Latest News from Woods Designs

(scroll down to see the very latest news!)

But first!

As you will discover, this website is now very large and it may take you time to find what you are looking for. But please persevere and in particular please read the FAQ's and Forum pages as you will probably find the answers to any questions you may have there. The Year Reviews are also worth reading as they contain details of boat launchings, while there is also lots of good stuff in the Articles and Boat Tests pages.

If you are new to catamarans and want a general introduction then you should read THIS ARTICLE first.

If you still have questions then please email us and we will try and help.

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December 2007- February 2008

So far this century I have managed to be on board a boat every Christmas. Not only that, but each year I have been in a different country. 2007 was no exception, and saw us in San Diego, USA, preparing to sail south to Mexico's Baja Peninsula on a Maple Leaf 48. Yes I know, it is a monohull, but as I always say, designers have to sail as much as they can if they are to design the best boats.

Driving south to join Sabbatical we met Ralph Maggio who, as I have reported before, has been building a beautiful Wizard, certainly the nicest I have ever seen. He launched the week following our visit and reported:

"Today was the big day… Put the boat in the water and had a sail. Every thing went off without a hitch. To start with she was right on her lines. First thing to try was how she motored - no problem, powered about for 10 minutes, all was well. Next was motor off and sail under mainsail only - tacked well never got stuck. Was able to do 5 knots (on gps) in about 9 knots of wind. Then main and jib.... what can I say - a dream. Wind was light but we did see 8 knots in a puff. With some wind 10 knots and better is going to be easy."

Later he wrote after his third sail

"It was perfect sailing. The wind was not more than 13knot (no white caps), we were flat and relaxed as we did a cool 10.5 to 11 knots (11.8 was our max). At this point the mono’s had their leeward rails down and their crews on the weather rails; we were flat and smooth."

You can see a youtube video of this boat on the Wizard page.

Meanwhile, back in Mexico:

Although the sunsets were often spectacular we didn't really enjoy our time on board Sabbatical. Partly because we had forgotten how uncomfortable and uncivilized sailing a monohull can be. It was a heavy displacement 48ft motor sailer and the rolling at anchor and hard-to-handle, heavy gear wore us out. Mind you, the motion on a smaller light displacement monohull would be even worse.

While we were in the Baja we met up again with Garret and Carllie of the Gypsy Lightwave; we had last seen them the day they left British Columbia on their way south. See the Owners Websites Page for the link to their excellent website and to read more news about their two year cruise. Unfortunately we weren't able to sail their newly extended boat but we did spend a couple of fun evenings on board.

In mid January we cut our Mexico cruise short and flew to S America. First to the lovely old Spanish colonial city of Cartagena.

Rahula, a Banshee catamaran currently sailing round the world, arrived in Cartagena a few days after we left. Bad timing on our part! Again you can read about Rahula's cruise by visiting the link on the Owners Websites Page.

After a week in Cartagena we flew south to Ecuador. In part so that we could say we'd been to the Equator - and you can't get any closer than this!

But mainly because we wanted to cruise in the Amazon basin. What we hadn't realised when we booked our trip was that our "flotel" was a 98ft trimaran, and that we'd be the only passengers! The things I do in the name of R and D.

We spent a week on board, mainly travelling by motorised canoe, but occasionally paddling our own. We all know the Amazon basin is huge, but it wasn't until we got there that we appreciated just how big an area it covers. We were over 2000 miles from the sea on a minor Amazon tributary, yet the river was wider than the Thames at London, or the Sacramento at San Francisco.

Nature programmes on TV are very misleading; in real life not only are animals rare sightings, but it is also really hard to photograph them. So although we saw fresh water dolphins, caimen, turtles, as well as lots of birds and butterflies it was much easier taking pictures of trees - and some are pretty impressive!

And of course we had to fish for (and later eat) piranhas

Obviously it is all very remote, even so, Amazonian chiefs know that dressing up is good for business.

We had hoped to continue on to Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca, but unfortunately Peruvian politics and transport strikes prevented us from getting anywhere, so we flew home; but not before we got rather too close to an erupting volcano. The photo below was taken from our hotel, fortunately the wind was blowing the ash away from us.

You can read more about this trip HERE. It's Jetti's somewhat tongue-in-cheek diary that she sent to friends.

On our way home we stopped off in Miami to have a look at Ric Caselli's Mirage. He's doing an excellent job and is currently fitting out the interior while using Libe as a motor boat. Sailing is planned for later this year. Even I was surprised by the room inside, the bunks are large and airy, while the heads compartment is bigger than on an Eclipse.

Libe on her mooring in Miami

Ric showing off the large forward bunk

and, with Jetti, in what will become the heads compartment

March 2008

We are now back in Canada for the summer where, apart from sailing on our Merlin Tucanu and working on new designs, I am also busy writing articles. Two have recently appeared in Sail magazine, while we can now be seen regularly in "Latitudes and Attitudes" magazine in the USA and Practical Boat Owner magazine in the UK. I have also written a number of articles for a new UK based multihull magazine, The Multihull Review and for the Australian Multihull World magazine.

April - May 2008

Although we really enjoy our summers in Canada, we are not Canadians and cannot stay on Saturna year round. Furthermore we miss the cruising lifestyle, so since losing Eclipse we have been on the look out for a replacement.

On May 1st we became the new owners of Bombay Duck, the first Romany to be launched (back in 2005). I went to view it at Norfolk, Va, USA, in April but we won't sail it until September when we leave Canada. The plan this year is to spend the winter working on the boat (as it has been a bit neglected since returning from a successful cruise to the Bahamas) and then to sail down the east coast of the USA to the Bahamas. So look out for us!

While in Virginia I spent a day looking over Tom's Transit. He has done an amazing amount of work since the last time I saw his boat back in October. Launching will be sometime this year, but already one can see that it will be a huge comfortable boat.

The aft cabins are simply enormous. Each has a King size bed with room for a 40in flat screen TV at its foot, should the scenery outside pall. Plus lots of storage and dressing space. The full size chart table over the heads will work well and frees up more space in the saloon. Of course there is comfortable standing headroom throughout, while maintaining full all round vision from the helm and saloon.

As you will have already read, we met Carllie and Garret of the Gypsy Lightwave in La Paz, Mexico in January. They are now sailing back home to Vancouver and on March 29th we heard that they had successfully sailed to Hawaii. I gather it was a bit of a bumpy crossing, and by sheer chance they met Sabbatical in mid ocean. I'll say no more as you can read all about the trip on their website. See the Owners Websites Page for the link.

Also crossing oceans at the same time was Bill Corcoran on his Sagitta Mandu. This was the second Sagitta built (we supplied the mouldings in 1992 and original owner Bob Smith fitted them out). Bill left Millbrook in August 2007 and slowly cruised down to the Canaries before crossing the Atlantic to the Caribbean. He arrived in St. Lucia on April 7 after 23 days at sea and emailed "I wouldn't describe it as a "Milk Run", so I guess he had a bumpy crossing as well. Not really surprising as the trades build steadily over the winter and March is probably the roughest and windiest time of year in the Atlantic tradewind belt.

Meantime the Banshee Rahula is now in the Galapagos midway through a world cruise.

Andrew Slow is building a beautiful Saturn - see above. Currently one hull is finished and the other is being decked. As some of you know, Tucanu is the Merlin that Andrew built 18 years ago. We are very lucky indeed to own a boat built by such a good boatbuilder.

May - June 2008

The weather is slowly warming up so it's sailing time again.

May was a busy racing month for us. First was the BCMS regatta on the adjacent island of Pender. Last year we had miserable weather, pouring rain and little wind. This year was a complete contrast with bright sun, 15 knots of wind and flat water. Perfect! Close reaching we were recording a steady 14-15 knots on the gps, we sailed faster still once we had borne off and hoisted the spinnaker. And just like last year we won the race in Tucanu. Second to finish was Bad Kitty, see below for more, third a 36ft wing masted Tennant cat and fourth a F9A.

The Swiftsure Race, held at the end of May, (see swiftsure.org) is to the Pacific NW what the Fastnet is to UK racers or the Sydney Hobart to Australians. Although much shorter (only 100 miles or so) it can be a tough race out to Cape Flattery at the west end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

For most of this year's race, however, it lived up to it's nickname of the Driftsure. I was invited to crew on Bad Kitty, above, a 25 year old home designed and built 35ft catamaran. Despite appearances it is a well sorted boat and the rest of the crew know how to sail it to its full potential, so usually it will beat the fastest Farrier trimarans.

We had a long slow beat west, and then around midnight the wind slowly built for the run home. Our highest speed was 22 knots when racing through the narrow gap between two sets of unlit rocks only 100 ft apart on a pitch black night. However the best bit was earlier in the day when we overtook the big monohulls to windward in light airs (including a 75ft ULDB, a couple of SC52 etc). We even have a video to prove it!

The photo below shows us finishing just ahead of the F40 Dragonfly to be first boat home. Third to finish was a F25C which beat us on corrected time by 1 minute. But since the race took over 20 hours I reckon that was a dead heat! Then came the monohulls, about 150 of them....

Our next major regatta is "Cow Bay" or, more formally, the Cowichan Bay Regatta, in early August. With a new screecher, a fairer rating and of course more practice and experience with Tucanu we hope for a better result than last year's mid fleet finish.

I wrote this just after we came back from shopping. As we live on an island that meant a 3 hour sail to the nearest big supermarket and another 3 hours back again. Beats taking the ferry (which is expensive and anyway still takes 2 hours) every way you look at it!

Before going shopping we took this short video. Unfortunately our marina is in a very sheltered inlet so there is never much wind. Despite the lack of spray Tucanu is deceptively fast. Even so, I hope to take a more dramatic video later this summer.

Of course we race Tucanu as an open deck boat. Before the Cow Bay regatta we expect to have a few weeks in cruising mode, complete with cuddy, sailing once again to Desolation Sound.

From a recent email:

"This is The Russian Sango at the Black Sea in May. There are 20 people on the board!

Good nautical qualities. Maximum conditions in which the boat was tested are: 2 m wave, 15 m/s wind, 12 knots speed. We sailed two times, 100 miles each time. Good livability. There were 3 of us. We are taking it out on the coast to make more accurate regulations. We'll send more pics and reports on the speed of the wind and the boat

We are glad that didn't make a mistake with the choice of the project. Thanks a lot. "

Strike 18

Despite just a small note about this new trimaran design on my New Designs page I am currently getting 1 - 2 enquiries a week for it. Clearly there is a large demand for a simple to build boat that uses a beach cat for the rig and outriggers. Currently the drawings are half complete and will be available sometime in 2008. A provisional study plan is now available on this website (see the New Designs page).

Thus building the prototype has rapidly moved up my "must do' list. So much so that I recently bought a USD600 (GBP300) beach cat to use as the rig and outriggers shown above, together with the plywood to build the main hull.

The photo below shows the Strike after 25 hours work. All the bulkheads have been setup, stringers and gunwales fitted and glued in place. All hull side and keel panels fitted ready for glueing.

The photo below shows the results of another 50 hours work. As you can see, the hull is now the right way up and, apart from the beam boxes, almost structurally complete. Plans are nearly finished as is the building manual.

Strike plan price, including a set of Quattro 16 plans, is GBP150 or for the special price of GBP 120 until September 1st. If you already have a Quattro 16 or other beach cat then the price for the main hull plans alone is GBP100, or GBP80 until September 1st. Plus VAT of course. Plans are available only as pdf files and can be printed on any printer. (I am using A4 or 81/2in x 11in paper to print the ones I use as I build.)

Please keep checking back for updates as the Strike evolves.

Last winter I sold set of Eclipse plans to a builder in Lebanon. I understood the idea was to build an open deck version and to fit big engines, as was done on Banshee Express 20 years ago. With no deck saloon there would naturally be quite a saving in build time. Even so I was both surprised and amazed to get an email in mid June saying the boat was finished. Excerpts and two photos below.

Dear Richard, I have completed in five months this fiberglass version of Eclipse . I haven't yet installed any mast since I wanted to test the boat for a while first. I have installed two 60hp outboards on the transoms. A maximum speed of 14 knots is reached when on full throttle.

Thanks , I am very fond of my boat and of the clarity of the plans that made the building a piece of cake.

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For new readers

When I am not in the UK office Mary Theobald is the person to contact. She has a great background in multihulls as she has been helping to run the brokerage side of the Multihull Centre (www.multihullcentre.co.uk) for many years and currently owns a 26ft catamaran.

Finally:

Please note that we do not (yet) take American Express cards! We do take sterling cheques, but if you wish to send one please make the cheque payable to Woods Designs, not Richard Woods, thank you.

Many of you ask me for contact details of other builders. I'm sure you can understand why I am reluctant to give out customer's email addresses to strangers. So can you please use one of the forums and ask there for other builders to contact you direct. After all, that's one of the reasons for setting up the forums in the first place!

We really like the photos you send us of your boats either in build or sailing. Please keep them coming in, but when you email them please send them as JPEG's and send them at 72dpi resolution with a maximum width of 400 pixels. That size will fit neatly on the screen and saves both you and us email download times!! Thank you.

If you use XP or Vista you can resize pictures easily by using the free Windows Image Resizer add-on (see http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx) There are a few other useful freebies there as well.