Austral 20
| Development | |
|---|---|
| Designer | Charles Cunningham[1] |
| Location | Australia[1] |
| Year | 1960s[1] |
| Hull | |
| Type | Catamaran[1] |
| Construction | Fiberglass[1] |
| LOA | 6 m (20 ft)[1] |
Austral 20 was a 6 m (20 ft) catamaran produced by Charles Cunningham in Australia in the early 1960s period of experimentation.[1]
It was apparently produced in reasonable numbers by Charles himself.[1]
| “ | By now I was earning a proper wage and I wanted to build my own trimaran. For someone who had never made anything more difficult than a doorstop, this was a major decision. I reckoned that I could rely on Lockie and other yachtie friends to advise me on boatbuilding, and save a lot of time by purchasing a ready-made main hull. But who made stock trimaran hulls? No-one, of course; but Charles Cunningham was turning out fibreglass shells for his 6-metre Austral 20 catamaran. I bought one of these, decked it with plywood, built timber-and-ply crossbeams and floats to Lockie's design and fabricated much of the hardware from stainless-steel plate. | ” |
| — Howard Stephenson[1] | ||
See also
The Austral 20 Catamaran at the time of it's design, was, along with the Peter Joubert and others designed Attunga 20 and the 1950's Cunningham designed Yvonne, the principal senior multihull designs available in Australia, prior to the emergence of locally designed C-Class America's Cup Challengers and the later development of the Tornado. I had never seen one "in the flesh" until I purchased the pictured boat in 2009. Although complete, it has never returned to sailing condition. Using Austral 20 stock hulls this boat was campaigned as an entry to the search for an International B Class design around 1964-65. This includes aluminium beams to 10 feet, and a monster Prior Sails 9 metre aluminium mast. Fully battened mainsail with rotating mast with a wire block and tackle set-up to camber the battens. High tech in it's day.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Howard Stephenson. "Trimarans". Retrieved 2015. Check date values in:
|access-date=(help)