Newbie's New Boat

[Yoav]

Hello Frank and everybody,

I'm a small-boat designer from Newton, Massachusetts.
I'd like to introduce to you a new small-boat concept for which I recently got US patent #6871608 "Twin hull personal watercraft" (AKA W boat).
It allows for boat designers and builders to create boats that have some advantages over traditional small-boat forms.
Such new boats can vary in width from 2' to over 3', and from less than 10' in length to over 20', with hulls as narrow as 6" or wider than 1'.
The general form can be "open" like a canoe or dinghy, or "close" like a kayak.  
Applications for such boats can be from paddling and rowing to sailing etc.  
All materials and building methods used in other small boats are suitable for making these new boats.
I'm already manufacturing a small, plastic W boat called the W1 that's based on this concept.

I'm looking for designers and boat builders (including amateurs) interested in developing their own versions of W boats.
Personally, I'm interesrted in seeing W boats that are longer and generally bigger than my 10' W1.

The attached images show some things you can do with the W1.  Longer models will be faster and more stable, and have a bigger load capacity.  
Longer designs with wider hulls could fit a new range of applications.

You are all welcome to make comments, ask questions and request additional information  

Yoav

[Frank Hagan]

Welcome to the site, Yoav!

That's an interesting concept.  Is there a rudder on the little sailboat?  It looks like the paddle versions are steered by paddling and leaning too, perhaps.  

For amature builders, we usually build in wood/plywood.  Do you think the design would lend itself to building in that type of material?

[Yoav]

Thanks Frank,

Indeed, paddling is done the way you describe it.
There's no rudder in this sailing configuration:  The long and straight hulls serve as daggerboards and you steer by leaning into the turn, playing with the sail and occasionally dipping the paddle  -  It's quite easy.
We haven't tested the W1 with another sailing rig except this one so it's possible that another type of rig would require a rudder.
Longer / bigger models are likely to require some kind of rudder.

Wood and plywood look good for building W boats.  Generally, these boats tolerate straight lines and flat surfaces.

Yoav

[Frank Hagan]

This could be a fun project for those of us who like experimenting with boat designs.  If I have it right, you're offering free assistance via these forums for any of the amature builders here who want to try and create different W Boat designs.  They just have to share what they do with you.

I would assume that any commercial building and selling of the boats they create (or plans for other amature builders they sell) would require a license agreement from you, which the individual can work out with you separately?  But amatures building their own version can do so for free?  

If so, that's a pretty generous offer!  If there's enough interest I'll add a W Boat Forum for builders to use (or we can use the Main Forum too).

[Yoav]

This could be a fun project for those of us who like experimenting with boat designs.  

Simply messing about in boats is great, and messing about in NEW boats could be even better  

You got it right Frank-
Since this thing is still very new (the patent was issued last month) I'm interested to see what both amateurs and professionals come up with while exploring these uncharted waters.  I'll do my best to assist both.

Yoav

Here's an example of a 15' experimental model of W boat that I created by welding together two W1s.  It was faster and more stable than the W1,  and had 50% more load capacity.  Something like this with hulls twice as wide would have 3 times more load capacity than the W1, benefit from very good directional stability, and make a nice sailing or motor boat while its passengers could still paddle it.

[JEM]

Greetings All,

My first post here.

I'm one of those crazy fools who aspires to design and sell plans for a boat like this. Hopefully the dream will get rolling soon enough.

[Frank Hagan]

The design is intriguing, and I'm thinking of buying a couple of the molded ones for messing-about's business.  I have to work out a few details, but it might fit nicely into my local business here.

By the way, nice designs on your site, Matt.  Make sure you add your site to our Links section.  We're "designer friendly" around here, so feel free to join in on any of the threads.

Your customers are welcome here too, of course, especially if you need an on-line community for builder-to-builder or official support.

[JEM]

Thanks for the welcome. Wasn't sure how much I could toot my own horn. Want to remain respectful of other forums.

I do have a tech support forum but many thanks for the offer. Any questions will be answered here of course. I try to stay "connected" and  give helpful advice regarding questions of my designs or techniques in general.

You learn a lot just talking about stuff. I'm far from the end-all expert but have learned from a generous portion of mistakes. I think they call that "experience".  

I submitted my link.

Thanks again!

[Frank Hagan]

Matt - thanks for adding the link!  We want to be a resource for folks here, so it helps to have as many sources as possible.  You can also feel free to post classified ads for designs you have on sale, promo items, etc., but we ask that you post commercial ads no more than once per month per ad (although multiple ads in the same month is OK).  

Here's an example of a 15' experimental model of W boat that I created by welding together two W1s. It was faster and more stable than the W1, and had 50% more load capacity. Something like this with hulls twice as wide would have 3 times more load capacity than the W1, benefit from very good directional stability, and make a nice sailing or motor boat while its passengers could still paddle it.

Is that about 80 - 90 pounds then?  That's still manageable by two people.  Have you tried these with something like a 5hp outboard?  I would think you might be able to make an economical PWC out of one of them if they do well under power.

[Yoav]

That 15 footer was indeed somewhere between 80-90 lb but although it wasn't easy I managed to deal with it alone, including hoisting it on top of my SUV.  

I think the W boat concept could work well with outboard motors:  The narrow hulls don't generate too much residual resistance even as speed increases, and their flat bottoms would make the boat plane rather quickly- similarly to water skis.

Yoav