Taking it slowly

Why are we always in such a rush?

I am trying to think of the last time I saw a good old-fashioned displacement hull powerboat at a boat show. I honestly can't think of one. Even the pontoon boats are packing 100+ hp these days.

Length matters

Longer boats are faster. We tend to take that for granted, because it tends to be true. Put two boats of similar type in a race, and the longer one is almost certain to beat the shorter one to the finish line. The difference that length makes is quite remarkable, but we rarely get to look at it on its own- and that is the subject of today's post.

White dog, black dog

The black one is my parents' Briard, "Raven". The white one, a Great Pyrenees named "Constance", just moved in with my mother- and father-in-law, courtesy of the Great Pyrenees Club of Southern Ontario.

Starwind 860: Range and efficiency

Among the key questions that must be answered in any powerboat's design phase are: How much power does it need, and how far can it go between gas docks?

The Starwind 860 trimaran that I'm currently working on started life as a series of computer simulations to answer these two questions. In today's post, I'll take you through some of these calculations and the logic that led to the final choices.

Starwind 860: Designing for mixed missions

It's a rare boat indeed that is tasked with one and only one mission. The degree of flexibility that's expected, though, varies greatly from boat to boat. My requirements for my next boat fall in the "does everything reasonably well" category, which necessitates a lot of head-scratching and balancing of trade-offs during the design phase.

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