Proa building blog
After 2 years of designing and building proasis, finally the day has come and she touched the water of the Baltic Sea for the very first time!
This was a very special moment for everyone involved. We would like to thank all the supporters who helped to assamble her and put her into the water and the sailing department of the STS Surendorf. The launche was a great community effort and a prime example what a group with a common interest can achive.
We are currently assembling our proa to prepare her for the first sea trial. I wish we could work in this speed:
Fortunately, Proasis is, despite of her length of 9m, light enough to move her parts around without a crane or other machinery.
As promised 2 weeks ago some more detailed shots of the rudder mounts:
Two of four windows are glued in. We’ve cut them with a jigsaw from polycarbonat (makrolon) and glued them in with a special glue for the wind shields of cars. Worked really well and no screws required.
The remaining two windows will go on as soon as the weather switches back to summer mode.
Had time to put the spars (at least parts of them) and the sail on the proa for the first time. Even performed some test shunts. Works all very smooth, time for the finish now!
We were lucky and got some nice mesh for the trampolin to cover the space between the hulls and beams from a friend. Quite difficult to sew, but eventually the sewing mashine got tired and did it.
We’ve finally managed to assemble proasis at the beach to take some measurments for the trampolin, the rig and the rudders.
Feels great to see her like that!
The rudder systems of proas are always debated. For many proa projects the rudders, cruicial for safety, were the weak spot of otherwise neat designs. The challenge is to design a system that works in both directions of travel due to the nature of the proa: Shunting.
We hope to have found a robust and cheap way that allows us to keep proasis on course comfortably and safe. Our proa will get recycled F18 daggerboards as rudder foils, mounted in kick-up cassettes on each beam (more about the cassettes in later posts).
Northern Germany got pounded by a heavy snow storm with wind up to 60 kn the past couple of days. The roaring sea caused some scary erosion to our shorelines, drowning land which has been there since the ice age.
Clear reminder that we all share the same ocean: If sea level rises in the Marshall Islands it does over here as well.
Proasis eventually made it to the ocean for the very first time. We managed to ship (well literally truck) her to the spot where we want to launch in summer. With all the Covid measures in place it was quit a struggle to manage the hole operation.
We plan to finish and launch proasis as soon as the weather allows it in spring. Stay tuned!
