116 



CATAMARAN. 



done with an oar twenty feet long, which the du Malaise sur le Grand Ocean ^pendant les 



waves sometimes bring round so violently that Voyages autour du Monde de 1'AstroLibe, Ll 



the handle strikes a man dead. No speed of the Favorite, et 1'Artemise. Publics par Ordre du 



proa has been accurately given, but with free Koi, 1847-'48-'49-'60." 



t -\ _ji. _ _ * A . i_ _ . i j i_ _ _ ji _ _ * T~\ : . ~ 



wind and smooth sea it should be very fast, 

 perhaps fourteen miles an hour; but in beat- 

 ing to windward their progress must be slow, 

 since they use no keel. The catamaran proper 

 is a rudely constructed craft, formed by lash- 

 ing together three or more logs, until a suffi- 



Duriug our centennial year (1876) there 

 sprang up among the yachtsmen of New Eng- 

 land and New York quite a furor about the 

 double-hulled boat, or catamaran, as it was 

 called, although it resembled its barbaric ances- 

 tor in theory only. In June of that year the 



PAPUAN DOUBLE CANOES. 



cient width is obtained to give stability, upon 

 which are secured the mast and sails. The 

 catamaran is used in the lower West Indies, 

 and upon the Spanish Main, and to some ex- 

 tent among the eastern islands of the Indian 

 Ocean. Like the proa, it can obtain a consid- 

 erable speed with a free wind and smooth sea. 

 It can not be said of either proa or catamaran 

 that they are in the full sense seaworthy. But 

 they make voyages from island to island in com- 

 paratively sheltered seas, where quiet weath- 

 er prevails during the greater part of the 

 year. The written accounts of these vessels 

 are generally meager and scattered; but the 

 subject is treated quite exhaustively in a book 

 published in Paris about thirty-five years ago : 

 'Essai sur la Construction Navale des Peuples 

 Extra Enropeens; Collection des Navires et 

 Pirogues construits par les Habitants de TAsie; 



Amaryllis appeared in the centennial regatta 

 in New York harbor. She was devised and 

 built by Mr. N. G. Herreshoff, of Bristol, Khode 

 Island, who, in the following year, perfected 

 his plan for a double-hulled boat, for which 

 letters patent were allowed. His plan was to 

 obtain a maximum of stability with a minimum 

 of weight. In order to place the hulls as far 

 apart as practicable, and to give them perfect 

 independence and freedom of motion in verti- 

 cal directions, they were united by a system 

 of ball-and-socket joints, through which means 

 each hull could assume a position in conformity 

 to the ever-changing plane of the sea, The 

 car in which the occupants were seated, and 

 the mast and sails, were supported between 

 the hulls by a complex system of truss- work 

 made of steel rods. The proportions found to 

 give the best results were : in length of hull, 





