The folding method in the video works for long, skinny rocker less hulls. The design process is pretty simple as it is mostly straight lines. This also makes it easy to lay out the panels. It is no good for a boat which is comparatively heavy or tacks, which requires the extra work on the KSS system. We have found that skinny round bilge hulls are more difficult to fit bulkheads, bearings etc in so have moved to flat bottomed hulls unfused in simple mdf moulds. This method could be used for a cat.
Thanks guys for the responses, and I've been chewing on what was said.
What is really cool is I got my two of my favorite designers together on my post!
So when they speak, I gotta listen and absorb .....
I'm really new to proas, and I'm NOT a boat designer so it's all a learning process!
As for the width, I'll be making the hulls folding, somehow.
I'm still leaning towards my center platform system but other ideas have been suggested for me to still reconsider, everything is a compromise so I just have to figure out what features are most important and on the down side just what can I live with.
I have a whole pile of old Multihulls magazines from 20 years ago that I'm going back over and it seems like most of everything has been already tried to some extent, some things catching on and others left and forgotten, for awhile anyway until someone else drags it back into the light of day. All good stuff! Ran across an issue with lots of proas in it. Nov/Dec'97, and read about Rob's "U". Years of development done by various builders/designers so it's all something to take notice of.
So back to the bows ....... (and hull shape) .......
whatever it is it still needs to be built so it has to conform to the building techniques that I'll use.
In another of my recent threads I was talking about the KSS system and it seems now others on different threads have also caught interest in the subject. Maybe because of the two KSS workshops? Anyway, I'm trying to learn more about it, doing my homework so to speak before the class (if I can get to it). What I had not seen in any KSS info was what Rob did in his video, and that was building the entire hull in one flat go, then bending it in half to create the hull, then adding the deck. For some reason I really like that idea but it sounds tough in designing? Before that, and the KSS stuff I've recently re introduced myself to I was thinking about stripping the hull out in either wood or foam then glassing over. I'm teaching myself stripping on a canoe project I'm doing right now.
Anyway, I got lots of learning yet to do so I'll be asking all the dumb questions!
Rob, here's a question for you. In our past discussion about the ufc proa you mentioned about folding the ends. In some related boat reading about big multi man outrigger canoes I heard that to be legal on some roads "down under" that the boats couldn't be that long on the roads and had to be folded in? Here in the USA that's not a problem so I'd not have to design that feature in. It did help give me the idea of the "change out bows" concept though!
ok, now to just throw this out there, ........
What shape of main hull would you like to see and why?
Remember, this is mostly a UFC boat and my other idea is a biplane beach cat,
so spartan living conditions are expected, it's a racer, not a liveaboard.
--- In harryproa@yahoogroups.com.au, Carlos Solanilla <carlosproacarlos@...> wrote:
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> When you design the proa, please look at the limit in Placida bridge, mind you not the height, is 6 ft, but the width. With a 30 ft proa i imagine the width is quite large
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> Also there is 100 percent change you will get stucked in mud a couple of times, so draft is important, and my guess is that cross section is also important to get out of the mud
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> Sent from my iPad
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