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NUMBER 72AUGUST/SEPTEMBER2001$5.95

DRIVETRAIN FUNDAMENTALSFACTORS OF SAFETY IN MARINE STRUCTURESMORRELLI & MELVIN DESIGN & ENGINEERING

The magazine for those working in design, construction, and repair

ithin months of her launch-ing in 1998, the 125' (38m)mega-catamaran PlayStation

proved herself to be not only one ofthe fastest boats ever created, but alsoone of the scariest. Just prior to arecord 24-hour, 580-mile run offshore(a record since broken), the boat's5,300-sq-ft (492.39 sq m) mainsailsucked a crew member's finger intothe reefing outhaul block and nippedoff the end. And during The Race, ano-holds-barred sprint around theworld that began in January 2001,PlayStation's sails blew apart; also, acollision with flotsam sheared off oneof the centerboards, forcing her towithdraw. (Club Med, another giantcatamaran, won after just 62 days ofsailing.)

PlayStation was hardly alone inhanging designers and sailors from aprecipitous learning curve. All the bigcats in The Race, including the finish-ers, suffered mishaps of major propor-tions. The unluckiest, Pete Goss'Team Philips, first lost 60' of one bow,then dislodged a maststep, and finallywas abandoned at sea prior to thestart.

Such structural and performanceproblems were probably inevitable.Why? Because never before had cata-marans been scaled up to such adegree: two lanky hulls tied togetherwith a few crossbeams and driven byas much sail area as they can with-stand. PlayStation's 7,274 sq ft (675.77sq m) of upwind sail—the mainsailalone weighing 1,700 lbs—produces

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84 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

PlayStation is perhaps Morrelli & Melvin's most ambitious project to date. A 125'(38m) x 60' (18.3m) composite Supercat, she's designed for open-ocean racing(and recently broke the Miami-to-New York sailing record). Even though the boatwas engineered with the benefit of extensive finite element analysis, no one couldpredict the actual severity of the loads that PlayStation's structure and rig haveexperienced at high speeds in rough seas.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2001 85

hen determining the opti-mal hullform for any newpowerboat design, it is

imperative that the designer know theweight, speed, length, and poweringoptions for the proposed vessel, sincethese variables are key to its success.Longer, lighter boats operating atmoderate speed are excellent candi-dates for a displacement catamaranhull; shorter, heavier, and faster boats

are better off with a planing catama-ran hull shape.

A displacement powercat can bedistinguished by its narrow hulls andgenerous clearance between the waterand the underwing. That clearanceprevents waves from hitting theunderwing, which can force the boatto be driven slower than desired. In

There is great range to M&M's portfolioof powercats, only a sampling of whichis shown here. Clockwise from lowerleft: a 20' (6m) planing powercat, whichserves the firm as a test platform forthe type, including hydrofoil research.•Fifty-five-foot (16.7m) passenger boatfitted with an innovative A-frame rig, andoperated by Maui (Hawaii) ClassicCharters. •Thirty-five-foot (10.6m)custom motoryacht. •Sixty-five foot(19.8m) 150-passenger vessel, builtfor Pacific Whale Foundation and usedfor whale watching; the boat cruises at19 knots, with a maximum speed of 24knots, powered by twin 430-hp diesels.

terms of performance, displacementpowercats are most efficient at speed-to-length ratios of less than about 4and are the most common type ofpowercat over 40' in length. In orderto realize the performance potential ofa displacement powercat shape, dis-placement should not be too great forthe length of the hull.

Displacement powercats offer one ofthe smoothest rides of all powerboats.

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30,000 lbs of tension on the main-sheet, 32,000 lbs on the shrouds, and110,000 lbs of mast compression. Noone knew if eyes might literally fallout when the 125'(38m)-long.60'(18.3m)-wide platform began slic-ing through and slamming acrosshuge and complex wave patterns. Theboat's structure had to be designed tohandle routine flexing that wouldwrack one bow up to 12' ( 3 . 6 m )above or below the other, yet be stiffenough to keep the 147' (44.8m) mastupright. Few people in the world hadenough experience to create such avessel, but betting men gave the bolddesign from the Newport Beach.California, office of Morrelli & Melvinsome of the best odds—for good reason.

ino Morrelli grew up less con-nected to sail than to slant-sixes.

His dad built stock cars and dragstersin their home garage. While the patri-arch raced in west Texas on week-ends, the family stayed in the pits.After moving to Irvine, California, in1970 when Gino was 13. the Morrellisbought a Columbia 24. "The thingwas so slow that going to CatalinaIsland was about a two-clay affair."recalls Gino. "Considering a biggerboat, we thought, 'If we can build acar that can go 180, we can probablybui ld a boat that will go 10.'" Ina backyard-bui lder heyday, andunfettered by yachting tradition, theMorrel l is purchased plans for ademountable 33' t r imaran ideal lysuited to their tight home shop. Byhis junior year in high school, Ginohad earned enough academic creditsto allow him to take five shop classes

a day; he "worked out a deal" withhis shop teacher that allowed Gino tospend time finishing the trimaran athome. Toward the end of his senioryear, the Morrelli family returned toracing, this time on liquid courses."My mom and clad let me and mybrother deliver the boat up and downthe coast to races. It was a greatexperience."

Soon, Gino's brother Tony had builta wooden A-class cat in the garage.To help iron out its flaws, Gino builthis own. Then Tony bought a proto-type 18-Square-Meter catamaran fromTom Roland, creator of the then-revolutionary NACRA beach cat. Notto be outdone, Gino "conned a guy togo in with me to build molds for myown fiberglass 18-Square." Othersheard about the operation and toldhim, "As soon as you get this built, ifit's decent. I want another set ofhulls." So. Gino bought out his part-ner, rented a shop in Hunt ing tonBeach, hung out a sign that read"Climax Catamarans," and startedbuilding 18-Squares. He was 20 yearsold. "We survived by word of mouth andhand to mouth, but it was fun, andmy version of going to college."

At the time, the only productionboat that employed honeycomb coresand baked epoxy hulls was the 27'(8.2m) Stiletto cat, but soon Morrelliwas splitting cases of Nomex with acouple of progressive International505 builders in the area, eventuallylaying up hulls using honeycomb core,two plies of Kevlar, carbon ribbing,and epoxy—all vacuum-bagged. Forseveral years, Morrelli and the compe-tition leapfrogged one another. His

first boat made with mat and rovingweighed 400 lbs and sold for $3,500;four years later, an 18-Square weighedjust 180 lbs and cost $18,000. "They'dgone from being fun and bomb-proofto tweaky and super fast." he says.

When the boatbuilding industrystalled on soaring petroleum-productprices in the 1970s, Morrelli closedshop and spent a year on a chartercat in Hawaii. Then, a former 18-Square customer persuaded Morrellito return to Huntington Beach to pro-duce his first big boat, the 45' (13.7m)White Knuckler—a female-molded,vacuum-bagged, unidirectional S-glassand vinyl ester ca tamaran thatpromptly won the prestigiousEnsenada Race.

In Europe, particularly in France,offshore sailboat racing had becomecompletely professional, with multi-million-dollar sponsorship contractsfor skippers whose celebrity statusrivaled that of rock stars. Pumped upto do another big boat, Morrel l iheaded for Louisiana, for the finish ofthe La Rochelle (France) to NewOrleans race that featured theAt lant ic ' s newest and hottest 60'(18.3m) to 80' (24.4m) multis. "Thesponsors were enamored of compos-ite cats because Charente Maritimehad just won the race, beating MarcPajot's old aluminum truck, Elf Aqui-taine," says Morrelli. But even PatrickMorvan's composite-buil t , record-breaking Jet Services, which wouldsoon traverse the Atlantic in a recordeight-and-a-half days, looked crude toMorre l l i . After Morvan saw WhiteKnuckler, he asked Morrelli to sailback to France and build a new GillesOilier design at Ollier's Multiplast yard(currently the premier multihull oper-ation in France and one of Morrelli &Melvin's chief competitors).

Morre l l i , however, remainedpat ient , and was rewarded with acarte-blanche offer to design andbuild a 60' (18.3m) cat at a sponsor'sfactory near Paris. "Right out ofthis factory where they produced pre-fab steel buildings, we took welders,carpenters, and other tradespeoplewho knew nothing about boatbuild-ing, and built Region de Picardieusing Nomex honeycomb core andKevlar/carbon skins." A year-and-a-half later, the boat began beating allcomers save the 80' Royale, includingthe second-generation Elf Aquitane,now a radical, all-carbon, wing-mast-

86 PROFESSIONAL. BOATBUILDER

Gino Morrelli is essentially self-taught inmultihull design and construction. At theage of 20 he started a small shop insouthern California called ClimaxCatamarans, where he producedthis fiberglass one-design, an18-Square-Meter.

driven multi skippered by Marc Pajot,the winningest captain of the era. "Wecaused quite a stir, because we cameout of nowhere," says Morrelli.

But Region de Picardie was unableto win the 1984 ObserverSinglehanded Transatlantic Race

( O S T A R ) . Then, in the i n a u g u r a lTransa t Tag race from Quebec,Canada, to St-Malo, France, she suf-fered another setback. Running down-river at night, Eric Tabarly's aluminumtoiler Paul Ricard clipped the light offthe top of a buoy with its crossarm.

Ten minutes later at double-digitknots. Region de Picardie center-punched the buoy and snapped herforward beam.

"By 1985," recalls Morrelli, "NigelIrens' trimaran Apricot was kickingeverybody's butt. As we chased Nigelaround Europe, usually placing sec-ond or third, we discovered that wewere too wide, especially for inshoreracing." Narrower cats from Oilierand other shops maneuvered smartly,and qu ick ly flew the i r weatherhulls—which made them far morestable and controllable than smallbeach cats, and it reduced drag.Shorter beams and smaller loads alsosaved weight. The f ina l blow forRegion de Picardie came on the lastleg of the Round Europe series fromToulon to Sardinia in a mistral of 35to 45 knots. Fleury Michon had bro-ken her forward beam. An hour later,under chute and reefed main withMorrel l i steering from out on thebeam. Region de Picardie turneddownwind in steepening seas about25 miles from the start. In a big wave,she buried her bows up to the mastand tipped on end. Morrelli foundhimself hanging from a horizontalrunner until the fully eased sails andmast hit the sea, shaking him off. "Ifell about 30' and landed feet-firstonto the mainsail, which was stiffDacron, fully battened, and lying onthe water like a piece of plywood,"he remembers. As the boat's forwardbeam snapped and her mast toppled,she completed the pitchpole. Morrelliended up in the hospital for fourweeks with a compression fracture ofhis fourth vertebra. "It improved myFrench quite a bit," he says. Regionde Picardie retired to the Caribbeanwhere she has since served success-fully as a charter boat.

n the mid-1980s a new professionalmultihull circuit was heating up in

Europe. The Formula 40. or F40 forshort—a relatively open developmentclass l imited by l i t t l e more t h a nlength, sail area, and a m i n i m u mweight—promised to reduce spon-sors' costs while boosting spectatorappeal, because they could race inharbors but were still big enough tocompete offshore. F40s sometimeseven passed monohull Open-class 60sand 80s. When American Olympicmedalist Randy Smyth found moneyfor an F40, Morrelli had just months

As Morrelli's talent,confidence, and reputationdeveloped, his boats gotbigger, more daring.The aptly named WhiteKnuckler (above) was hisfirst large commission—a 45' (13.7m) female-molded, vacuum-bagged,unidirectional S-glassand vinyl ester cat. Shewon the prestigiousEnsenada Race, right outof the box. Region dePicardie (right), a 60'(18.3m) Nomex/Kevlar/carbon cat, was built byMorrelli in France with apick-up crew. He activelycampaigned her in theearly 1980s against toughEuropean competition,until injuring himself (anddamaging the boat) in aRound Europe race. Thefully repaired Picardie iscurrent/y in charter servicein the Caribbean.

In 1986, Morrelli created a very successful Formula 40 (above, left) for multihull racer Randy Smyth. The F40, a then-newopen development class, presaged Stars & Stripes, Dennis Conner's boat in the controversial 1988 defense of the America'sCup, in which Conner's 60' (18.3m) cat completely dominated the New Zealand challenger, a monohull twice its size (above,right). Morrelli was a key member of the Stars & Stripes design team.

to complete it before the beginning ofthe 1986 circuit. Morrelli showed hisnatural bent for practicality by simply-putting a dam in White Knuckler'smold and spreading the sections outto gain buoyancy. "At first, everyonecleaned our clocks, but with Randydriving, and Cam Lewis [an Americanracing sailor who recently skipperedTeam Adventure in The Race] pullingstrings, and a local star like YvonneFaconnier giving local knowledge,and me babysitting to make sure itstayed in one piece, Smyth Team wonthe championship," Morrelli says."With 18-Squares and White Knuckler.we'd basically been developingFormula 40s, especially the rigs, foryears before Formula 40s existed assuch." While the competition hadt r i ed to scale clown big, offshoreboats, Morrelli had, in effect, "scaledup a Tornado." an Olympic class.Smyth Team was the only boat builtto the minimum weight specified byclass rules, but suffered no structuralproblems and carried an enormousand efficient mainsai l—almost a"unarig," with quick and powerfulhydraulic sheeting. A tiny jib fulfilledthe storm jib requirement.

Morrell i produced two carbon/foam-sandwich F40s for the 1987 sea-son. Although these boats were evenlighter and stiffer than Smyth Team.

88 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

the competition had cloned his win-ning rig, and Irens-designed catsgained power from slanted, l i f t ing ,foil daggerboards. Also, t r imaranssuch as Biscuits Cantreau, designedby van Peteghem and Lariot-Prevost.had come of age. "For the sameweight, physics gives tris the advan-tage," says Morrelli. "In heavy airs,the i r wider stance gains r igh t ingmoment. In light airs, crews can flytwo hulls for about a 20% advantagein wetted area. The problem is cost.We b u i l t Smyth Team for 200[thousand]-something, the next boatsfor 300-sotnething. Biscuits Cantreaucost 500-something." Also, a broad-ened circuit demanded more disas-sembly, t ruck ing , and reassembly.With costs escalating, the whole thingcollapsed and eventually mutated intoa race series on Switzerland's lakes,where Morrelli would soon make hismark.

Back in the world of "conventional"big-bucks racing, New ZealanderMichael Fay was challenging for the1988 America's Cup w i t h a 120'(36.6m) monohull. Dennis Conner'ssyndicate wasn't sure what it couldbuild in time to defend the Cup. andspent months battling Fay in court."By the time Conner's group decidedon Plan B, they were throwing thenames of every mul t ihu l l designer-

bu i lde r in the United States into ahat," says Morrelli. "In a funny meet-ing where they decided 'This guy's acomplete whacko, th i s one's mar-ginal,' we came up marginal. DuncanMacLane and Dave Hubbard of C-class fame were also on board, as wasBernard Nivelt. Bruce Nelson and BritChance were the real designers whocould oversee us wing nuts." TheConner syndicate also engaged theservices of marine software expertsJohn Letcher and Clay Olliver.

"We quickly learned from Dennisthat sail area is God. Weight mattersless than put t ing up as much sail asyou can." says Morrelli. "MacLane andHubbard at first were optimistic abouta rigid wingsail without headsails—totally clean, with no winches on thebeam, like a pure C-class cat. ButDennis kept saying, 'Bu l l sh i t—th i sthing isn't going to go downwind.'

"So, we drag-raced our F40 against'H1', the so-called hard-sail version ofthe 60' [18 .3m] A-Cup cat we'ddesigned. At the upwind mark. H1 ledby 12 minutes. But by flying big flatreachers and tacking downwind, theF40 passed it and won by three min-utes. That convinced Dennis . H1became Stars & Stripes: we put a bigrigid wing on her—but added head-sails." Morrelli figures a wingsail plusheadsails delivers an overall advan-

he main text might give the mis-taken impression that Pete Melvin

is a somewhat silent partner at M&M.Actual ly , he happened to he awayat the time author Steve Callahan visitedthe Newport Beach, California, designoffice, so Gino Morrelli did most ofthe talking for our story on their firm.

While not a gregarious individual.Melvin is not shy, either; he's givenstrong presentations at ProfessionalBoatBuilder's IBEX seminar programson various technical aspects of multi-hulls. And for someone as highly dec-orated as he is in sailing competi-tion—17 national championships andtwo world championships, in additionto representing the United States inthe Tornado catamaran class in the1988 Olympics—Melvin is a modestguy. His most recent triumph was theNorth American A-Class champion-ship, won in May with all first-placefinishes on an M&M design. Thatsame month he was part of the crewaboard PlayStation when she brokethe Miami-to-New York record undersail.

Melvin 's involvement wi th boatdesign and construction elates to theearly 1970s, when he and his fatherb u i l t a range of championshipOptimist dinghies. He also says theywere among the first builders in themarine industry to use carbon fiberand honeycomb core in a hul l—aclaim not easily disputed, consideringMelvin's formal education in aero-space engineering. After college andbefore joining McDonnell Douglas insouthern California for a five-year stintas an advanced-design engineer oncommercial and mil i tary a i rcraf tprojects, Melvin worked for MarkLindsay, a Massachusetts-based boat-builder with a wealth of knowledgeabout advanced composite construc-tion. (Lindsay is currently a principalof Boston Boat Works.)

Now nearly 10 years into their part-nership, Gino Morrelli and PeteMelvin have settled on an informaldivision of labor. "Gino handles manyof the sailing customers," Melvin says."and I manage most of the powercatand production (sailing] cat projects. Ithink if I've specialized in any onething here it would be in developing

Pete Melvin—hiked out on a trapeze on a highly competitive A-class beach catdesigned by M&M—loves to race. He holds 17 national and two world champi-onships, and was an Olympian in a Tornado-class catamaran in the '88 Games.

good engineering methodologies."As our f i rm has grown larger,"

Melvin continues, "we've come to relymore on our associates executing thevar ious ind iv idua l elements thattogether make up a successful design.Ours is no longer a two-man opera-tion, and our designs have improvedsignificantly thanks to this crew."

That crew consists of: RobertFavier, responsible for most of M&M'sstability analysis, 3D renderings andan ima t ion , general programming,and the person in-house who main-tains the company computers and net-works. Favier's been at M&M for fouryears. Then there's Tim Kernan, who,says Melvin, "excels in arrangements,structural analysis, and 3D modeling."Kernan joined M&M a year ago, afterfive years with designer Bob Perry inSeattle. Other members of the teaminclude four-year veteran Diane deWitte, who takes care of marketingand the firm's Web site. De Witte, bythe way, holds a U.S. Coast Guard100-ton license, delivers boats, andteaches sailing. New to the shop isCarlene Morrelli, account manager.

Although everyone at M&M under-stands and appreciates the press gar-nered by their big boats, particularlyPlayStation, the fact remains that

M&M continues to be a leader in thefield of production racing and recre-ational catamarans, an area of specialinterest to Melvin. "Many ideas thatcome from our design experiencewith these smaller boats end up onthe bigger boats," he says. "The A-class and F-18 are excellent test bedsfor new h u l l shapes, foils, and rigconcepts." Melvin cites five designsamong the smaller craft that deservemention:• The Hobie Wave, Hobie Cat's best-selling sailing cat for the past sixyears;• The Escape PlayCat, a 16.6'(5m)rotomolded recreational sailing catthat debuts this season;• The A-class cat—18' (5.5m) x 7.5'(2.3m) with 150 sq ft (13.94 sq m) ofsail area and a minimum boat weightof just 165 lbs (75 kg)—a fast favoriteof singlehanded sailors, which hasbecome a very competitive interna-tional development class. M&M intro-duced a new design in '97 that wonthe world championship that year(sailed by M e l v i n ) and the NorthAmerican championship five times;• The Inter 18/Formula 18 class cata-maran, another competitive develop-ment class, this one in Europe. Sinceits introduction in '96, M&M's Inter 18

Continues on page 9290 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

Continues from page 90

The M&M staff outside their offices in Newport Beach. Left to right, CarleneMorrelli, Gino Morrelli, Diane DeWitt, Pete Melvin, Robert Favier, and Tim Kernan.

design has won most major eventsseveral times;• The Ventilo Formula 20 racing cat.This design was introduced in 1990and has won the Formula 20 worldchampionship every year since.

An unusual but not inappropriatejob taken on by the M&M office inearly summer has been a re-design ofthe interior arrangements for Bounty,the legendary 1930s ocean racerdesigned by the late L. FrancisHerreshoff and now located in south-ern California; the yacht was exten-sively damaged in a fire. As indicatedin the main text, much of M&M'spractice today consists of powercats,so that's where Pete Melvin is focus-ing his efforts. He's done enoughresearch to draw valid technical com-parisons between powercats andmonohulls , including recent workexploring the effect of foils on a pow-ered multihull. A synopsis of some ofM&M's studies appears on page 85,written by Melvin.

—Paul Lazarus, Editor

92 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

Continues from page 88

tage of about half a percent over astandard rotating wing with headsails.Surprisingly, the wing was also lessprone to breakdowns and less needyof tweaking than the alternative "softrig" for Stars & Stripes: a rotating mastand regular sails. The latter setupoften tore the clews out of the main-sail or blew up hardware.

The U.S. catamaran victory over theNew Zealand monohull was a fore-gone conclusion, and Morrell iacknowledges that Conner purposelydogged Stars & Stripes to make it lookmore like a race. "It's absolutely true.That's the thing about a rigid wing—itdoesn't luff," admits Morrelli. "Theydidn't want to come in under the

Two versions of Stars & Stripes, knownas H1 and S1, competed for thechance to defend the America's Cup in'88. H1 had a rigid wing, while S1 worea "soft," or more conventional, sail rig.In the end, Dennis Conner chose tohybridize the two by adding headsailsto H1. Gino Morrelli and Pete Melvinfirst worked together on an unsuccess-ful Little America's Cup campaign-—anultra-lightweight C-class cat rigged witha rigid wing.

hour-and-a-half record-setting win-ning time set early in the 20th century.That became part of the court case;the boats had to be reasonably com-petitive. The reality was that the Kiwisbuilt a fairly conventional monohullwith all kinds of problems. They weretrying to keep it together, and still theboat went sideways. In the end, wecould have raced a Formula 40against the Kiwis. Our program wasway overkill. Either the soft rig or thehard rig would have destroyed theKiwi boat."

Even so, Stars & Stripes was far from

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2001 93

ideal. Based on their offshore experi-ence. Morrelli and Nivelt lobbied for amore voluminous platform, while oth-ers wanted to mirror the low-free-board, slim-ended C-class cats thatcarried solid wings. Stars & Stripes'wing had scaled up much heavierthan expected and was lengthened, aswell. "The boat ended up a lot pitch-ier," says Morrelli. "We dragged the aftbeams all the time, and pounded thefront beams regularly."

n the early 1990s, the combinationof a luxury tax and recession was

crippling much of the recreationalmarine industry. Morrelli met PeteMelvin, a McDonnell Douglas engi-neer who was racing Hobie 21s butwanted to move up to one ofMorrelli's F40s to race in the short-lived American ProSail circuit. BrianBilbray, a multihull fan and Connerbacker, had enticed Morrelli with theprospect of a Little America's Cupcampaign, sailed in C-class catama-rans; Pete Melvin offered proven sail-ing prowess, engineering skills, andvaluable aerodynamics contacts at

McDonnell Douglas with whom theteam could design a wingsail. "In myexperience," says Morrelli, "engineersusually aren't that flexible. Their train-ing teaches them formulas. But untilrecently we haven't had any ideawhat the real loads are on theseboats. For years, guys like me hadgotten away with murder by buildinga boat and, if we broke it, fixing it orimproving it so it wouldn' t breakagain. Pete had enough boating expe-rience to temper his expectations withwhat happens in real life." Melvin quithis job at McDonnell Douglas, andthe newly formed Little America'sCup team went into action.

"Unfortunately," says Morrelli, "ourprogram was a dollar short and a day-late." Morrelli and Melvin et al. facedthe seasoned C-class champions:Lindsay Cunningham's, team fromAustralia, with their Yellow Pages. "Wewere able to take one race and lostanother by a meter, but broke ourboat in a third. It was a calamity. Agood learning experience, sure, but afinancial disaster. And I now had aneight-month-old baby."

[For a close look at a recent andsuccessful C-class catamaran ofAmerican design and construction,see PBB No. 39, page 30. For moreabout Pete Melvin's professional andracing background, see the sidebar onpage 90—Ed.]

Fortunes change. Gino Morrellisoon picked up a commission for hisfirst lake racer. Pete Melvin was con-sidering going out on his own, but"since he was actually making moremoney than I was at the time, itseemed a good time to make him apartner," says Morrelli. "So Pete took apay cut and within a year or two wewere generating a lot more work." Inthe decade since, powerful relation-ships formed during racing campaignswith velocity-prediction-program spe-cialist Clay Olliver, finite element ana-lyst Kurt Jordan, and speed-savvyengineers Phil Arnold (Cabo RicoYachts) and Greg Ketterman (HobieTrifoiler) have allowed Morrelli &Melvin to create some of the mostprogressive and technically advancedmul t i hu l l s in the world. They'vebecome best known for their Lake

94 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

Geneva t r imarans and the goliathPlayStation. Simultaneously, they'vecatered to an expanding market forpower catamarans, both recreationaland commercial.

Their lake-racing trimarans featureextreme beam and huge floats thathave grown from a maximum of two-and-a-half times to four times theboat's displacement. These providegreat righting moment and generousfreeboard, which keeps the connec-

tives high above the water, placeswinches at convenient heights forcrew standing in the grinding pits,and increases the hulls' longitudinalstiffness. The central hull carries pri-mary rig loads and allows the boat totack quickly. M&M get away withchopped-off transoms because sixcrew hike out to keep the leewardhul l from immersing much in verylight airs. In just eight knots of truewind, the immense rigs have acceler-

M&M has designed imposing, techni-cally advanced trimarans—such as the41' (12.5m) pre-preg carbon Alinghi—that compete in a special race serieson Switzerland's Lake Geneva. Theirimmense sail plans enable these boatsto accelerate quickly with minimal wind.The central hull carries the primary rigloads.

ated the boats to 12-plus knots, atwhich speed the wakes no longer col-lapse in on themselves. Everybodythen moves to leeward to encourageflying the weather float and main hull.Wide, shallow sections and almost-flatrockers encourage liftoff. High speedshifts the apparent wind so far for-ward that these craft tack most effi-ciently in about 100°, but with flatsails and daggerboards toed in atabout 1.5" and drawing as much as10'(3m), the boats sail within 19° ofthe apparent wind and make just afew degrees of leeway.

M&M constantly struggle to keepsuch extreme boats together. "As soonas we think we have it sorted out, we

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2001 95

go from Spectra cloth to carbon to3DL, and the rigs just keep gettingbigger and l ighter ," notes Morrelli,recal l ing one spectacular fold-upwhen a foot of one boat's bow gotyanked off by the loads involved.

t i l l , no structural challenge couldhave been greater than creating

PlayStation. According to Morrell i ,surprisingly little was spent on plat-form shaping, and none on tank tests."For most applications, as long as youdon't overthink the problem or getthe displacement horribly wrong, youcan't screw up cat hul ls ." saysMorrelli. M&M optimized PlayStation'sseakindliness by using ell ipticalshapes through the midbody—"realsoft" sections, in Morrelli's words, thatretain a faint keel line aft; and high-prismatic, full ends (typically .68 to.72 on their boats). "All the value is inthe rig and structure," he continues,"which can dampen pitching morethan hull shaping. As a design firmwe believe you should pour moneyon a boat from the top down. I'drather have a carbon mast on an

aluminum boat than vice versa."PlayStation benefited from exten-

sive f in i te element analysis . SaysMorrell i , "With the America's Cupcampaign, we learned FEA's limita-tions, but it can help the boat come-out of the box really fast, rather thanworking on it for three years to makeit fast. For PlayStation, even thoughwe'd budgeted a fa i r amoun t ofmoney for FEA, we soon realized justhow useful it was, so we slowed thewhole design process down. We'dhardly finish designing a part beforewe FEA'd it." Kurt Jordan's FEA exper-tise, augmented by seagoing experi-ences from Morrel l i , Melvin, andPlayStation's skipper and watch cap-tain, helped transform FEA from ablack art to an indispensable tool.Jordan developed huge FEA modelsof the entire structure withstanding, inMorrelli's words, "your worst night-mares: dropping off a wave onto theopposite bow and stern at 2 g's;pitchpoling with the bows 40' under-water and suffering enormous hydro-dynamic pressure; twisting; and soon. By moving material from 'cool'

spots to 'hot' spots [color values thatcorrespond to structural loads in anFEA rendering], we didn't real lyreduce the weight of the platform, butwe were able to arrive at a muchmore homogeneous safety factor forall the worst cases. And, we hopedthese would handle all the smallerones we hadn't thought of."

Experience seems to have con-firmed M&M's approach and assump-tions. PlayStation has suffered nostructural fa i lures , despite a near-pitchpole in a 60-knot squall , andslamming to weather across theAtlantic. "It's the violent upwind—notdownwind—sailing that destroys aboat," maintains Morrelli. He alsotaped a laser to the cockpit solepointed at a bulkhead 90' away. Bymeasuring the light's arc, M&M could"reverse engineer"—work backwardsto calculate—the loads required togenerate those magnitudes. Load cellsin the rig delivered no maximum-loadsurprises, but M&M found the loads'cyclic nature "shocking." Bar-graphreadouts on a laptop showed 50,000lbs of headstay tension falling to zero

96 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

and climbing back to 50,000 within asecond. "We never figured when theboat pounds that the rigging wouldgo completely slack. It gave us agraphic image of the boat as a livingstructure," says Morrelli.

M&M are confident they can safelycarve out another 10% to 20% of theweight in future boats. "We haven'treally fatigued a raceboat yet," claimsMorrelli. "Structures like the mainbeam are deflection critical; by thetime they're engineered stiff enough,they're likely to have a factor of safetyof up to five. In many cases, if we candetermine the loads, that factor canbe reduced to 1.5. That's still a pretty-fat margin, and when applied to a200-sq-ft (18.58 sq m) panel, it couldsave 500 lbs. Measuring loads, bring-ing them home, and re-analyzingthem to bui ld lighter, faster, andstronger products is an exciting partof the future . Without the testing,without a full feedback loop, youcouldn't do it. Without laptops andFEA you couldn't do it."

M&M have also discovered that"stress concentrations between fittings

and attachments always bite us in theass." Morrelli notes, so increasinglyM&M is replacing metal chainplatesand rivets with line or fiber, as in theold square-riggers; the f i rm nowemploys Herreshoff-style strapping toplace high-modulus fibers in tension."Everything I th ink about now isstrapping," Morrelli says. M&M sock-ets beams on decks and straps themwith unidirectional glass or carbon tobulkheads to eliminate placing fibersor fasteners in shear. On PlayStation,the axle of an aluminum sheave wasstrapped with carbon to reduce theweight of a masthead reacher blockby 2 lbs 150'(45.7m) in the air. "Youcan't measure it on a VPP, but weknow that lightening up each part ofthe boat just a little bit matters."They're considering replacing Play-Station's headstay wire with Kevlar,which would save another 250 lbs."We could probably take an additional600 lbs out of her rig if we switchedent i re ly to r igging made of PBO[phenylene benzobisoxazole] andKevlar fibers," says Morrelli, "but PBOis the scariest material out there

because it's half the weight of Kevlar!We just weren't that confident to goaround the world on PBO." At leastnot yet. They did employ Kevlarshrouds and stayed PlayStation's fore-most beam with fully molded carbonstrapping instead of the usual wireterminal, a concept that could eventuallyreplace conventional rigging entirely.

ino Morrelli 's first foray intopowerboats was in 1989, when

he was commissioned by adventurerSteve Schidler to design a fuel-efficient multihull. The result was the40' (12.2m) Yanmar Endeavour—atrimaran using stock beach-cat hullsfor outriggers and twin 27-hp Yanmardiesel outboards for power. Endea-vour was capable of 12 knots and2,700 miles before refueling. She aver-aged nearly 9 knots while consumingjust a gallon per 4.8 nautical miles ona daring passage from San Franciscoto Australia via Hawaii.

A few years later, Schidler mountedan attempt to circumnavigate theglobe in less than 80 days. For this,M&M lengthened Endeavour's, stern,

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In 1989, adventurer Steve Schidler asked Gino Morrelli to design a fuel-efficient long-range powerboat. Morrelli responded witha 40' (12.2m) trimaran fitted with twin outboard Yanmar diesels, which Schidler drove from California to Australia by way ofHawaii. The boat averaged nearly 9 knots while consuming 1 gallon of fuel per 4.8 nautical miles.

and added a bulbous bow, a 230-hpYanmar inboard engine, and newfloats that were hydraulically articu-lated; the boat's operators could nowraise the weather float to completelyclear waves. The resulting 60'(18.3m)Revolution was capable of 27 knotsand could make ports 2,000 milesapart. Multiple fuel tanks also allowedthe crew to pump weight forwardwhen going upwind to keep the nosedown, and amidships to aft down-

wind. Unfor tuna te ly , Schidler 'sRevolution ran aground on anunmarked ledge off the coast ofBelize, and was given up for salvage.Morrelli points out that even at 20knots, the narrow torsos of multihullswon't plane, but they offer high effi-ciency and smooth motion. He alsosays, "For a round-the-world attempt,a proa or trimaran makes a lot ofsense. All you need is something tokeep 'the bicycle' from falling over.

The tri is a good idea for pure effi-ciency, but if you're willing to backoff only seven or eight percent, thecat is a lot more practical." And so, inthe early 1990s, powercat clientsbegan knocking at M&M's door.

Power multis may differ greatlyfrom sailing raceboats, but M&Masked themselves, "How hard can itbe? We weren't doing brain surgery.Power cats can use narrower platformsand operate at more constant speeds,

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A few years later, Schidler returned to what was now Morrelli & Melvin and commissioned a design for circling the globe in lessthan 80 days. M&M drew a 60' (18.3m) tri with a bulbous bow, a 230-hp inboard Yanmar diesel engine, and hydraulically artic-ulated floats (left). The as-built version is shown at right. Schidler's circumnavigation came to grief off Belize, where the boatstruck an unmarked ledge and had to be abandoned.

but both power and sail operate inthe same sea states." Pete Melvin haddesigned and built a 20'(6m) proto-type for personal use. which M&Mhave used many times over the yearsfor testing new concepts. This boat iscurrently a test platform for analyzingthe effects of hydrofoils on a power-cat hullform.

Today, powercats in general andcommercial applications in particular

constitute two-thirds of M&M's busi-ness. The partners ' conduct withclients may be as responsible for theirsuccess as their design skills. "We takethe time to get to know clients, tounderstand their businesses, their pri-orities. We don't want to sell themsomething because we think weunderstand them, and we don't try topigeonhole them into something inap-propriate. The money is not always at

the top of the list," says Morrelli.M&M's hands-on building experiencealso helps the partners understandand prioritize options. Says Morrelli,"Within an hour of Los Angeles youcan buy almost any type of exotic-material and find someone who canweld it or build with it, but we veryseldom get a Steve Fossett [owner ofPlayStation]. How to give clients thebest value rules most of our clay-in

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2001 99

The bulk of M&M's business thesedays is in powercats, particularly thosefor commercial markets, a good exam-ple being this 51' (15.5m) fast ferry forthe Lake Chelan (Washington) Boat Co.Twin Caterpillar 3406E diesels turningcustom surface drives move 49 pas-sengers at 50 mph.

and clay-out decision-making. We cantell them how not to spend money;or, like shifting materials from coolspots to hot spots, where it would besmart to spend."

M&M avoid complicated h u l lshapes such as upside-down hells,even if those retain narrow waterlineswhile boosting interior volume. PeteMelvin: "In our commercial work, weuse shapes without complex curvesso that they are developable and canbe built from aluminum or fiberglass.A developable shape is much easierto make in glass because the hull canbe built in a female mold constructedwithout a plug, or with prefabricatedflat panels. M&M's signature displace-ment hull shape is an evolutionary

product: it combines excellent perfor-mance and seakeeping with a low-wake, at a comparatively low cost.That combination is one of the mainreasons we've been successful in thecommercial boat market."

Morrelli & Melvin are starting toexplore the commercial fishing mar-ket, but that and the recreat ionalpower-multihull market have yet toreally take off. Meanwhile, their com-mercial day-charter clients multiply."Operators who own circa-1960 PT-style boats that are now rot monstersand cost more to maintain than what

they make, are coming to multihulls,"notes Morrelli. "Unless there are widthrestrictions, these customers areattracted to minimal rolling at anchor,a big footprint that gives each passen-ger lots of room, a smooth ride, and alittle bit of fuel economy, though it'sless than claimed—probably 40% orless in the real world at various pay-loads. Our powercats are benign, likedriving buses. That's what operatorswant," adds Melvin. M&M has pro-duced a high-speed passenger catwith split-V tunnel hulls, but most of

Continues on page 102

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AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2001 101

Continues from page 85

The fine-entry hulls slice through thewater effortlessly, with little of therolling motion so prevalent in dis-placement monohulls. A powercatsrolling motion can he tuned to spe-cific sea conditions by varying thespacing between the hulls.

The hull resistance of a displace-ment monohul l rises sharply at aspeed-to-length ratio of about 1.3 dueto the hull trying to climb over itsown bow wave. By comparison, thesharp and narrow hulls of a displace-ment powercat penetrate the bowwave with minimal drag increase.There are several successful variationsof displacement powercat shapes inuse today; the choice of specific-shape depends on materials type andmanufacturability, and to a lesserextent on actual performance.

Planing powercats have wider hullsfor a given length than do displace-ment powercats and are thereforemore tolerant of added payload. The

Continues on page 103

In their design practice, Gino Morrelli and Pete Melvin have made it a point to studythe competition by category, in both detailed and general comparisons. This graphis one of the latter, and examines performance differences by powerboat hull type.

Continues from page 100their boats are fairly conventional,with displacement hulls maintaininglength-to-beam ratios of 12 to 14 andgeared to go 20 to 25 knots.

Diversity has served M&M well ."We're getting to be known for beingable to find at least reasonable solu-tions to odd problems," says Morrelli."We do so many weird boats, there'snever a dull moment." Indeed. Whenthe producers of the television pro-gram "Murder She Wrote" were look-

ing for a futuristic boat model to fit anepisode in which a boat designer iskilled by his client, they turned toM&M, whose designs have also per-formed for commercials and appearedin the remake of the movie TheThomas Crown Affair, which showedtwo M&M F40s in a spectacular sailingsequence.

M&M's expanded portfol io hasgiven them a unique view of thefuture. Consider, for example, their

13'(4m) rotomolded Hobie Wave,winner of an IMTEC innovationaward. (IMTEC was the acronym foran industry trade show, since discon-tinued, held annually in Chicago andsponsored by the Nat ional MarineManufacturers Association.) ''We thinkanother two or three feet of boatlength there is possible. So is a littlepowercat that can sell for less than$4,000." says Morrelli. On the down-side, the partners envision a steadydecline in the cruising sailboat marketas buyers increasingly turn to power-boats, and sailing multihulls continueto face the practical challenges of costdue to so much buildable surfacearea, plus extreme beam, which limitsslip space and maneuvering in harbor.Still believing that mul t ihu l l s makesuperior cruising craft, M&M perse-vere with custom and semi-customdesigns. Morrelli thinks luxury mega-cats may eventually become one ofthe three most promising areas ofdevelopment. Others include powercats in the 30' to 50'(9m to 15.2m)range, because those boats aren't toowide for a slip, and they offer numer-ous advantages. Morrelli and Melvinalso envision great possibilities intrawler-style catamarans, a categorytha t has been growing way out ofproportion to the rest of the market inmonohulls.

No doubt we'll see more spectacu-lar racing sailboats from M&M, too, asthe firm pushes the limits of engineer-ing and materials. Morrelli envisionssailboats flying on hydrofoils, and thepartners have been working with anItalian foil designer to install partiallyl i f t i n g foils on a lake racer."Eventually, with continued develop-ments in rigs and construction, peoplewill be averaging 35 or 36 instead of25 and 26," he says. In the shorterrun. PlayStation remains "unfinishedbusiness. I'd like to see it break theJules Verne [record for a circumnavi-gat ion] and recapture the 24-hourrecord. There's still a lot of potentialthat we haven't tapped."

About the Author: A multihull sailorwith many offshore passages to hiscredit, Steve Callahan has designedand built a number of these boats.He's, written widely on adventure-racing designs and personalities, andauthored a short text on multihulldesign while working at the YachtDesign Institute 20 years ago.

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Continues from page 101

cushion effect of water and air beingsqueezed between the hulls greatlysoftens impact when poweringthrough waves. Planing powercatsgenerally have a smooth transitionfrom displacement speed to planingspeed. Because of their narrow form,the hulls of a planing powercat sur-pass the 1.3 speed-to-length barriermore easily than a planing monohulldoes. This generic advantagebecomes apparent when operating inthe speed/length range from 1 to 3,where a planing monohull typicallyrequires huge amounts of horse-power to climb over its bow waveand accelerate to f u l l plane.Operating a monohull at speeds inthis transition zone calls for constantthrottle modulation and results inpoor fuel economy. By contrast, thattransition zone is hardly noticeable ina planing powercat, making this typeof craft ideal for ease and efficiencyof operation across a wide range ofspeeds.

Symmetric-hull planing powercatsoffer the smoothest ride and areexcellent performers at moderate tohigh speeds. Asymmetric-hull planingpowercats have a harder ride but alsoless resistance at very high speeds—the reason most offshore racing catshave asymmetric hulls.

Another, more recent variation is toput a set of transversely orientedhydrofoils between the hulls of aplaning powercat. The hydrofoilssupport about 50% of the weight ofthe vessel, lifting the hull partiallyclear of the water but keeping therunning gear immersed. This type ofhydrofoil arrangement reduces overallresistance by a minimum of about20%. Poorly designed or overloadedhulls can significantly benefit fromthe addition of foils.

A smooth ride is the greatestadvantage a planing powercat hasover a planing monohull. In general,boaters are skeptical until they taketheir first ride in a planing powercatin choppy conditions. One convert,Larry Diener. writes: "Full flight, highenough and stupid enough to getnose down, produced a very gentlelanding with little deceleration."

If lots of deck area is what youwant, then a powercat is what youneed. Typically, powercats have 20%to 40% more deck area than the same

size monohull. Planing powercats areusually decked from bow to stern andhave lower cockpit soles than dis-placement powercats, making them agood choice for smaller fishing anddive boats where you need to beclose to the water.

For those who must see to believe,a powercat demonstration may be theonly way to appreciate the special

characteristics of these craft. In ourview, a powercat's stability, ride, fuelefficiency, and roominess are thequalities that go a long way towardmaking people glad to be on thewater. —Pete Melvin

[This essay was adapted and updatedfrom a presentation Pete Melvin madeat an IBEX seminar in 1997—Ed.]

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