Spark…a Three Hulled Rosinante
By Mike O’Brien
[Originally from Boat Design Quarterly #2 , but reprinted just now from Messing About In Boats. Follow?]
Canoe yawls are small canoe sterned cruisers. They are not canoes, they need not be yawl rigged, and Spark demonstrates that they need not have only one hull. Dick Newick drew this light trimaran for a client who wanted a threehulled version of Rozinante, a lovely and deep rnonohull from L. Francis Herreshoff’s table. The highly regarded multihull designer understood that his new boat would have to be “elegantly simple, handy, fast, and fun to sail”.
To drive Spark’s slender hulls, Newick chose the rig devised by Dr. Ljungstrom in the 1930’s after he lost his son to a spinnaker accident. This system consists of a doubled, boomless, battenless, legomutton mainsail that furls (and reefs after a fashion) around an unstayed rotating mast. For beating and reaching, both layers of the sail lie together and are sheeted to the same point, that is they act as a conventional single sail. Off the wind, the sail can open like a butterfly’s wings to double the effective area.
Starting with a Ljungstromrigged 17′ cruising kayak in 1950, and proceeding through a 51′ trimaran schooner (1988). Dick Newick must have as much experience with doubled sails as any contemporary sailor.
The racing records of Newick’s boats indicate that his performance predictions ought not to be taken lightly. He forecasts that “Spark might not beat a wingmasted trimaran to windward, but she should be ahead of almost anything else. Flying a spinnakercloth, double duty jib/mizzen staysail, she will do better than wind speed in any breeze under 8 knots. With working sail you can expect 12 knots of boat speed in 15 knots of wind. She’ll make 16 knots easily when it’s blowing 20. An 8hp outboard will push her to 7 knots, and a yuloh ( a specially rigged, bent Asian sculling oar) will give 2 knots.”
If Newick’s Spark and Hereshoff’s Rozinante share similar intent, they also provide similar accommodations. Each has a solitary berth and an extraordinarily comfortable cockpit. Neither boat has standing headroom, and neither needs it. Most life functions can, or should, be performed while sitting or reclining.
Nets fill the open spaces between Spark’s hulls. Lying prone on a speeding trimaran’s net, suspended inches above the rushing stream of warm water, must be one of life’s great spiritual and physical pleasures, dream-like free flight. The nets make fine beds on mild, bugless nights.
Spark’s hulls can be strip planked with cedar or lighter more expensive DuraKore. In either case, they should be sheathed with fiberglass cloth inside and out. Shaped and ‘glassed foam forms the forward and after ends of the amas (outer hulls). These “safety cushions” will disintegrate upon hard impact.
Lofting this boat should be easy. Newick drew Spark’s graceful hull lines for publication here. He added a waterline and buttock lines to the vaka drawings at my request. Later, he pointed out that these lines needn’t be shown for his boats because of their easy shape and selffairing lofting method.
From the many dictionary definitions for “spark”, Newick has chosen two as fitting his boat: “A flash of light” and “to set in motion”. As does Rozinante, Spark possesses a spirit that transcends functional explanation. She stirs a sailor’s passion for efficient movement and independence.
Contact: Richard C. Newick, 5 Shepherds Way, Kittery Point, ME 03905.)
