In 1876 Nat Herres hoff Please don't be catty . • • raised a In 1958 this Shearwater Ill "cat" rumpus with is goihg to THIS + cause a flutter. ABOUT THOSE

VE more tartling and controversial than the were through the agency of a complete system of ball ­ only partly lowered, but new craft run on ra il with Eadvent of the "zoot-su it " 505's in Southern a nd- ocket joints which had range o( motion enough, board up or down. . African waters. will be the launching of the fir t so that one hull might be ridi ng a wave, while it A far as sea-keeping goe , a ca t ~ m ara n finished fleet of catamarans in th e next few week . si ter would be in the depths o( a ho ll ow. a day and a half ahead of the fleet u1 tbe past San Apart from a olitary pioneer in Durban Bay. ·' A small tray- haped car for pa sengers, and the Francisco- Honolulu ocean race. 0 what we believe to be the fir t hull actuall y afloat mast rigging, were upported between a nd above the When Irving John on was here a co upl e of yea rs ~ is a fibre-glass 16-footer- but fitted with twin out­ hulls by a y tern of tru s-work wi th adju ta ble ten ion ago in the barquentine Yankee be was full .of a run board engines. R odney Lemku of Cape Town is rods of iron. he had had in a Hawa iian "cat " . H e tim ed h.er bu y testing it, a the Cape's answer to the ski-boat " The e catamarans carri ed a mainsail a nd jib, a nd in over an eight-mile cour e, taking hore transit 0 for inshore game fishing . smooth water made wonderful peed : 21 miles an hour with a extant, and wa fl abberga ted to record 28 A 5 O rT. Hi progre s wi ll be interesting to watch. as he has been attain ed under favourable condition . Thi knot . is lured down ape Point way by tbe big fi h of aquatic ma rvel wa not de tined to become popular; Jn the eleventh until th e fourteenth cent~ries, the um mer. the boats required special ki ll in their management, Polyne ian sailed the Pacific in huge seagoing ca ta­ I But oon afterward s "cats "- sailing mo tly­ and were best calculated for a n afternoon' ail in maran capable of 20 knots. smooth , sheltered water. will be popping out of the moulds in quantity from These ship ran from 60 to 120 feet in l en~ th a workshop in Woodstock, Cape Town. under the " T he absence of a nything like cabin accommodation and carried a many a 60 men. women and ch ild ­ upervi ion of two of our most experienced an d wa al o aga in t their u e, but crui in g ha been uc­ ren , tbeir dog . fow ls and household items. As food experimental con tructors, " Tinker ' Clark and ces fully accomplished in them through the u e of a and water were their main problem , th e crew was Tony Pratt. tent to make a shelter, covering the car. a nd of suffi­ peciall y trained to manage ed ?f sa ~d pits and ge nera ll y a violin finish . Thi ape enter­ yachtsmen will remember Captain de Bi chopp's in the middle housin g platform, ju t a 1t still 1 in pri e i producing the real Mc oy- Prout Shear­ fine voyage in an arti culated job long before the dhow and West [ndian trading chooner . ----- tlE V ~T IO ~ water I TI cats. under li cence, the ame breed that war. But, what with scientific design. dagger board The first Hawaiian cruiser- a 50-footer- wa cleaned up the cross- hannel dinghy race. and one thing and another. to-day's ve rsion are launched at Waikiki in 195 1. She had an enormou sa id to be vicele s. And the price they are talking about tentatively aloon pread aero s her 18-foot beam ~nd full ounds remarkably attractiv someth ing within The Herreshoff and some of th e earlier ve rsion head-room accommodation in each of the tw 111 hulls. heaving- line distance of £210. were undoubtedly contrary. but th e Shearwater III She i aid to have pointed well without b ards Before local die-hards dis mis these ca ta ma rans is a refined editi on which boasts a cla of 200 in or fin keels and wa o hand y that, although he wa as new-fa ngled upstarts, look at th e old drawing England. T here is talk of an interna ti onal one­ otberwi e equipped with every t~in g th~ modern we reprodu~e of the Herreshoff catamarant of l 876. design class, with many Yankee ad herents. Yankee-minded ailor feels e ent1al to h1 comfort And before the fanatical modern en thusiast ta lk " Tinker ' Clark watched them racing in England, at sea, they dispensed wi th an auxiliary motor. In too supercili ou ly of 16-k nots and more, take note when he was over there genning up on Avr the lightest of ai rs she slipped along and manoeuvred that this same creation of the great inn ovator at. Shackletons. and aw them co min g about " as nimbly obediently like a huge dinghy under her 1,200 sq. ft. Herreshoff was clocking 21 in great-grandad's day. as Flying Dutchmen " with ma ed start go ing off of working ca nva . Read what Lewis H erreshoff had to ay in without a hitch. The hull is ch iefl y i in . pl wood, with ma t and . a journal edited by the Marqui of Dufferin At British peed trials the fa te t boat managed frame of pruce. More than 80,000 bra and and Ava in 1901: 2 1 knot under careful timing. bronze crews were used . " Mr. Herre hofI i al o re pon ible for a nother The local versions, 16 ft. 6 in. b 7 ft. 6 in. (lo The ship is divided b fiv e main bulkhead , with come within th e highway tow ing regulation ) wi ll the fore and aft crash bulkhead watertight. These Jn the Cape, however. and among Durban' out~­ marine curiosit y that appeared in J 876. This wa a west buster , will find one of the world catamaran or double-hulled boat- intended to be sca le about 230 lb. with mast and boom: and the are three inche thick with teel bracing aero s the 140 quare feet of ail can be had in terylene for wing ection, or between the pontoons in the wing toughest proving grounds. But if the Prout brother , ha ndled by one ma n. Thi boat differ from it kins­ £38. area. and others, have found all the an wer - a they folk of the sojthern ocean, the point o( wide t depar­ cl aim the have- then it i highl y unlikely that their The e things don't luff like a dingh in the puff . The lower portion of each hull is divide~ into ture being that the hull are connected by flexible They hold a cour e like a car and mu t be teered three compartments which can be flooded with a rebirth in the 1950's i go ing to be a repeat of the mean . o that each hull can adjust it elf to the ur­ much as 2.000 Ib. of ea water for ba lla t. A pump­ ad tale of 187 6. all the time. They are o en itive to balance, how­ There will be ailing trial and picture , we hope, fa e of the water it moves in. ever. that a dagger board i used. There was trouble ing unit can shift the water into and out of an of .. The mean employed in forming this flexible union with lee-h elm when the fir t hinged board were the e compartments . in the next i ue. O'Rafferty October / November, 1957 October / November, 1957 30 Soulh A/ rica 11 Yacltling So,,tlt AJrica 11 Yachling 31