[sailingdog]

Umm.... JRP, he did speak to a few naval architects IIRC.... and most walked away from the project.

He's also filled the amas and most of the vaka (main hull for you monohullers) with foam supposedly. The foam struck me as a really bad idea, since most foam isn't waterproof, and if the foam starts to absorb water... the buoyancy of the boat is going to drop rapidly, with little way of fixing it. If the amas were empty, they could at least be monitored for water leakage and then pumped out—as they are on my boat... but with foam in the amas and vaka—there will be little if any warning.

The akas (crossbeams for monohullers) would have been much stronger and better designed if they weren't crossed. That would give them much more strength against torsional loads at least... since the torque lever arm on the amas wouldn't be so much greater than that the vaka can apply, due to the difference in distance between the akas.

Also, the akas and frame work of the boat is supposedly steel, and the skin of the amas and vaka are aluminum. Last I checked, welding the two was a difficult task with the proper equipment....and chancy at best otherwise... Why would they make and sell Triclad otherwise??? Galvanic corrosion is also an issue at the welds and between the metals.

Given the mass of the framework and skin of the boat, I don't think the boat will have enough buoyancy to really be safe in the Southern Ocean. Whether it has enough buoyancy to resist the forces cause by the sails is another question entirely.