All the boats in the world by John C.Harris

There’s a formula for a successful proa.

- John C.Harris

The recipe is: One big hull. One little hull. Simple crossbeams. Simple rig. Fiddle with the essential ingredients and you spoil the pudding. With a proa you get more speed per dollar than anything short of a windsurfer, but you have to be willing to put up with limited payloads, some tricky rigging geometry, and of course that strange end-for-end tacking maneuver.

Proper Pacific proas–those that keep the ama to windward at all times–work because they are lightly loaded compared to other multihull types, and thus the entire structure can be simplified. One big canoe, one little canoe, some lashed sticks for crossbeams. The history of “Westernized” or modernized Pacific proas comprises a few notable successes and many messy, over-tinkered failures. Something about proas inspires a lunatic fringe of experimentation.

“Mbuli” means “crazy” in Swahili. I was disappointed by most small Westernized proas, and 20 years ago I designed a beachcruiser that I hoped would go nicely without any tinkering. I almost got it right.