Preliminary design of a modern cruising catamaran utilising atraction kite for propulsion.

This project was carried out in order to develop a preliminary design for a modern take on a charter catamaran. This design would attempt to transcend the current distinction between motor and sailing charters which currently take roughly equal shares of the charter market. This would in effect double its potential market. It was also to be designed in as environmentally friendly a manner as possible. As time goes by environmental accreditation is becoming more important to both charter companies and the charterers’ themselves. The main distinction of this design from other charter catamarans is its use of a traction kite in way of a standard rig to harness the wind energy and propel the vessel. This system has multiple benefits over the standard rig which are discussed within this report. As part of this project a rough velocity prediction of this vessel under canvas was generated. This gave some interesting results showing this design outperforming similar vessels with standard rigs in certain conditions. This was impressive considering it has less than a quarter of the canvas area of similar sized catamarans. This vessel will also utilise a modern serial hybrid electric propulsion system tailor made for use on cruising catamarans. This gives this vessel the ability to store the renewable energy captured by the vessels large area of solar panels, and also the power regenerated by the electric motor. It also gives the vessel the ability to be recharged from shore power meaning the on board generator will only be used sporadically. This large level of battery storage also allows this vessel to run all the modern appliances for long periods of time without the use of a combustion engine. Due to this vessels high quantity of modern technology it was always going to be an expensive build. As a result of this, effort was made to give it a very luxurious feel in order to justify the increased charter costs necessary due to the increase in initial expenditure. The financial viability of this design was also reviewed.