Whether for sport, beach, or leisure, the catamaran is a boat synonymous with freedom and speed, which continues to inspire dreams. Feelnets, your custom net creator, began its activity by creating nets for catamarans and other multihull trampolines and has established itself as a specialist in the field over the years. It therefore seemed interesting to us to look into the history of this boat, which is not as young as it looks…
What is a Catamaran?
Before we delve into the history of the catamaran, it seems important to define exactly what we’re talking about.
A catamaran, according to the Larousse, “is ‘a sailboat or motorboat with two coupled hulls, used for pleasure boating.’ The two hulls are generally parallel to” one “another. These multihulls are therefore equipped with thin hulls that allow them to go faster by reducing water resistance (shallow draft), greatly increasing its stability and deck area.”
Pleasure boats, they have also become highly prized sports competition boats (such as the famous America’s Cup) and increasingly technical, present in many nautical races. Thanks to the “addition of foils, curved daggerboards as well as fins on the rudders, some catamarans can even fly above the” water.
The theoretical maximum speed of these boats is 100 km/h, but technological developments have recently allowed some catamarans (such as the one in the SailGP circuit in 2019) to exceed 50 knots.
The word catamaran is said to come from the Tamil word kattuamaran. Katta for tie and maram for wood. And this is where its history begins…
The History of the Catamaran (without Net) from the Bay of Bengal to the Indian Ocean, Passing through Polynesia
The first “trace” of a catamaran is found in the writings of the English pirate and adventurer William Dampier, in the 1690s. He is the very first European to describe a catamaran he saw sailing in the Bay of Bengal, in the Tamil Nadu region. He describes them in these words (source Wikipedia): “On the Coromandel coast, they call them catamarans. It is one or two logs, sometimes of light wood […] so small, that it carries only one man whose legs and bottom are always in the water.”
But it seems that it was in the Indian and Pacific Oceans that the first catamarans really came into being. Indeed, as highlighted in this fascinating article by Voiles et Voiliers on Oceanian canoes, the settlement of all these Oceanian islands was done by boat and would have started between 50,000 to 35,000 years before our era.
The map below shows 50,000 years of sailing migrations, made possible thanks to multihulls – catamarans, trimarans, praos. Indeed, Polynesians have always used a particular form of two-hulled boat called a “prao”. Its particularity: moving in both directions thanks to a 180° rotation of the sails.
Map @ François Chevalier
The Prao (Still without Net), Ancestor of the Catamaran?
An Indonesian multihull sailboat, the prao is a derivative of Indonesian outrigger canoes, which are also found in the Philippines in the form of a trimaran. Asymmetrical, it has a main hull and a float placed parallel and connected by connecting arms.
This boat appears very early in the drawings of European explorers. It can be found in the accounts of William Funnell on the Pacific Islands in 1705 or of George Anson on the Mariana Islands in 1743. And in 1711, Woodes Rogers even brought back a disassembled one to London, to exhibit it in St. James’s Park.
To better visualize these “praos” and other craft, Voiles et Voiliers has published various drawings by François Chevalier such as the praos of the Mariana Islands, those of the Bismarck Archipelago or the catamaran of the Fiji Islands.
Sport Catamarans (with Net) that Keep Gaining Speed
In the Western world, catamarans were first built in England in 1662 by William Petty. However, it is the one nicknamed “the wizard of Bristol”, American Nathanael G. Herreshoff, who is often considered the true father of the catamaran in the West, particularly thanks to his technical marvels that allowed the catamaran to transition from pleasure boating to sport.
The man who invented the modern dinghy, keelboat, and catamaran – and won the America’s Cup six times – was the first Westerner (read his portrait HERE), in 1870, to design and build catamarans of unprecedented speed and stability. In 1877, he created the 9.75-meter catamaran John Gilplin, whose plans (see below) are of extraordinary modernity. In the spring of 1891, he launched Gloriana, 21.50 meters long, the first pure racing sailboat.
Among other catamaran pioneers, we also find the “pati à vela” (sailing board), born in Catalonia in the 1920s. A rudderless catamaran highly appreciated by Spaniards, Dutch, and Germans. In 1968, the Hobie 14 by Californian Hobart ALTER, known as “Hobie”, was created, followed in 1970 by the Hobie 16.
These catamarans with asymmetrical banana-shaped hulls immediately experienced enormous success. And the Hobie 16 remains the most widely distributed catamaran in the world.
The History of the Catamaran Trampoline
“While there isn’t really a” history of the catamaran trampoline, it seems that “it only appeared late in the” history of the catamaran. “It’s probably on the Tornado that we” see the first catamaran trampoline, as “we” imagine it today “. In 1967, the IYRU (the name at the” time for the International Sailing Federation) launched a competition for Class B catamarans (2 crew members, 20 feet by 10, 21.80 square meters of sail area). And “it was the Tornado, designed by Rodney March the” previous year, that “won. The one that would remain an Olympic catamaran until” 2008 already had a trampoline.
Sailing enthusiasts, boat owners, manufacturers, or renters, call upon the expertise of over 15 years of Feelnets for its nets / trampolines for multihulls / catamarans.
