Hickman’s Imagination and the Dawn of Surface-Piercing Props
The most commonly recognized innovation of inventor and boat designer Albert Hickman is the inverted V hullform he patented and brought to market as the Sea Sled in the mid… Read more »
Design
Unsinkable: The History of Boston Whaler
Paul Herzan, member of the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum’s board of directors, has wide-ranging interests. The Smithsonian Institution’s website lists 53 objects he has been involved with, encompassing drawings, prints,… Read more »
The Patented Petestep Hullform
You know how it is said that the only two guarantees in life are death and taxes? Well, in Rovings, I’d amend that to death and newly minted hullforms. We… Read more »
Robotopia: Aluminum Boatbuilding with Welding Robots
Duisburg, Germany, an industrial city of roughly half a million in the most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, is at the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. It… Read more »
A Matter of Precision – Variable Deadrise and Longitudinal Steps
Norson Design’s development of several customizable 7m–12m (23‘–39.4‘) LOA RIBs for Ophardt Maritim, intended for professional users, required a three-way balance between high speed, good seakeeping, and comfortable running. At… Read more »
Say 29E Claims World Speed Record for E-Boats
Johan Ullman, an occasional PBB contributor and maker of shock-mitigating seats for high-performance recreational and military boats, recently brought to our attention the achievements of German boatbuilder SAY GmbH, which… Read more »
Rockler Plywood Challenge
Chris Salomone, Ben Uyeda, and Mike Montgomery like to make things—anything. They like to think outside the box and encourage others to do so. Salomone describes himself as a “husband,… Read more »
Beneteau’s Airstep Hullform
The old saying that there’s nothing new under the sun certainly has variants. Tracing a succession of patents on stepped powerboat hullforms, proves it. Professional BoatBuilder has covered this topic… Read more »
Eight Bells: John Letcher
John S. Letcher Jr. died at age 76 in Bangor, Maine. (Although he had a PhD in aerodynamics from the California Institute of Technology, he seldom seemed to invoke that… Read more »
New Boat, New Record by Fabio Buzzi
Last we visited with famed Italian powerboat designer, builder, and racer Fabio Buzzi was in 2016, when we published a Design Brief of his SAR 60 (18.3m), developed to help… Read more »
