In The Beginning

Like so many journeys I’ve undertaken…. it started long ago in my mind. This one in particular began with an article in Wooden Boat magazine about a Pacific style shunting Proa built by Russel Brown. I’m not sure when the article on his Jzerro was first published but in looking back it was quite a few years ago when he first built it around age 14 or so. I was also a long time follower of Phil Bolger and Howard Payson and some of their stitch and glue instant boats and experimented quite a bit with this type construction for some small models of my own design and a few larger ones as well. Played quite a bit with the hulls program by Carlson Designs that is pretty cool and even a few saillcut programs by Robert Laine. There are quite a few more variations of the proa designs online now and I’m thinking of building one of my own.

Russels boat were pretty high tech with a more conventional marconi type rig and complicated rudders in boxes thru which they were raised and lowered.

The video below revived my interest in the proas... it is a lot more like its original namesake a polynesian proa.

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