Anonymous wrote:
I know nothing about shunting, apart what I learned in your videos.
But I am amazed and full of admiration for your building skills and your production, and the way you keep it cheap and simple.
You live in a cold climat, do you imagine building a proximité with a cabin and very basic live-aboard possibility?
Also, any chance to see you shunting on the atlantic?
Happy U like Balkan Style Patrick, Thanks for understanding our main goal in boat design! many skip this, some like, some don't but most miss the point....
Proas are the 'Peoples Boat' meaning, these craft appeared in the pacific before any other Multyhull. They are the simplest, the cheapest and the easiest to build!
Even before money existed, everything had a cost, the rate was probably man hour for man hour... Or man day for man day, sunrise to sunset.
Cheap for them was less logs, less cutting less moving, man hours... Less ropes, less sail area, efficient, cheap and strong! These craft discovered the biggest country in the world, Polynesia, from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south. Catamarans and Trimarans came later...
Proas are Strong! These craft are all about tension, with their masts planted on the hull, a floating keel to windward, a single shroud connects it to the mast, and now you have the triangle of tension. As sail fills, shroud pulls Ama (small Canoe) up, Ama's weight goes up shroud and comes down mast onto the Vaka (big canoe). Nothing can break! Akas (cross beams, connecting hulls) can be simple bamboo, they only have to keep the two hulls apart.
On Catamarans all loads are compression loads, and these are huge. lifting a heavy hull to windward, and planting all that weight on the akas between the hulls is no joke!
The problem gets even bigger, since compression loads on bridge deck are actually double the hull weight, since mast is places between the hulls, meaning, the fulcrum is half boats width away. Meaning, as windward hull is pulled up by mast head, leeward hull is far away to lee, since it's half boat beam away, yet it is the fulcrum, windward hulls weight doubles in compression loads at mid ship.
So the big heavy windward hull of the Catamaran, has doubled it's weight in compression loads over bridge deck.
Shunters are special! Yet no one makes them! you can't buy them... The most amazing craft of all! The most misunderstood too, the forgotten ship that discovered the whole Pacific, a tension boat, the cheapest, strongest and fastest of all, made by the people, for the people......
Keep Shunting, Balkan Shipyards.
We aim to keep the tradition alive, to make Proas even simpler yet much safer! The Junk Rig added us more safety than any other Proa in the world! I'm grateful and proud to be part of this community....
Proas for cold weather? probably not... It is what it is, sorry.
A cabin I have, inside I can sleep, rest cook, 2 bunks... I even have a bucket, for a head....
The Atlantic, I hope to cross it! with this boat... But there's lots to do till then... Time will tell, may the Force B with us....
Balkan Shipyards