Hi All,
As Rob has announced Michele and I will no longer be involved with
Harryproa. Rob has resigned from the company and we will be changing
it's name to Marine Cad and Carbon Pty Ltd. We are handing Rob all
Harryproa design and drawing files, the enormous website and the
newsgroup contact list.
Thank you to all who have written to me privately with kind words, it
is good to
know there is a good level of understanding of the situation by those
who have been to close to Harryproa. It is with great sadness that I
leave Harryproas behind, having lived and breathed them for the last
five years dedicating countless hours to both designing and building.
Unfortunately, designing unusual and experimental boats doesn't make a
lot of money and with only twenty odd plans sold over five years I need
to move onto more marketable boats. The ever changing and experimental
nature of Harryproas also means that a full set of plans has never been
completed for any of the designs which has put a constant pressure to
do new drawings and write builder support emails in the evenings, time
I would rather be spending with my family.
I would like it known that I
have in no way lost faith in the accommodation to windward proa. I
believe this type of proa has great potential and will find it's niche
so wish Rob well in
this endeavor. I may even revisit the type some time in the future.
I am concerned that a paragraph of Rob's post below could be
misconstrued. I would like to point out that we have
handed over all the designs, drawings and website, in fact everything
we
have produced over the last five years, for no remuneration. Solitarry
hasn't been worked on since Rob's
funds ran out six months ago.
I wish you all well in future proa projects and hope to see your
stayless rig on the
horizon one day.
Best wishes and Regards,
Mark Stephens
mstephens@wirefree.
Rob Denney wrote:
G'day,
Mark and Michele have left harryproa. A more or less amicable split, neither of us liked the way the others were doing things, so decided it was time to move on. Mark is now designing and selling catamarans for Pacific Multihulls, I remain designing and selling harryproas. I wish them both well. Michele is removing their contact details from the web page and closing the bank account, but all enquiries from now on should be sent to me at harryproa@gmail.com .
The good news is that I am now free to pursue my main aim, which is to get harryproas sailing and work on further simplifying the build technique, where there is a lot happening. Anybody with incomplete plan sets should let me know and i will get the missing pages to you as soon as possible. I have almost completed the amateur built mast plans including a novel join so they can be reliably built in two pieces and the new beam mounted rudder plans are available for Elementarry. They will be available for the rest of the designs as soon as testing them on Blind Date is complete, hopefully early this northern summer.
The bad news is that Michele is not updating the web page any more and there is 8 months of progress to report. I am a bit busy getting everything sorted out, including an excting, very light and cheap to build 18m 4 cabin harry and a live aboard 20m version (which makes 6 harrys over 18m/60' currently under construction) so if anyone is interested in helping out with the web page, please let me know.
The other bad news is that with so much going on, I have not had time (or money, bust ups are expensive in both) to get Solitarry completed. The hulls and decks are sitting on the Gold Coast after the brand new, very expensive, slightly overloaded ;-) trailer fell apart on the way up from Coffs to Brisbane. Consequently, no Solo Transpac this year, but there is another one in 2010, so that is the new target, with launching as soon as possible. More on this as it happens.
As Dan mentioned, there is an article by Mark Giles in the latest Multihull World magazine on the launch and first sails of Blind Date. Gilesey was suitably impressed. A smoother ride than a cat, his seasick prone wife now wants one, very fast, serious contender in the cruising market, cheaper than a 10m cat, all the benefits from the web page, etc. There is also an article on Mark's first cat design and some interesting articles. Cost for overseas is $Aus20 including air postage from info@multihull.com.au or ph 61) 7 55938187. Easiest way to pay is by credit card.
regards,
Rob
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