The Shearwater III is a type of two crew racing

catamaran A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a watercraft with two parallel hull (watercraft), hulls of equal size. The wide distance between a catamaran's hulls imparts stability through resistance to rolling and overturning; no ballast is requi ...

, produced originally by G. Prout & Sons of

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, and was first sold in kit form. It is a "restricted development class". According to the UK's National Maritime Museum, The Shearwater III was the world’s first production catamaran. Brothers

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and Roland Prout were canoeists who took part in the

1952 Helsinki Olympics The 1952 Summer Olympics (, ), officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad (, ) and commonly known as Helsinki 1952, were an international multi-sport event held from 19 July to 3 August 1952 in Helsinki, Finland. After Japan declared in ...

. They worked in the family firm G. Prout & Sons Ltd, with their father, making folding canoes and dinghies. They developed their first catamaran, the ''Shearwater I'' in the early 1950s. Initially, they experimentally lashed together two K1

kayak ] A kayak is a small, narrow human-powered watercraft typically propelled by means of a long, double-bladed paddle. The word ''kayak'' originates from the Inuktitut word '' qajaq'' (). In British English, the kayak is also considered to be ...

s and added a bamboo platform and a mast and sail, and after the success of this went on to build the ''Shearwater I'', in which they participated in local regattas. They then developed the ''Shearwater III''. Shearwaters regularly field at least 15 entries at National Championships since 1998.

External links

Shearwater Catamaran - The home of the First Racing Catamaran Class
Shearwater Class Association *

References

Catamarans {{ship-type-stub