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A little about me and the Proteus... |
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My name is Bruce Yager. I am an artist and designer living in the beautiful city of Albuquerque located in the high desert of Northern New Mexico, USA. I have been involved with sailing and have enjoyed boats and being around the water in general since I was a kid. When I was young, my family started off with a small Laser-like dinghy Mfd. in the UK called a Topper. Its a great little boat but I took a ride on a guys Hobie once and that was it....we eventually got a Hobie 14. |
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My father used to take my sister and I to a lake on an indian reservation about 40 minutes north of town called Cochiti lake. It is a lake that the Cochiti tribe used to run when I was young but has now been taken over by the state and is run by the Army Corps of Engineers. As a result the camping areas and bathrooms have greatly improved since the 70's with nice camping sites that sport clean bathrooms and shower facilities. Cochiti is also unique in the fact it is a "no wake" lake which means no high powered motorboats or jetskis. Just fishing boats at trolling speeds, kayaks, canoes and sailboats so its peaceful, quiet and a great place to sail, fish or paddle. An added Bonus of Cochiti is that the Army Corps of Engineers keeps the water level constant. In fact, its even higher than normal this year becuase army helicopters often need to take water from the lake by dipping huge bags to scoop up the water and fly it to dump on the common summer forest fires New Mexico has every year. |
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A Hobie 14 |
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A Topper |
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Now im an adult and have moved back to Albuquerque after being away for many years. When I came back the first thing I did was get the old windsurfer and Topper back out on the water to get myself back into sailing/fishing mode. But after sailing on that 11 foot Dinghy for a few seasons (we sold Hobie when I was younger, but I managed to hang on to Topper) I decided I wanted to design and build my own Catamaran - especially after seeing a few old Prindles and Hobies out there! I really missed the speed and comfort of my Hobie.... and being in my 30's on an 11 ft dinghy somehow seems a lot more uncomfortable to me now than it did when I was 12 :o)
But I knew there were all sorts of variables to consider, so before I just charged into building a catamaran, I decided to gain a bit more experience and knowledge by designing and building
"The Outdoorsman" - a 14 ft. Canoe-kayak hybrid - this was a very fun and simple project and only took me a month to complete and get in the water by working on it weekends. My canoe, which I named "The Green Hornet" is built from a very simple frame with plywood skins that are fiberglassed and painted. It weighs in at 75 lbs. loads easily on the roof rack and cuts through the water like a hot knife thru butter. She was actually quite inexpensive to build at only $140 and has been the perfect fishing and exploring vessel for days when I want to camp, fish and relax. Click HERE to go to the Outdoorsman homepage for more info & pics. |
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A flying Narca |
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After doing tons of research online, at the library and from old books and popular science articles, I decided instead of the old school Hobies, I wanted to design a cat that has a more modern, deeper V hull shape that would provide more floatation and look closer to a european design or a Prindle or Narca in shape. The reason I mentioned the canoe is, the Proteus hull design is based on the same basic design ideas as the canoe, (only 'squished flat' with a transom on the aft) primarily for ease of building, Strength & stability, light weight and a minimum of interior framing. Also I have a minumum of storage space available in my garage, so the cat needed to be small enough to hang each hull from the ceiling as well as being able to fit on the roof rack of my truck. This way I wouldn't need a trailer, would be able to easily get to my favoite spot on the lake a trailer couldnt reach, and avoid having to pay storage costs that would have been most definately been associated with buying a used cat. Plus building it and sailing it knowing you built the boat yourself is a feeling i cant describe! The hulls are actually symetrical for greater performance, with small, submerged skegs in the aft underside of each hull in place of centerboards - this idea is very similar to the modern hobies, and the Narca 4.5 pictured at the top of this this page. The skegs, in conjunction with the deep V design works very well. Its lightweight, and the foam-filled hulls have plenty of flotation to prevent pitchpoling or buring the aft waterside hull underwater as hobies have been known to do. I originally designed The Proteus 4.0 to be a single handed easy-beaching performance cat but it will easily carry 2 adults, and has 2 hull-ports for storing food, supplies, tools, first aid kit, sodas etc... < HOME |
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The Proteus 4.0 |
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