Nautical Lore – Modern | Oral narratives of modern seafaring watercraft with multihull pioneer Jim Brown

BEWARE, PROA CONSTRUCTOR

The above title is taken from a sign posted over Dick Newick's shop in the early 1970s when he was developing his "Atlantic" versions of the "shunting" proa.

This Caper, however, is my fictional reconstruction of Stone Age history, when the Pacific proa was invented by a young Micronesian woman who could think by-longitudinally.

CAT / TRI COMPARISONS PART FOUR: MOTION, ACCOMMODATION AND SAFETY

This Caper offers my understanding of the differences between cats and tris in riding motion, weatherliness and tacking.

Also, there are pivotal contrasts in their accommodation plans and underwing pounding. Finally, I attempt to draw comparisons in their respective chances for survival from collision, shipwreck and capsize.

CAT / TRI COMPARISONS PART THREE: CONFIGURATIONS and STRUCTURES

The contrasting design challenges between catamaran and trimaran are met equally well today by understanding the differing load paths in their respective structures.

In addition, because of the catamaran's "Siamese twin" nature, it requires substantial duplication of components, whereas the trimaran requires three hulls. This explains in part the relatively high cost of both types for construction and maintenance.

CATAMARAN-TRIMARAN COMPARISONS - PART ONE

In response to feedback from listeners, this "caper" is the first of a three-part series on comparing different types of watercraft: rafts, dugout canoes, catamarans, trimarans proas and monohulls.

Jim describes the basic configurations and how they evolved to suit specific applications, from pre-history to the present. This session begins about 4,000 years ago.

VOICES FROM THE PAST, PART TWO

Jim's most illustrious client, Mark Hassall, reads a long quote from the movie actor and consummate seaman Sterling Hayden to explain Mark's philosophy of how, "A voyage, like a life, should be based on a firm foundation of financial unrest."

Then Mark faces almost certain death as a castaway in the Indian Ocean, and Jim inserts his own vignette of using the "debris field" tactic of recovering seven people who have been swept overboard by a single wave.

Jim asks for listener response to these Voices cessions, for he has a trove of such audio in his OutRig Collection.

VOICES FROM THE PAST, PART ONE

By mining old video footage for its sound tracks, Jim brings us the actual voices of the several seafaring pioneers whose stories he has told in previous Capercasts.

In this first cession of a two-part series, he includes the voices of Woody Brown, Arthur Piver and James Wharram with his mate Hanneke Boon. She explains the logic of the polygamoust relationship James maintained, at considerable cost, with up to five women at once, all equal partners in their catamaran design enterprise enterprise.

GRABBING THE BOTTOM

Three more anchoring episodes illustrate the tenuousness of Grabbing The Bottom, with some conclusions about the weight of ground tackle and the crew's the ability to retrieve the anchor.

Jim asks for feedback as to how much "how-to" information, relative to straight storytelling, listeners may want.

HIJACKED AND SHIPWRECKED

There are two contrasting anchoring predicaments here: Jim's boat and his family crew are hijacked by a "sea monster" and towed out to sea.

How they get free. Then, a different vessel is embayed and destroyed, its crew stranded on a desert island. How they sail again.

THE DINGHY THAT TRIED TO CLIMB THE MAST

In this anchoring fiasco, Jim tells of how even an experienced sailor can get so screwed up so fast in a boat ... even if he designed and built the boat himself and has sailed it for forty years.

This begins a three-part series on anchoring in which some sessions do not have a happy ending, but some conclusions are drawn.