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 »
Design
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 »
Foiling Part 2: From Niche to Market
When we started to discuss a story about foiling powerboats, we’d heard about scattered projects that were developing boats of this kind, consulting with designers who had become household names… Read more »
Inventing the Adaptive Stand-Up Paddleboard (ASUP)
This article is a companion piece to, and continuation of the research into, morphing hulls the author and aerospace engineer Charles Palamé introduced in the print edition of Professional BoatBuilder… Read more »
Reverso Air: Stackable, packable, sailable
Just when we thought all prayers for a chic and functional nesting dinghy were answered with the kit of the adorable PT 11 by Port Townsend Watercraft , here come… Read more »
Hydrofoils: Past and Renaissance
In Part 1 of our foiling story in Professional Boatbuilder No. 172 we take a look a the history of this technology, from the pioneers in the early days of… Read more »
A Bénéteau with Foils
Followers of extreme sailing may know of Bénéteau’s several-year program to develop a production monohull with foils. Well, let’s qualify the term foils. The new 32‘ (9.75m) Figaro Bénéteau 3… Read more »
A Study in British Luxury Afloat
The British design studio Claydon Reeves (a partnership founded in 2010 by James Claydon and Mike Reeves) had a busy 2017, announcing the launching of several elite projects. Among them… Read more »
ÖK Hull Design
Engineers, designers, and assorted freethinkers abhor the notion implied by the aphorism “There’s nothing new under the sun.” If it were true, technological progress would come to a standstill and… Read more »
