Ron Given Design

My catamaran design experience began in 1961, at 24 years old when I built my first boat. From a general engineering background and with 7 years of competitive motorcycle racing (motocross) behind me, sailing seemed a mystical world, especially when one looked at the catamarans and trimarans of this period. Something about them fascinated me.

Their performances were so varied, and when "in the groove" sailing them was thrilling, but outside it, especially when windward sailing there was obviously much room for improvement - there was the challenge - and this inspired me to allocate all my spare time and money into research and development of the catamaran, as I felt strongly that this form was going to be the boat of the future.

It also became obvious that to prove one’s design and development theories one had to become very efficient at sailing competitively, so again I threw myself into this.

Library studies of numerous yacht designers books was of value and much was learnt from the works of Francis L Herreshoff and similar designers of that era. Their methods of basic yacht design was both simple and accurate.

The first 20 years of my design life also included competing nationally and internationally, mostly in the international A and B catamaran classes, 14ft paper tiger class and international landyacht classes 3, 4, and 5.

In all cases I designed and built my own yachts. There was and always is, great overall personal satisfaction in designing, building, then successfully sailing your own creations.

Visiting the World Multihull Symposium in Toronto, Canada in 1976 had a profound effect on my progress in multihill design, as it was possible at this gathering to have personal contact with msot of the world's top multihull designers of that time such as:
Rod Macalpine-Downie
Dick Newick
Lock Crowther
Rudy Choy
Derek Kelsall
Jim Brown
Norman Cross
Robert Harris
Ed Horstman
Hugo Myers
James Wharram

The "Tiger" years were an era of intense competition for me. Beginning with the 4.27m Paper Tiger which, after winning Takapuna's One-Of-A-Kind series in 1967 enjoyed a numeric explosion. Continuing on through the 3.05m Tiger Cub, 5.5m Tiger Shark, 8.50m Gulf Tiger, on to the 11.0m Tigress, winner of the 1983 Coastal Classic Yacht Race. This era finished with the Sand Tiger fun landyacht.

The late 70’s and early 80’s saw me gradually become involved in coastal then finally offshore catamarans, creating yet another controversial area - safety - it was rather easy to design fast boats at this time, but to offer the clients safe catamarans that were reasonably fast took more years of research and development.

To the present day, I still log approximately 3000 offshore miles per year on catamarans of my design, usually being involved in the delivery voyages of offshore client’s catamarans. I see all voyages as research and development, and am convinced that a safe, fast offshore cruising catamaran is different to a catamaran designed and built for charter or close coastal work.

I feel you must design for the worst situation when creating for offshore, catamarans are cheap compared to human life, hence my recommendation of a custom design to suit each ocean adventurers personal dreams and aspirations of exploring the last frontier.