Proas.is

End of sailing season

Unfortunately last Sunday’s sail will be the last one for this year. Winter has been kicking in recently with the first ice and increasingly nasty weather. We got lucky to pick one of the rare sunny days with a good southerly breeze for the 15 nm trip from Kiel to Surendorf. After little over 2 h of beautiful sailing we sat Proasis on the beach and took everything from the boat that we dont want to keep on it for the winter. This is always a good moment to realize how much unnecessary stuff gets piled up over the year!

To move the 700 kg canoe up the beach to its parking spot for the winter (about 200 m) we built a solid slip trolley from steel with six huge balloon tires borrowed from regular dinghy slip trolleys. Using an ancient electric winch with a long cable this is an surprisingly easy job that can be done by three without problems.

Since there is no sailing for the next couple of month there is plenty of time to work on Proasis. We didnt break much over the year and there is no other need for major refits so we can focus on improvements. We have some projects in the pipeline but its still to early to go into details. Just so much, they are all about speed 😉

Proa Meeting 2024

This year we hosted our informal German proa and outrigger canoe meeting at our beach in Surendorf. Like the year before we had five canoes on the water:

Ri Nei Jeim – a traditional 18 ft Marshallese korkor
Lars Rauprichs design – fjordproa
Reto Prehms P5 – segelreto
AiviA – kiteproa.net
Proasis

On the first day we had a fresh onshore breeze with a little shore-break and choppy conditions. Sailing was a lot of fun. Below you can find a video of Lars and Reto racing around (other canoes parked at the beach to get the hands free for the drone):

First day with fresh breeze and choppy onshore conditions.

By the next day the wind had died completely. at least we managed to get all five canoes on the water at the same time for some fleet sailing (well, more drifting):

Second day, no wind at all

Downwind upgrade

Due to the rather small sail area (just 19 sqm) and the design of the sail (the shape only forms under wind pressure) Proasis has always been a bit slow in light wind from behind. We thought about getting an additional downwind sail for a while an now finally got hands on a good second hand asymmetric spinnacker. Finding one that fits our short mast was not easy but apparently we can conveniently use the sail of a Hobie 15. It’s just 6.5 sqm but gives a notable boost of thrust. It can be hoisted either on the leeward bow if the wind is blowing more from the side or to the windward bow if the wind is dead from the aft.

Downwind mode for wind right from the aft.

Regular mode for apparent wind from 90-170 degrees.

Water camping

During this summer season we used Proasis frequently as water camping platform for trips to explor the Danish archipelago. Being designed as a prototype for a lagoon fishing and passenger vessel this is something Proasis is really good in.

Midsummer sailing

Midsummer is a very special time in the northern hemisphere. It marks the summer solstice where the day becomes the longest day of the year and the night the shortest one. Although Kiel is not located north enough to experience midnight sun, the event is still quite impressive. The sun just dips behind the horizon and is visible as a golden light for the entire time between sunset and sunrise. We thought the best way to experience this magical night would be to sail Proasis through it. The weather was fortunately fair with light wind and a lightly overcast sky, turning this trip into a great adventure!

Proasis relaunched

Finally Proasis is back in her element, many thanks to all the people who supported us to make this possible!

Spring refit 2024

Better late than never – this years spring refit is almost finished and we hope to relaunch Proasis next week. The intense work of the past couple of month included the regular winter work such as bottom paint and minor general repairs/maintenance as well as three four major upgrade projects:

Two new bidirectional centerboards with internal cases in the leeward hull. The boards are set about 80 cm to each side of the middle of the hull. This allows to adjust the balance of the boat by adjusting them. Pulling up the aft one will make the boat turn upwind, pulling up the front one downwind and vice versa. We’ve already tried this on a WAM Proa in the Marshall Islands with great success and adopted it as standard design. For Proasis we expect a better upwind performance as well as an even better balance for singlehanded sailing.
A new solar array, wiring and a LiFePo battery. We replaced our old, crappy solar panels with something better and more durable and upgraded from a PWM solar charger to a Victron MPPT. Combined with a 1kWh LiFePo battery we hope to get a more powerful and long-lasting setup.
A new slip trolley. Proasis weights about 750kg and we have to move her about 250 m over a soft sand beach twice a year. Without any access for power vehicles thats quite a challenge. For this year have designed a trolley from galvanized steel with six huge balloon tires on ball bearings. Lets see how good that works.
Replacement of the beam lashings. Proasis is kept together by rope lashing around the beams and the hulls. Since we launched her for the first time we have never replaced or adjusted them so it was about time. We used the opportunity to carefully measure and realign the hulls and replace the old shock absorbers from rubber.

Marine litter in the Marshall Islands

The Marshall Islands are located right on the edge of the great pacific garbage patch, a natural ocean gyre that accumulated enormous amounts of litter over the past couple of years. About 70% of the artificial debris that enters the ocean eventually sinks to the ground but the rest, mainly plastic, keeps floating around until it either brakes down to micro plastic or ends up on a shore. The great pacific garbage patch brings so much plastic to the shores of the Marshall Islands that it is sometimes hard to see the beach under the plastic.

A littered beach in Aur, a typical scene at the shore line

There are international standards (e.g. by UN and OSPAR) to measure the amount of pollution by conducting systematic beach cleanups: all litter within a certain stretch of beach is collected, sorted into categories, counted and weighed. Doing this on multiple beaches and over a longer period of time allows to track the origins of certain litter items and give valuable recommendations for stricter policies to politicians.

Surprisingly we could not find any publication about the amount of beach litter in the Marshall Islands. Therefore Henrik conducted such a study on his own back in 2022. Since this was a purely voluntary effort it took a while to analyze all the data and write everything down but now we present you the first Baseline Study on Beach Litter in the Marshall Islands. This is still a very small study with limited data but at least its something. More research is urgently needed, it would be great to continue this work as part of a properly funded project.

A Vision is Turning into Reality

For centuries, the people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) have been celebrated for their exceptional prowess in boat building and sailing. They regularly journeyed between atolls on expansive offshore canoes called Walap, some stretching up to 100 feet in length. Within the tranquil lagoons of their coral atolls, smaller outrigger canoe designs were used for tasks like food gathering and fishing. The NGO Waan Aelõñ in Majel (WAM) as part of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) implemented Low Carbon Sea Transport project has revived the traditional knowledge and made it fit for today by merging it with contemporary technology. The new canoe designs offer much needed emission-free options for transportation and fishing. We have been supporting WAM and the Low Carbon Sea Transport project for the past 6 years and are very proud to see more and more of “our” yellow designs being used on the lagoons.

For more information check out the full article on www.changing-transport.org. This short movie shows the activities and achievements that took place at WAM in the past 6 years:

Video and article by GIZ Majuro.

Night sailing

Last year when we sailed Proasis back to Kiel after the proa meeting in Flensburg Lars (aka. Fjordproa) joined for a great sailing adventure. He filmed the voyage and shared the video on his youtube channel: