The Glasspar boat-building company was started in 1947 when Bill Tritt began building small fiberglass boat hulls in his Costa Mesa, California fiberglass shop.
53-489: Bill Tritt had a keen interest in boats and cars before World War II , when he studied marine architecture and boat-building at California State Teacher's College in Santa Barbara, California . He worked for Douglas Aircraft's Production Planning and Illustration Departments during WWII , and by 1945 had built a number of catamaran sailboats . In 1947, John Green, a yachtsman friend, paid Tritt to design and build
106-577: A moon pool between the hulls. Two Cold War-era submarine rescue ships , USS Pigeon and USS Ortolan of the US Navy , were also catamarans, but did not have the moon pool feature. The use of catamarans as high-speed naval transport was pioneered by HMAS Jervis Bay , which was in service with the Royal Australian Navy between 1999 and 2001. The US Military Sealift Command now operates several Expeditionary Fast Transport catamarans owned by
159-408: A boat. Choosing a catamaran offers increased speed at the expense of reduced load per unit of cost. Howard and Doane describe the following tradeoffs between cruising monohulls and catamarans: A long-distance, offshore cruising monohull may be as short as 30 feet (9.1 m) for a given crew complement and supporting supplies, whereas a cruising catamaran would need to be 40 feet (12 m) to achieve
212-527: A catamaran's two hulls ranges from a simple frame strung with webbing to support the crew to a bridging superstructure incorporating extensive cabin or cargo space. Catamarans from Oceania and Maritime Southeast Asia became the inspiration for modern catamarans. Until the 20th century catamaran development focused primarily on sail-driven concepts. The word "catamaran" is derived from the Tamil word, kattumaram (கட்டுமரம்), which means "logs bound together" and
265-414: A conventional catamaran. They are distinguished from SWATH catamarans, in that the buoyant part of the hull is not tubular. The spanning bridge deck may be configured with some of the characteristics of a normal V-hull, which allows it to penetrate the crests of waves. Wave-piercing catamaran designs have been employed for yachts, passenger ferries, and military vessels. A catamaran configuration fills
318-551: A hand in helping GM determine the best way to fabricate fiberglass bodies for its new line of cars the Corvette . With the successes of these car bodies Tritt decided to design and build a complete sports car called the Ascot, but the Glasspar board of directors voted this down in favor of concentrating on the core business of boat building. Recently one of Bill Tritt's G2 cars was enshrined in
371-565: A hero's welcome in France. In 1939, he published his experiences in a book, Kaimiloa , which was translated into English in 1940. Roland and Francis Prout experimented with catamarans in 1949 and converted their 1935 boat factory in Canvey Island , Essex (England), to catamaran production in 1954. Their Shearwater catamarans easily won races against monohulls. Yellow Bird, a 1956-built Shearwater III , raced successfully by Francis Prout in
424-405: A higher efficiency per unit of payload for monohulls. Two advances over the traditional catamaran are the small-waterplane-area twin hull (SWATH) and the wave-piercing configuration—the latter having become a widely favored design. SWATH reduces wave-generating resistance by moving displacement volume below the waterline, using a pair of tubular, submarine-like hulls, connected by pylons to
477-400: A lattice scaffold. The frame of the tourist catamaran can be made of both aluminum (duralumin) pipes and from felled tree trunks. The inflatable part has two layers—an airtight balloon with inflation holes and a shell made of dense tissue, protecting the balloon from mechanical damage. Advantages of such catamarans are light weight, compactness and convenience in transportation (the whole product
530-600: A multihull steel vessel named Binave (Twin Ship), a new type of catamaran which was constructed and tested in Bilbao ( Spain ) in 1918. The innovative design included two 30 HP Hispano-Suiza marine engines and could modify its configuration when sailing , positioning two rudders at the stern of each float, with the propellers also placed aft . In 1936, Eric de Bisschop built a Polynesian "double canoe" in Hawaii and sailed it home to
583-400: A niche where speed and sea-kindliness is favored over bulk capacity. In larger vessels, this niche favors car ferries and military vessels for patrol or operation in the littoral zone. Recreational and sport catamarans typically are designed to have a crew of two and be launched and landed from a beach. Most have a trampoline on the bridging structure, a rotating mast and full-length battens on
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#1732876570464636-459: A number of catamaran sailboats . In 1947, John Green, a yachtsman friend, paid Tritt to design and build a racing sailboat in the twenty foot range. Fiberglass-reinforced plastic (FRP) seemed the logical construction material, and Otto Bayer of Wizard Boats was enlisted as laminator. The boat was named the Green Dolphin, and four were built. This was Tritt's introduction to FRP. By 1947 he
689-518: A racing sailboat in the 20-foot (6.1 m) range. Fiberglass seemed the logical construction material, and Otto Bayer of Wizard Boats was enlisted as laminator. The boat was named the Green Dolphin , and four were built in various lengths. This was Tritt's first effort in fiberglass-reinforced plastic (FRP). By 1948 he was building small fiberglass sailing dinghies, and built the first ever fiberglass masts and spars for sailboats. This company became
742-572: A seaway. The Swiss-registered wave-piercing catamaran, Tûranor PlanetSolar , which was launched in March 2010, is the world's largest solar powered boat. It completed a circumnavigation of the globe in 2012. The 1970s saw the introduction of catamarans as high-speed ferries , as pioneered by Westermoen Hydrofoil in Mandal , Norway, which launched the Westamaran design in 1973. The Stena Voyager
795-665: A smaller hydrodynamic resistance than comparable monohulls, requiring less propulsive power from either sails or motors. The catamaran's wider stance on the water can reduce both heeling and wave-induced motion, as compared with a monohull, and can give reduced wakes. Catamarans were invented by the Austronesian peoples , and enabled their expansion to the islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans . Catamarans range in size from small sailing or rowing vessels to large naval ships and roll-on/roll-off car ferries. The structure connecting
848-520: A trimaran, replacing its soft sail rig with a towering wing sail —the largest sailing wing ever built. In the waters off Valencia , Spain in February 2010, the BMW Oracle Racing trimaran with its powerful wing sail proved to be superior. This represented a break from the traditional monohulls that had always been sailed in previous America's Cup series. On San Francisco Bay, the 2013 America's Cup
901-619: Is (as of 2014) the fastest passenger ship in service. The first warship to be propelled by a steam engine, named Demologos or Fulton and built in the United States during the War of 1812 , was a catamaran with a paddle wheel between her hulls. In the early 20th Century several catamarans were built as submarine salvage ships: SMS Vulkan and SMS Cyclop of Germany , Kommuna of Russia , and Kanguro of Spain , all designed to lift stricken submarines by means of huge cranes above
954-592: Is a type of single-hulled raft made of three to seven tree trunks lashed together. The term has evolved in English usage to refer to unrelated twin-hulled vessels. Catamaran-type vessels were an early technology of the Austronesian peoples . Early researchers like Heine-Geldern (1932) and Hornell (1943) once believed that catamarans evolved from outrigger canoes , but modern authors specializing in Austronesian cultures like Doran (1981) and Mahdi (1988) now believe it to be
1007-493: Is almost entirely due to surface friction. When boat speed increases and waves are generated the resistance is dependent on several design factors, particularly hull displacement to length and hull separation to length ratio, it is a non trivial resistance curve with many small peaks as wave trains at various speeds combine and cancel For powered catamarans, this implies smaller power plants (although two are typically required). For sailing catamarans, low forward resistance allows
1060-521: Is packed in one pack-backpack, suitable for air traffic standards) and the speed of assembly (10–15 minutes for the inflation). All-inflatable models are available in North America. A cata-raft design has been used on the Colorado River to handle heavy whitewater, yet maintain a good speed through the water. Cruising sailors must make trade-offs among volume, useful load, speed, and cost in choosing
1113-469: The Comoros , retained the twin-hull and the single outrigger canoe types, but the technology for double outriggers never reached them (although it exists in western Melanesia ). To deal with the problem of the instability of the boat when the outrigger faces leeward when tacking, they instead developed the shunting technique in sailing, in conjunction with reversible single-outriggers. Despite their being
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#17328765704641166-689: The G2 (Glasspar) , but including the Woodill Wildfire , the Studebaker-based Ascot and the Volvo Sport . The G2 was a prime influence on the decision for Chevrolet to develop the Corvette . The company was eventually sold to Larson Boat Works . Restoring and preserving Glasspar boats and cars has become extremely popular in recent years. The official Glasspar Owners Association can be found at Classic Glasspars Extensive information can be found at
1219-609: The Smithsonian Institution as the first production fiberglass car. Catamaran A catamaran ( / ˌ k æ t ə m ə ˈ r æ n / ) (informally, a "cat") is a watercraft with two parallel hulls of equal size. The wide distance between a catamaran's hulls imparts stability through resistance to rolling and overturning; no ballast is required. Catamarans typically have less hull volume, smaller displacement , and shallower draft (draught) than monohulls of comparable length. The two hulls combined also often have
1272-434: The waterline length is too speed-dependent to be meaningful—as with a planing hull. It uses a reference length, the cubic root of the volumetric displacement of the hull, V , where u is the relative flow velocity between the sea and ship, and g is acceleration due to gravity : Calm water transportation efficiency of a vessel is proportional to the full-load displacement and the maximum calm-water speed, divided by
1325-526: The 1960s, is in the collection of the National Maritime Museum Cornwall . Prout Catamarans , Ltd. designed a mast aft rig with the mast aft of midships to support an enlarged jib—more than twice the size of the design's reduced mainsail; it was produced as the Snowgoose model. The claimed advantage of this sail plan was to diminish any tendency for the bows of the vessel to dig in. In
1378-857: The Glasspar Company and moved to larger quarters from Industrial Way in Costa Mesa to Harbor Blvd in Costa Mesa, California , in 1950. By 1951, Glasspar moved again to larger quarters in Santa Ana, California . By the mid-1950s, Glasspar was producing 15 to 20 percent of all fiberglass boats sold in the U.S. By 1958, branch factories were operating in Nashville, Tennessee , Petersburg, Virginia , Olympia, Washington , and Sherman, Texas . Glasspar built boats in ranges from car toppers to 21-foot (6.4 m) models and everything in between. Just prior to 1969, when Glasspar
1431-506: The Mariner, included the Sport-Mariner, Club-Mariner, or Mariner (standard) model. Some boat models were also named for areas in and around Southern California, such as Avalon on the island of Catalina and Del Mar , a coastal community north of San Diego . Models included, but were not limited to; Glasspar was also one of the first companies to build fiberglass-bodied cars, most notably
1484-779: The Owners Association Website to include factory brochures, production data and even patents. Bill Tritt Bill Tritt (August 29, 1917 - March 25, 2011) was an American yacht builder. He began working in Glass-reinforced plastic in 1948. He founded Glasspar Corporation in 1949 due to his keen interest in boats and cars and his belief in fiberglass as a material. Before the World War II, he studied marine architecture and boat building. He worked for Douglas Aircraft 's Production Planning and Illustration Departments during World War II , and by 1945 had built
1537-536: The Tenasserim Provinces for several years". Later that century, the American Nathanael Herreshoff constructed a twin-hulled sailing boat of his own design (US Pat. No. 189,459). The craft, Amaryllis , raced at her maiden regatta on June 22, 1876, and performed exceedingly well. Her debut demonstrated the distinct performance advantages afforded to catamarans over the standard monohulls. It
1590-555: The US Navy commissioned the construction of a SWATH ship to test the configuration. SWATH vessels compare with conventional powered catamarans of equivalent size, as follows: Wave-piercing catamarans (strictly speaking they are trimarans , with a central hull and two outriggers) employ a low-buoyancy bow on each hull that is pointed at the water line and rises aft, up to a level, to allow each hull to pierce waves, rather than ride over them. This allows higher speeds through waves than for
1643-572: The US Navy; they are used for high speed transport of military cargo, and to get into shallow ports. The Makar -class is a class of two large catamaran-hull survey ships built for the Indian Navy . As of 2012, one vessel, INS Makar (J31) , was in service and the second was under construction. First launched in 2004 at Shanghai, the Houbei class missile boat of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has
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1696-414: The bridge deck with a narrow waterline cross-section. The submerged hulls are minimally affected by waves. The SWATH form was invented by Canadian Frederick G. Creed , who presented his idea in 1938 and was later awarded a British patent for it in 1946. It was first used in the 1960s and 1970s as an evolution of catamaran design for use as oceanographic research vessels or submarine rescue ships. In 1990,
1749-490: The catamaran has an initial resistance to heeling that is seven times that of the monohull. Compared with a monohull, a cruising catamaran sailboat has a high initial resistance to heeling and capsize—a fifty-footer requires four times the force to initiate a capsize than an equivalent monohull. One measure of the trade-off between speed and carrying capacity is the displacement Froude number (Fn V ) , compared with calm water transportation efficiency . Fn V applies when
1802-409: The corresponding power required. Large merchant vessels have a Fn V between one and zero, whereas higher-performance powered catamarans may approach 2.5, denoting a higher speed per unit volume for catamarans. Each type of vessel has a corresponding calm water transportation efficiency, with large transport ships being in the range of 100–1,000, compared with 11-18 for transport catamarans, denoting
1855-426: The first to do so in fiberglass) as well as speedboat and runabout hulls. Tritt is credited with designing and building the first production fiberglass car called the G2 . During this period he also designed and or built bodies for Blanchard Robert "Woody" Woodill, Strassberger Motor Company, British Singer Car Company, Willys , Kaiser (when Kaiser bought out Willys), Volvo, and Walt Disney. He may also have had
1908-399: The mainsail. Performance versions often have trapezes to allow the crew to hike out and counterbalance capsize forces during strong winds on certain points of sail. For the 33rd America's Cup , both the defender and the challenger built 90-foot (27 m) long multihulls. Société Nautique de Genève , defending with team Alinghi , sailed a catamaran. The challenger, BMW Oracle Racing, used
1961-563: The mid-twentieth century, beachcats became a widespread category of sailing catamarans, owing to their ease of launching and mass production. In California, a maker of surfboards , Hobie Alter , produced the 250-pound (110 kg) Hobie 14 in 1967, and two years later the larger and even more successful Hobie 16 . As of 2016, the Hobie 16 was still being produced with more than 100,000 having been manufactured. Catamarans were introduced to Olympic sailing in 1976. The two-handed Tornado catamaran
2014-473: The more "primitive form" of outrigger canoes, they were nonetheless effective, allowing seafaring Polynesians to voyage to distant Pacific islands . The following is a list of traditional Austronesian catamarans: The first documented example of twin-hulled sailing craft in Europe was designed by William Petty in 1662 to sail faster, in shallower waters, in lighter wind, and with fewer crew than other vessels of
2067-405: The opposite. Two canoes bound together developed directly from minimal raft technologies of two logs tied together. Over time, the twin-hulled canoe form developed into the asymmetric double canoe, where one hull is smaller than the other. Eventually the smaller hull became the prototype outrigger , giving way to the single outrigger canoe, then to the reversible single outrigger canoe. Finally,
2120-443: The racing versions recording well over 400 nautical miles (460 mi; 740 km) per day. In addition, they do not heel more than 10-12 degrees, even at full speed on a reach. Powered cruising catamarans share many of the amenities found in a sail cruising catamaran. The saloon typically spans two hulls wherein are found the staterooms and engine compartments. As with sailing catamarans, this configuration minimizes boat motion in
2173-410: The sails to derive power from attached flow , their most efficient mode—analogous to a wing—leading to the use of wingsails in racing craft. Catamarans rely primarily on form stability to resist heeling and capsize. Comparison of heeling stability of a rectangular-cross section monohull of beam, B , compared with two catamaran hulls of width B /2, separated by a distance, 2× B , determines that
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2226-439: The same capacity. In addition to greater speed, catamarans draw less water than do monohulls— as little as 3 feet (0.91 m) —and are easier to beach. Catamarans are harder to tack and take up more space in a marina. Cruising catamarans entail added expense for having two engines and two rudders. Tarjan adds that cruising catamarans boats can maintain a comfortable 300 nautical miles (350 mi; 560 km) per day passage, with
2279-558: The single outrigger types developed into the double outrigger canoe (or trimarans ). This would also explain why older Austronesian populations in Island Southeast Asia tend to favor double outrigger canoes, as it keeps the boats stable when tacking . But they still have small regions where catamarans and single-outrigger canoes are still used. In contrast, more distant outlying descendant populations in Oceania , Madagascar , and
2332-587: The time. However, the unusual design met with skepticism and was not a commercial success. The design remained relatively unused in the West for almost 160 years until the early 19th-century, when the Englishman Mayflower F. Crisp built a two-hulled merchant ship in Rangoon, Burma . The ship was christened Original . Crisp described it as "a fast sailing fine sea boat; she traded during the monsoon between Rangoon and
2385-424: The water and greater stability (initial resistance to capsize). Choosing between a monohull and catamaran configuration includes considerations of carrying capacity, speed, and efficiency. At low to moderate speeds, a lightweight catamaran hull experiences resistance to passage through water that is approximately proportional to its speed. A displacement monohull has the same relationship at low speed since resistance
2438-590: The water. Virtually all of the new mega-cats were built of pre-preg carbon fiber for strength and the lowest possible weight. The top speeds of these boats can approach 50 knots (58 mph; 93 km/h). The Race was won by the 33.50 m (109.9 ft)-long catamaran Club Med skippered by Grant Dalton . It went round the globe in 62 days at an average speed of 18 knots (21 mph; 33 km/h). Whitewater catamaran—sometimes called "cata-rafts"—for whitewater sports are widely spread in post-Soviet countries . They consists of two inflatable hulls connected with
2491-411: Was a circumnavigation challenge which departed from Barcelona, Spain, on New Year's Eve, 2000. Because of the prize money and prestige associated with this event, four new catamarans (and two highly modified ones) over 100 feet (30 m) in length were built to compete. The largest, PlayStation , owned by Steve Fossett , was 125 feet (38 m) long and had a mast which was 147 feet (45 m) above
2544-432: Was an example of a large, fast ferry, typically traveling at a speed of 46 miles per hour (74 km/h), although it was capable of over 70 miles per hour (110 km/h). The Australian island Tasmania became the site of builders of large transport catamarans— Incat in 1977 and Austal in 1988 —each building civilian ferries and naval vessels. Incat built HSC Francisco , a High-Speed trimaran that, at 58 knots,
2597-661: Was as a result of this event, the Centennial Regatta of the New York Yacht Club, that catamarans were barred from regular sailing classes, and this remained the case until the 1970s. On June 6, 1882, three catamarans from the Southern Yacht Club of New Orleans raced a 15 nm course on Lake Pontchartrain and the winning boat in the catamaran class, Nip and Tuck , beat the fastest sloop's time by over five minutes. In 1916, Leonardo Torres Quevedo patented
2650-593: Was building small fiberglass boats, and built the first ever fiberglass masts and spars for sailboats. This company became the Glasspar Company and moved to larger quarters in Santa Ana, California , in the early 1950s. By the mid-1950s, Glasspar was producing fifteen to twenty percent of all fiberglass boats sold in the United States . About this time Tritt incorporated and offered stock to generate working capital. Tritt also designed and built car bodies (one of
2703-486: Was sailed in 72-foot (22 m) long AC72 catamarans (craft set by the rules for the 2013 America's Cup). Each yacht employed hydrofoils and a wing sail. The regatta was won 9–8 by Oracle Team USA against the challenger, Emirates Team New Zealand , in fifteen matches because Oracle Team USA had started the regatta with a two-point penalty. Yachting has seen the development of multihulls over 100 feet (30 m) in length. " The Race " helped precipitate this trend; it
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#17328765704642756-707: Was selected for the multihull discipline in the Olympic Games from 1976 through 2008. It was redesigned in 2000. The foiling Nacra 17 was used in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which were held in 2021; after the 2015 adoption of the Nacra 15 as a Youth World Championships class and as a new class for the Youth Olympic Games. Catamarans have two distinct primary performance characteristics that distinguish them from displacement monohull vessels: lower resistance to passage through
2809-542: Was sold off, there were even 21-and-25-foot (6.4 and 7.6 m) oceangoing models. Boats were often given Mediterranean-sounding names, and the boat classes within the model were often indicated by a model type then model name, with a hyphen in between. For example, in the 14-foot (4.3 m) range there was a model called the Lido, which came in three configurations: the Sport-Lido, Club-Lido, and Lido (standard). Another line, called
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