeavoured to promote the Shark catamaran, designed by his business partner Dick Gibbs, throughout the USA, earning a lot of silverware, including the One-of-a-kind regatta in Miami in 1963.
The Shark, a folding boat, was a fast and safe catamaran that earned a resounding success. Gibbs & Macalpine-Downie furthered their business with another 80 different designs with a career production in excess of 150,000 boats. Macalpine's final model, the third version of the Crossbow, was created as a record breaking craft with a design speed of 60 knots.
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Shark
Folding catamaran
Designers: Rod MacAlpine-Downie & Richard Gibbs
Introduced: 1962
Length Overall: 6.09m
Load Waterline Length: 5.43m
Beam: 3.05m
Hull beam: 0.54m
Draught: 0.76 / 0.16m
Air draught: 9.34m
Weight: 136kg
Upwind sail area: 25.5sqm
Build: moulded wood
Tornado
In 1967, the International Yacht Racing Union introduced the B-Class International championships (crew of two, 20ft LOA, 10ft beam, 21.8sqm of sail). Reginald White & Bob Fisher won the first edition on a Tornado, designed in the previous year by Rodney March. This boat became an olympic class in 1976 at the Montreal Games, and was used at every summer Olympics until the 2008 Games. The Tornado is the only B-class that achieved such success, and is widely considered to be the fastest production catamaran of the 20th century.
As an olymic class, the Tornado evolved naturally and over time underwent several technological developments. Famous olympic medallists include Swede Goran Marstrom (1 bronze medal), Brazilian Lars Grael (Torben Grael's brother, with 2 bronze medals), Frenchman Nicolas Hénard (2 gold medals with a different crew), Austrians Roman Hagara & Hans Peter Steinacher (two gold medals); Australians Darren Bundock, Mitch Booth and Glenn Ashby all won olympic medals too and now actively sail in the AC45 World Series.
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Tornado
Catamaran
Designer: Rodney March
Introduced: 1966
Olympic class: 1973-2008
Length Overall: 6,09m
Load Waterline Length: 5,70m
Beam: 3,05m
Hull beam: 0,42m
Air draught: 0.80m / 0.16m
Air draught: 9.66m
Weight: 153kg
Mainsail area: 17sqm
Jib area: 7sqm
Spinnaker area: 25sqm
Build: moulded wood or GRP
Skate 14
The Skate 14 is an old project that I had kept in the drawer. The Patin a vela had appealed to me when I was studying architecture at the Beaux Arts de Paris. I imagined my own take of the same concept, with shorter length and more elaborate asymmetric lines, but keeping in scope with the original, with minimal deck fittings, the boat would also ne easy and fast to step the rig and set sail. The idea was to create sufficient volume when heeling to compensate for the shortened hull, while maintaining lateral lift on the after sections.
I completed a hull mould and tried to persuade an uncle who managed a shipyard building GRP Vauriens and Caravelles in Southern Brittany, but he resented innovation, so I take the opportunity of writing this story to modernise the rig of this small Patin a Vela.
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Catamaran
Designer: François Chevalier
Introduced: 1969
Hull length: 4.30m
Load Waterline Length: 4.05m
Hull waterline beam: 0.16m
Beam: 1.80m
Draught: 0.25m
Airdraught: 6.55m
Weight: 80kg
Mainsail area: 7.66sqm / 8sqm
Build: GRP
Hobie Cat 16
At 21 years of age, Hobart "Hobie" Alter opened his surfboard shop at Dana Point, CA. Two years later, in 1956, he developed a method to shape polyurethane foam core and became a reference for surfboards. In 1968, he introduced the Hobie 14, which featured asymmetric hulls with a distinctive banana sheerline and trampoline set on a raised anodised aluminium frame. The first Hobie was a foam core and GRP sandwich build with retracting rudders and no daggerboards. In the following year, the Hobie 16 was developed and a distribution network was established throughout the American territory. In 1972, the Hobie Cat became the World's bestselling catamaran.
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Hobie Cat 16
Catamaran
Designer: Hobart Alter
Builder: Hobie Cat Europe
Introduced: 1969
Length overall: 5.04m
Load Waterline Length: 4.10m
Hull waterline beam: 0.22m
Beam: 2.41m
Draught: 0.25m
Air draught: 8.45m
Weight: 145kg
Mainsail area: 13.12sqm
Jib area: 4.38sqm
Upwind sail area: 17.5sqm
Build: GRP
Dart 18
In 1969, Ian Fraser & Kim Stephens became partners to build GRP Tornadoes under the Panthercraft trademark. In 1973, after a successful commercial and racing debut, they commissioned yacht designer Rodney March to design a new double-handed catamaran for series production, hoping for a similar success to the Laser. With the help of Terry Pearce & Keith Musto, they worked out a first prototype of the Dart 18 which was introduced at the Paris boatshow in January 1976. Two years later, 70 boats were entered in the European championships at Carnac in Southern Brittany.
Designed for a mixed crew, or singlehanded crew with only the mainsail, and without daggerboards, the Dart was designed as a performance compromise that is easy to handle, easy to rig and easy to trailer.
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Dart 18
Catamaran
Designer: Rodney March
Introduced: 1973
Length overall: 5.48m
Load Waterline Length: 5.01m
Hull waterline beam: 0.26m
Beam: 2.30m
Hull beam: 0.35m
Draught: 0.25m
Air draught: 8.56m
Weight: 130kg
Mainsail area: 12.92sqm
Jib area: 3.16sqm
Upwind sail area: 16.08sqm
Build: GRP
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