: Hi Mike,

: Was planning on doing that, hulls look kinda like a conventional kayak cut in
: half lengthwise.

: Bill H.

Hi Bill - I just stumbled across your thread - I had the same idea about a year ago. I've been mulling it since, and over the Christmas break I built a 1/4 scale model of a preliminary design for a catamaran kayak. The hulls are long and narrow, 16'4" by 6", max draft will be about 8-9", overall beam I'm trying to keep to 24". It's basically a skinny hull cut in half down the middle. Seating will be from a hung seat above the waterline, so I guess it will technically be a SOT.

The boat is designed as a swimmer escort and rescue kayak - the major design goal is to be able to transport a patient on a hammock behind the paddler above the waterline to reduce hypothermia. The extra load will require a sliding seat for the paddler to trim the boat. It is also meant to act as a platform for long distance swimmers to eat, drink, rest, whatever. Ideally, it will be stable enough that the paddler can turn around and move around to aid the patient/swimmer. I think it will work well as a chase boat at paddle events as well. I'd also like it to be fast, able to function on the open ocean, etc. etc.

A plastic wrap test on the model went pretty well (it appeared to have very low drag), and I am currently gearing up to make a prototype starting in the next week or two. It will be a big experiment, as the model didn't give a lot of info about paddling dynamics, and there's a lot to figure out. I've thought about doing some software modeling, but that won't help with the dynamics either, so I am going to just forge ahead and make a boat. I plan to do the first prototype as a Yost-style SOF. The hulls will be nearly flat on the inside as suggested by you and Mike - they're so narrow they actually look more like airplane wings on edge. But hey, my Dad was a wind-tunnel model-maker at Boeing and my brothers and I grew up making balsa airplanes, not boats, so I guess that has something to do with it. The biggest challenges I see at this point is hull torsional stiffness and weight.

I have a detailed photo sequence of the model construction. I've been meaning to put it all together to share on this site - I'm glad you asked your question as it gave me the impetus to start. The link below has just a few so far.

I wanted to call the boat the "Sea Sled" but the name was taken by a fast speedboat catamaran from the early 20th century (now defunct, though). I'm toying with the name "Cutter", which has a nice double meaning - USCG Cutters are used for rescue, of course, but "cutter" is also a term for a light, fast sleigh pulled by a single horse, which I think is appropriate.

Well, I guess this is maybe more info than necessary, but I've been thinking about this for a long time. Let me know what you think - better photos later, Carl