Photo by Kathy Mansfield

Among many others, I have long admired Iain Oughtred’s boat designs.  I found photographer Kathy Mansfield has uploaded this stunning set of photos of a variety of Oughtred’s designs sailing in Scotland.  Recently, I’ve been thinking more about building one of Oughtred’s designs, especially once I found you can purchase kits.  I’m eager to find a boat that can be launched and loaded single handed from a beach(< 250 lbs?), and can hold four people with either two people rowing or enjoying a relaxed sail in Boston Harbor.  I don’t know if this is really possible, but it’s my current fantasy.  Sailing performance can be worse than rowing, but stability it very important, and the ability to handle big wakes and unexpected weather.  Oughtred’s beamier double enders like his Ness Yawl look wonderful.  There is a wide variety of choices in this range, both Oughtred designed and others.  Regardless, these photos are just delicious.

Caillou boats made this cool side car for a tandem bike to hold their sailing kayak.  These guys apparently sell boats in only fancy, expensive stores.  It looks to be a fine boat, though I don’t see much backup to their claim of having “a better small boat.”  It appears to be a 17.5 ft sailing kayak with a dagger board, and a 27 sq ft sail.  I have a easier time believing “a better boat cart.”

It's smart to put a helmet on the brain that built this boat.

Gizmag has an article about the Frisian Solar Challenge that took place last summer in Friesland, a northern province of Holland.  There isn’t a lot of info about the race itself, but the photos are cool.  The race has its own site as well.  This 220 km race mimics the path of a historic ice skating race through 11 cities.  Winning boats complete the race in a little under 17 hours, cruising just over 13 km/h (8.1 mph). 

Look out this summer for more solar boat races in Lake Maggiore, Switzerland, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and all around the world.

I found a great page of solar boats at SolarNavigator.net.  Unfortunately, I cant find information about this boat in particular whose image is posted.  It looks like an insect, but I like its space-ship quality.  The modern trimaran designs of a lot of solar boats prevent the salty look I enjoy in boats.  I appreciate when they go the other way and come out strange, futuristic, and beautiful for the unique shape and efficiency.  

Below is a model of the solar navigator itself. 

  The Redwing 18 from Chesapeake Marine Design fits many of my ideals for a Harbor cruiser / adventure craft.  It can take electric power with the efficient shape of a launch.  You can beach it, and it has berths.  At 18 ft, it should sit inside most garages.  It has a small cabin. I love traditional picnic launches, but I think Boston requires some protection in order to enjoy spring and fall, the most quiet and thus best seasons for boating.   CMD claims it can be built for $5000 in materials, which brings it out of the far reaches of the price stratosphere, where most boats float. Pang. They have the one for sale whose construction was documented over 3 issues of wooden boat magazine. Redwing 18 - Boat Plans and Yacht Designs — Chesapeake Marine Design.

UPDATE: CMD also wrote up a nice summary of choices in electric boat hull shape choices.  Check out the PDF.

I first read about ELCO in the book Devil in the White City.  The book tells the true story of a serial killer living the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. It simultaneously tells the story of designing and building the fair itself. ELCO was the company hired by Frederick Law Olmstead to bring electric boats to the waterways he designed. He was insistant the boats be electric rather than   steam-powered for their clean, quiet nature. I couldnt agree with him more.  Well, steam is pretty cool these days, but as much as I love the soothing rumble of a diesel engine (I have loved three diesel engines in my life), I hope go electric on the water from now on.  

No surprise then that I surfed over to ELCO’s site to see their current work.  These drop in electrics are interesting in their modularity, and appear to do a lot of the hard work for you in setting up your own inboard electric.      

Ko Ko Oo and Haung Htaik are lucky to be alive after supposedly floating at sea for 25 days in a cooler.  They apparently survived in monsoon water and fish barfed up by cormorants.  I am quite interested in this survival technique of having birds share their fish.  This follow up article from cnn states “Lee Hollingsworth of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds told CNN it was not uncommon for Asian fishermen to use birds such as cormorants to dive down and retrieve fish that are then regurgitated whole.”  How do you do this?  Do the cormorants come to rest, and then how do you coax them to share their fish?! 

via: Two Men Survive 25 Days At Sea In A Cooler.

The main man master microcruiser Tom McNally is still on the scene though, draw big crowds at the London Boat Show.  Go Tom!  We can trust this veteran to not bow out of his adventure.

Ted Ciamillo plans to cross the atlantic this summer in this wet-type submarine in 50 days.  The is sub is human (pedal) powered with carbon fiber flukes.  Apparently this fun fin (available for humans as the Lunocet) is 15% more efficient than the best rigid propellors!  I’m lazy, so I’d love to put a fin like this on an electric boat.  

via Crossing the Atlantic in a pedal-powered submarine - Boing Boing Gadgets

Check out the whole article at New Scientist

Here’s the Lunocet getting close to allowing breach.