Early Multihulls of the 60's

This video reference to some of those early multihull designs of the 60's was posted recently on another forum. This was too good to pass up posting as a reference on this forum...in french:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7aHMkaZDVM

...and note the twin keels on that small cat

Yes I do. And those many other early amateur designers that were interested in experimenting with this new found technology of multihull sailing craft. Dick Newick's tris had to be the most graceful of all.

And do you remember the AYRS (Amateur Yacht Research Society). It still seems to be going after all these years. Strangely I've not visited there in quite awhile:
http://www.ayrs.org/

As I noted on my website;
"Twenty five years ago (now 35 yrs), I was a younger fellow aspiring to become a sailing yacht designer. I was particularly interested in ocean going, cruising boats. I would devour every reference I could find on what made sailboats work. With keen interest I followed new developments on the racing circuits, believing that this was the incubator of fresh new ideas to speed our progress across the seas. Surely this breeding ground would bring significant evolution to the sport of sailing and the art of designing.

'Au contraire', I became disillusioned so soon. Bruce King's fantastic twin, asymmetrical, bilgeboard development, disappeared in little over a year. Prof. Jerry Milgrams cat-ketches were afforded a similar welcome. Truely different sail rig innovations were totally discouraged, and numerous other design innovations were "rated" out of existence by handicap racing rules. Ocean going boats were not being designed to "mother-ocean's rules", but rather to some arbitrary, man-created, racer/cruiser rule.

No thanks, let me look elsewhere. A group out of England, AYRS, Amateur Yacht Research Society came to my attention. A relatively new group of multihull enthusiast and their new publication, "Multihulls Magazine", also caught my attention. Here were some sources of true experimentation, innovation, and creativity; and subsequent evolution of the art of sailing, unbridled by handicap rules. Today, look at the French and their fantastic ocean racing boats both mono- and multi-hull; exciting innovation."

Brian