Trudeau Knockabout Sloop Launched

27Sep08

A sailboat loaded to the toerails with features for skipper and mate… A completely enclosed cabin… Sleeping berth for two, accessed via 2 operating companionway hatches… Other nautical detailing such as standing rigging with turnbuckles, forward mooring cleat, pennant telltale, animated moving tiller and rudder…

Sounds like one of those Trudeau high primcount yacht attachments, right? It does, but this is our newest Trudeau “rideable” yacht, the Knockabout Sloop. It is our first rideable with a fully accessable cabin, something our customers have been asking since day one and it took sculpted prims to finally realize it. Now you can dock your cruiser and leave it to go ashore without having to fiddle with attachments.

What The Heck is a Knockabout?

The term “knockabout” was applied to those Gloucester fishing schooners of the late 19th century that did away with the bowsprit. There was a frighteningly high fatality rate for those sailors handling headsails while dangling over a bowsprit in heavy seas – the knockabout schooner did away with the sprit and extended the forward section of the hull to take it’s place. Eventually the term was applied to a class of small sloops (also generally without bowsprits). Fast, and with the simplest accomodations below deck, they were the daysailers, weekenders, club racers of their day. In the early 1900s every down east yacht club worth it’s salt had it’s own fleet of racing knockabouts, and the boats were sometimes named for the club or region that commissioned the design. The Dark Harbor 17, by B.B. Crowninshield in 1906, is a well known classic and beautiful representation of the genre. (read more about the fascinating history of the knockabouts here and a whole site devoted to them here).

The same Dark Harbor 17 is the boat that inspired the Trudeau Knockabout Sloop. Like the original it has a fin keel (3/4 of a century before that was de rigeur for the plastic boats!), cabin with berth, slender hullshape with long overhangs – the Knockabout Sloop just looks fast – and it is! Constructed of 29 prims, it is the ideal (non-attaching) cruiser for two avatars. Come see her at Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts and see if you don’t agree.

Customization

As with the recenty released Trudeau Twenty, we are publishing Photoshop PSD templates for the Knockabout. Follow the links for Hull and rudder (2.55MB), transom naming (238KB) and sail (9.73MB) graphics. Download them, customize them, apply them to your Knockabout and make her truly your own! (see this page for step-by-step naming instructions – Knockabout follows the Sea Sharp procedure).

 Other Features of the Trudeau Knockabout Sloop include:

• Can be sailed either solo or in collaboration with a crewmate. You can assign skipper permissions to others as well.
• Realistic sailing including functional reefing for overpowering winds and the latest sailing feature for the Trudeau fleet – boat to boat windshadowing.
• Moving tiller, rudder and helmsperson animations. Hard a-lee is *really* hard a-lee on the Knockabout :)
• Customizable. Voice commands to change the hull and sail textures from a selection of traditional nautical color schemes, modifiable script for changing the default camera location and angle. Downloadable PSD templates for hull and sail textures.
• 2 HUDs provide button control for the common boat handling commands and display of environmental conditions. The full featured HUD allows individual control over each sail, allowing the seasoned skipper access to such sailing concepts as wing and wing, jib backfill, etc. For the novice or lazy (horrors!) skipper, the EZ-Sail HUD controls all sails with a single click! An included 3rd info-display only HUD is geared towards regatta racers.
• For overriding the fluky SL winds, artificial wind strength and direction commands which are translated into apparent wind. SLSF windsetter compatibility prompts you for acceptance of racewind.
• Masthead pennant functions as apparent wind taletell.
• Auxiliary motor to power you through those rare occasions when the wind dies down.
• Accomodations for your mate in sit poses/animations positioned about the cockpit.
• Single sleeping and couple’s cuddle poses in the cabin berth.
• Since sim crossings can be unpredictable, copy and modify permissions.
• Extra goodies – autorezzing drydock cradle when rezzed inworld over land. Mooring buoy and line rezzes on forward deck cleat touch. Half-hull model for display in your SL home.

Dimensions:
Trudeau Knockabout Sloop – 29 prims,  21 ft (6.4m) LWL, 29.5 ft (9m) LOA, 8 ft (2.45m) beam, 5.1ft (1.56m) draft

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