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James Francis Boats
ABN:25988594737
Proa Building Guides Online
Most people don’t know what a “Proa” is. In fact most sailors don’t know what a Proa is. A proa is an anciant polynesion concept. Most people simply think of them as primitive looking outrigger sailing boats.
“Pacific Proas” have the outrigger to the windward side always, the outrigger is almost always flown in the air when sailing and simply acts as a platform for sitting on. “Atlantic Proas” have the outrigger to the leeward side, the outrigger is therefore only required for buoyancy. This site is mainly concerned with “Pacific Proas”
A Proa doesn’t tack or Gybe, the sail is flown round to the other end of the boat. Meaning that the outrigger will always stay to windward (or leeward if it is an “Atlantic Proa” configuration.
But in actual fact there are a group of people like us, that are interested in developing modernized Proas, because we believe they have an amazing speed potential and believe it or not, could make an excellent cruising boat.
This site aims to present you with the Proa developments taken place by James Francis. So far two prototypes have been designed and constructed. The first (proa mark 1) was used for a three day cruise down the hawksbury river (Australia), which included a 2 hour sail offshore in 25 knots of breeze. Numerous plans to proa mark1 have sold oversees but there has been very little interest in Australia. The second proa was launched yesterday (20/7/2003) and was considered very succesful with many improvements on the first proa.
We encourage you to look into Proas, because for many people, a Proa satisfies all their needs in a boat. Any Proa you see on this site will be of stitch and glue construction and is designed for any body to build. Building guides are available in the ‘Products’ section of this site.
This site has only just been launched, some of the pages are a bit brief but will be improved on shortly.
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