Another Cool Production Proa

Yet Another Production Proa...

I just discovered the "Eskimo 19 CRX 4G Harpoon R" on the Easy Rider site. I had been investigating the properties of ABS plastic for some fixturing at work-- Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene -- when I stumbled upon the laminated ABS material, Royalex, which Easy Rider uses for many of their kayaks and canoes.

Coincidentally, I had just recently been wondering why outrigger canoes seem to be mostly confined to the tropics, Madagascar through Hawaii, and why the heck the Inuit boatmen would want to perform Eskimo rolls.

Anyway, the Harpoon looks like a winner, but I think they should shorten the name.

You can row or skull...

You can sail it like a proa, here with a junk rig...

Or propel it with a double bladed paddle, which is what I do on my proa.

More boat building pictures and a sailing video

Here's the stitching along the keel of my plywood,vee-hull ama (that doubles as a small, car-topable waka):

• I used galvanized steel wire, which is far stronger and cheaper than copper, but needs to be extracted with a) heat from a blow torch and b) a firm grip with linesman pliers, after the epoxy has cured for a day
  
• I pre-coated the panels with marine epoxy before stitching them together
• Only the keel is stitched: I bonded the deck panels to inner sheer clamps (inwales) using bronze ring nails and thickened epoxy

An interior view, showing the thickened epoxy fillet along the keel, re-enforced with fiberglass tape:

You can also see one of the mast step sockets bonded to a bulkhead. The mast step socket doubles as a socket for an aka post, if using the hull as an ama.



Another view of the mast step / aka post socket (unfinished)

As you can see, it's a fairly robust structure. What you can't see is its twin socket at the other end of the hull.

And here, liberal application of fairing compound (epoxy + silica microspheres):


More videos to come: The one below is my first attempt to capture the proa in motion. He's on Sturgeon Lake, next to MacCarthy Beach State Park, in Northern Minnesota:
47.674363 N,-93.02958E