Patch Patched

 

(Newest Note: Patchogue II release will be Sunday July 7, 7AM SLT)

New Note: the Second SOL Regatta has been extended past June 23, so the Patchogue II release date has been pushed back as well. Please check back here for the updated release date.  Very soon now…..

Note: The Trudeau Patchogue II was chosen as the class boat for the 2013 Second Sol Regatta (A Sail4Life Fundraising Race Event).  The Patchogue II will available to the general public at the conclusion of the regatta, June 23)

Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts is transitioning to new building materials.  Don’t worry traditionalists, it’s not and never will be fiberglass, carbon fiber, molded polystyrene, polyethylene or any other yucky petroleum based product.  Mesh has taken over the SL grid and we have succumbed as well (yeah about time, Trudeau!).

But boy are we glad we did in our all new Patchogue II, our “mostly mesh” rework of our popular original Patchogue catboat from 2009.  Everything we said about the origins of that boat applies here, and doubly so.  We took the body plan from Gil Smith’s masterpiece Lucille and molded our mesh hull to it’s stations and profile.

The result was a RL lines-accurate SL boat hull, something not possible in prims or sculpts. Yay for mesh!

Bail!

Now Patch II, this lines-accurate model of the iconic Gilbert Smith design (and much more accurate than our previous Patchogue), has a very low profile. In fact, much of her cockpit is below the waterline.  Since SL prims don’t (and likely never will) have water displacing properties, we used the old “masking” texture to keep most of the water from the cockpit when sailing relatively level. It works fairly well, but there are two drawbacks with this method.

First, the masking texture also masks avatar parts (remember the invisiprims that came with your old prim shoes?)  So any part of your AV, such as your legs, that dangle below the cockpit water mask will be cut off (yo ho, me hearties, get your peglegs!).  We took this into account when developing all of the boat’s animations.

Second, setting your viewer’s “Advanced Lighting Model” option for enabling shadows negates the effect of the masking texture.  So if you have shadows on, your Patch II will look like this:

Sigh. One step forwards (mesh), one step backwards (shadows). Why can’t we have it all?

Meshed Up!

There are a bunch of features we’d found neither possible or practical on previous non-mesh boats such as the highly detailed rigging, sail furls on the boom when reefed and a working (woo-hoo!) mainsheet.  Not for nothing is she a 50-some prim equivalent.

All Aboard!

Patchogue II  can carry up to 4 people including her skipper.  The skipper position is “sitting” on the tiller prim (or either cockpit bench), the other crew/passenger sit locations are the top of the centerboard trunk and the fore and aft decks.  See the sit positions graphic:

Of course it wouldn’t be a Trudeau boat if all aboard didn’t help offset heeling by hiking out in several positions, so they do! Other now-standard Trudeau features include:

• Our should-have-been patented in-world luffing Tru-Sails
• Half a dozen built-in traditional color schemes.
• 2 sail reef points.
• Rezzing mooring buoy.
• Rezzing boatyard cradle.

Customization!

As with all Trudeau boats, Patch II is modify permission-ed allowing you to make her your own. These are the links to the Photoshop PSD templates for the:

Hull Parts (including backbone, decks, rudder/tiller, cockpit and boat name 13.1MB)

Bright (wood planking) Hull Parts (including backbone, decks, rudder/tiller, cockpit and boat name 16.6MB)

Spars (mast, boom, gaff and mast hoops 9.52MB)

Sail (including mainsail, reefed and moored furls 11.25MB)

Dimensions:

Trudeau Patchogue II – 55 prim equivalent , 26.5 ft (8.1m) LOD, 9.2ft (2.8m) beam, 3.9ft (1.2m) draft (board down)

For Francois

Francois Jacques in Second Life

Event time/date changed! Please note:

Earlier versions of this page had the release event scheduled for Sunday Nov 11, 1PM SLT.  That is now incorrect.  Hurricane Sandy knocked out the power at Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts for a week, so we’ve rescheduled the event for Saturday, Nov 17, 1PM SLT at the Nantucket Yacht Club clubhouse.  Sorry for any inconvenience caused – please do plan on attending!

We’ve also changed the charity for the event to Hurricane Sandy relief oriented, the American Red Cross.

This last summer, sailors across the Second Life seas were both shocked and saddened upon learning of the passing of the beloved member of the SL Sailing community, Francois Jacques. Co-founder and Commodore of the Nantucket Yacht Club, United Sailing Sims principal, regatta organizer, advocate of sailing for the entire SL community in the Come Sail With Us centers, it’s no exaggeration in saying that sailing would not be the popular SL recreation it has become without Francois’ passion and dedication.

Speaking personally, I was both lucky and blessed to have known Francois since 2005.  She was an enthusiastic supporter of the Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts before there was a Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts.  She happened to spy me test sailing the clump of prims that became our first boat, the Trudeau 32, and wanted to know if she could buy it.  When it was available, she was Trudeau’s first customer and always among the very first to snap up each subsequent release, eponymously naming each boat “Francois Jacques” (I know because I made the name textures for her! :)  Later, Francois was a beta tester for Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts, providing valuable feedback based on her vast experience in sailing the SL seas in all kinds and makes of boats. She was the one who suggested to us the boat that became the Trudeau One. I tried to explain to her that we didn’t take requests. She was persistent, and boy I am glad she was!

In the same spirit of Francois’ named Trudeaus, we are christening this latest boat Francois Jacques in her memory. I showed her a very early (static, non-sailing) build of it and she liked it a lot. Francois, I hope the final version meets your approval as well.

Come Contribute!

In addition to Francois’ work with the nuts and bolts of SL sailing, she was a tireless organizer of the Sail For Life/Relay For Life fundraising events. Not only did she arrange donations for many of the SFL silent auctions, as often as not she was high bidder herself!

In that spirit, Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts, in conjunction with Nantucket Yacht Club, will release the Francois Jacques in a special fundraising event, Saturday, Nov 17, 1PM SLT at the Nantucket Yacht Club clubhouse. A portion of the proceeds from every Francois Jacques purchased at the event will benefit the American Red Cross in their Hurricane Sandy relief effort.. There will also be a silent auction for a one-of-a-kind personalized custom build, Francois Jacques hull #1, 100% of that proceed to benefit the American Red Cross. Plan now to attend and buy for yourself, buy for your friends at this worthwhile event.

The Trudeau Francois Jacques

The Francois Jacques under full sail

The Francois Jacques under full sail

Now a little about the boat. The Trudeau Francois Jacques lines and sailplan (5 sails – main, jib, staysail, gaff and jib topsails) are based on the NG Herreshoff revolutionary design from 1891, “Gloriana”. Gloriana is really the boat that got captain Nat on the map, her design with the long overhangs and cutaway forefoot took such advantage of the waterline length and sail area rating rules of the day, it allowed her to destroy every other boat in her class in the only season she raced. Her owner retired her after 8 races (all 8 wins) in a show of good sportsmanship. Needless to say, she was hugely influential in subsequent racing designs of the era, including the Herreshoff America’s Cup Champions Vigilant (1893), Defender (1895), Columbia (1899 & 1901), Reliance (1903) and Resolute (1920).

Francois Jacques Nameplate

Our version of Gloriana, the Francois Jacques, is scaled down from that 70ft LOA Herreshoff racer. Francois Jacques has a spacious cockpit outfitted in comfortable Victorian era tufted cushions. She also has a cozy cuddy cabin that sleeps two, making her ideal for cruising as well as racing. She carries a skipper and up to 2 additional crew/passengers. The crew sits (coaming, aft cabin wall) have a menu (similar to our NY30) for crew / cabin locations, with 3 crew heel offsets and animations per side.

Skipper and crew sits

Francois Jacques Crew

Francois Jacques Cabin

Wing and wing

Touch the sat-upon prim to redisplay the animation menu.  Selecting the “crew” option choice gives the crewperson the opportunity to help trim the boat for maximum performance in the usual Trudeau fashion, shifting their location from port to starboard (3 increments per side) using the keyboard L-R arrows.

All 5 sails, fantastically sculpted by the talented Bunnie Mills,  feature the Trudeau “tru-sail” luffing animations. You can deploy and stow the topsails as reefing measures and wing out the headsails for extra downwind running oomph.

Customization and Template Links

There are several built-in color combinations, all actual traditional color schemes found in the RL Herreshoff fleet of yachts. But as always, Trudeau provides you with texture templates for those who wish to make their own:

Hull and Rudder (2.7MB)

Deck and Parts (10MB)

Mast and Parts (9.3MB)

Name (307KB)

Sails (17.7MB)

(please look in your “Sailing the Trudeau Francois Jacques” notecard for example script and notecard for overriding FJ’s built-in sail textures)

Extra Goodies

The Trudeau Francois Jacques has the built-in mooring buoy, cradle when autorezzed over the hard, half-hull display model for your SL home. A box of international yachting flags to update your ensign is also included.

The Francois Jacques is available for your inspection at the Trudeau boatyard and initial availability at the Nantucket Yacht Club on Saturday, Nov 17. Come! (SURLs below)

Trudeau Classic Yachts

Nantucket Yacht Club

Dimensions

While constructed of sculpted and regular prims (not mesh), she uses the new SL object weighting model.

Land impact – 53 prims.
65.25ft (19.9m) LOA, 34.75ft (10.6m) LWL, 10.9ft (3.34m) beam, 8.73ft (2.66m) draft.
Cradle – 11 prims

New York, New York … A Helluva Boat!

If there’s anything predictable about Second Life, it’s inventory loss, sim crossing horrors, lifetime commitments lasting all of a week… and another Herreshoff-designed yacht from the Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts boatyards.

Legendary yacht designer N. G. Herreshoff (Captain Nat), when he wasn’t building America’s Cup winners, designed several club boats over the years for the well-heeled members of the New York Yacht Club – models 30, 40, 55 and 70 feet on the waterline. This time we’ve set our sights back to 1905 and the New York 30, definitely the most beloved and well-preserved of these one design-classes.  For the sum of $4,000 (close to $100,000 today), the NYYC member who bought the boat received a vessel that was ready to race and cruise, delivered complete – from sails to awnings to a sounding lead, two anchors, and full set of china for the cupboards.

Though many of the NY30s were used for cruising, with their speed, weatherliness, and ability to carry sail, the NY 30s had the sleek lines and overhangs of a racing yacht whose purpose is to go fast–and fast they did go. They were usually raced with a paid crew, two of a five man complement. In addition to the their paid salary, the paid crew shared in the prize money – one dollar for a start, four dollars for a first place finish, three for second and two dollars for a third. Those gilded age tycoons – a generous lot, no?!? ;) OK, that four dollars is about a hundred bucks today (and no income tax), but still – we are talking the JP Morgans of the world, the original .01 per-centers.

The Herreshoff NY 30 was one of the most cherished designs of the Golden Era of Yachting. Today the 30s still exist as a one-design racing class .Of the original 18, 11 are either still being sailed today or awaiting restoration. Amazing for a wooden boat over 100 years old.  And please check out the class site at www.ny30.org for more info and history.

Our New York 30

The Trudeau interpretation is, like everything in SL, somewhat scaled up – our 30 is actually closer to a 50. Like the real life original, she’s sloop rigged with a loose club on the jib. Naturally, her sails feature the Trudeau Tru-Sail luffing animations. For extra oomph, wing the jib out on runs (NY30 is command compatible with our other gaff sloop, the Trudeau 12).   You might notice the lack of reeflines on our model and in the historical photo at the top of this article. As Herreshoff historian Maynard Bray tells it, “…for more than a century now New York 30s have been raced and sailed in all kinds of weather, and, with their original gaff-sloop rigs, enjoyed a reputation for never having to the reefed, no matter how hard it blew.”

Customers have asked for a version of our popular Knockabout gaffer sloop (with a cabin and vee-berth that sleeps two), but somewhat larger. Well, here she is!  The NY30 is the largest Trudeau non-attachable with a full cabin (she sleeps 4!) and we’ve emphasized that feature with easy access to a plethora of animation selections. In addition to the skipper (sit location, the usual – tiller. Or anywhere on the deck or hull), there are 4 crew/passenger locations – the cockpit coamings, the cockpit tub edge, the cabin house top, the forward deck hatch. The sitter is presented a menu of redirected sit locations/animations.

Touch the sat-upon prim to redisplay the animation menu. Try them out! (you’ll find some may overlap). Selecting the “crew” option choice gives the crewperson the opportunity to help trim the boat for maximum performance in the usual Trudeau fashion, shifting their location from port to starboard (3 increments per side) using the keyboard L-R arrows. As also in the real life original, The Trudeau NY30 can carry a complement of 5 – skipper plus 4 crewpersons (you decide how much to pay your paid hands!)  There are other animations to help those paid hands earn their pay (mop and bucket included)

The cabin, outfitted in Edwardian period-correct raised panel joinery and tufted upholstery, is the place for relaxing after a day of sailing or upkeep for owner and crew alike (just remember, two is company, three is… well, there’s room for three… and four, too!). The cabin windows are scripted to alternate between glass and curtains for “privacy”.

Customization and Template Links

There are 7 built-in color combinations, all actual traditional color schemes found in the RL Herreshoff fleet of yachts (yes, even that green2!). But as always, Trudeau provides you with texture templates for those who wish to make their own:

Hull and Rudder (2.4MB)
Sails (including furled main) (15.8MB)
Name (205KB)
Deck (14.8MB)
Parts a bunch of other textures including interior (43MB)

(please look in your “Sailing the Trudeau New York 30” notecard for example script and notecard for overriding NY30’s built-in sail textures)

Extra Goodies

The Trudeau New York 30 has built-in mooring buoy (yes, those are half-hitch knots making fast the lines ;),  cradle autorezzed over the hard, half-hull display model for your SL home.

The New York 30 is available for your inspection at all-new Trudeau boatyard (use the SURL below). New York Yacht Club membership not included – who needs it!

Trudeau Classic Yachts

Dimensions

Land impact – 32 prims (sit locations for skipper and a crew of four)
70ft (21.4m) LOA, 47ft (14.3m) LWL, 12.5ft (3.8m) beam, 10.1ft (3.1m) draft. (yeah, she’s big)
Cradle – 22 prims

Special thanks, as always, to Bunnie Mills for her exquisite modeling work and help in making this boat a virtual reality!

We The Cats Shall Hep You

Hep?

Get with it, daddios. Hep is hipper than hip. It’s in the pocket. It’s straight from the fridge. It’s copacetic. It’s the new Trudeau HepCat, our Son of a Beach(cat). Reap this righteous riff, this is one crazy SOB.

Instructions:

1.  Raise sails.
2. Hang the hell on to something!

Dig:

• Flat ain’t where it’s at. HepCat’s sails, more curves than a Jayne Mansfield film fest. Bunnie Mills, Trudeau sail boss, is one wrascally wrabbit!
• The tramp is no lady. Nor is it a bindle-stiff. It’s a stage for skipper and crew to make sweet music upon, so blow, Roy, blow.  Or play it solo. 4 positions per side. Hiking straps.  Keep cool though, too much bouncing around on this tramp will upset HepCat’s balance with clinkers and put the kibosh on your speed.
• No kick from champagne. But plenty of kick from these rudders – HepCat turns on a dime. And a kick up… handy for sailing up on the beach, over ramps and other screwy exhibitions. Down… they can be a real drag, man. Up… not so much. Not much help in steering either. But don’t sweat it, you’ll be the wiser in no time.
• Circus act. We don’t dig jive clowns. But a high wire? Solid. HepCat has trapezes for all you daring young men (and women). If they asked if you were moving, tell them you were flyin’!
•  Wig out. Or as the L7s call it, capsize. Hot dog it too much and you’ll get the bum’s rush into the drink. Don’t have a kitten though, moor HepCat and you’ll be sittin’ pretty again in no time.
  
• HepCat is lousy with sail choices. And for you egghead longhairs, all of them historically correct.

Glad rags to deck your cat out in:

Sails(2.5MB)
Hull (360K)
Trampoline (7.8MB)
Misc Parts (1.6MB)

Beach Cat Beach has gone Hep. Make the scene and dig the righteous Cats (cut a demo too!).

That’s the rap. Don’t be a chump, get Hep.

Go, Cab, Go!

The Third Time. A Charm?

We at Trudeau are huge fans of the boats of the Herreshoff family. If it seems like every other boat that comes from our yard is in some way a tribute to either Captain Nat or his son L. Francis’ work, it’s probably because it is. Of course, the one design that is most approachable, perhaps the most endearing and enduring is Nathanael’s 12 1/2 daysailer. We are in love with that boat and have tried to model it from the earliest days of TCSY (read our rhapsodic praise and historical tidbits about the real life H12 here). The Trudeau Sea Sharp (circa 2007, shown below) was our first attempt at building a 12 1/2 – like boat.

Of course, working with the SL sphere and cylinder primitives at our disposal didn’t quite lend themselves to the compound curved beauty of the 12 1/2’s lines.

It’s no surprise (to us, at least) that as soon as we had mastered a sculpty form beyond that of a hollowed out log, we would take another stab at the H12. That was the Trudeau Twenty (below left), our first sculpty boat.

Closer perhaps, but still no cigar. There are RL H12 owners in Second Life who directed comments our way on Twenty’s shortcomings as a Herreshoff H12 tribute. The masthead all wrong… the coamings are supposed to sweep all the way to the transom… the jib is supposed to self-tend on a club… and take those battens out of the main! Hey, when you are the owner of an important piece of yachting history and a bona-fide masterpiece, that entitles you to be picky!

So now, over 4 years after Sea Sharp hit the seas, nearly 2 1/2 years after Twenty’s launch – those comments taken to heart, other lessons learned, new building skills acquired, additional Linden scripting functions to abuse, led us to take 3 of our infatuation with the H12. Since it is more or less 12 feet on the SL waterline, we decided to call this one a twelve as well.

Presenting our T12

We think we nailed it this time! Though that makes it somewhat smaller than Twenty, the T12 can still haul you and 3 of your friends on sailing excursions throughout SL’s waterways. All four of those seated positions help counteract Twelve’s heeling – by shifting from side to side. There are tons – tons – of other new features.

• Redesigned hull and other new parts – coamings, rigging, rudder, cockpit benches, tiller, mast, mast hoops, boom, jib club…
• Beautiful sculpted gaff mainsail and jib with just the right billow and twist to bring a tear to an old salt’s eye (thanks to the very talented Bunnie Mills – give it up for her… again!).
• Our exclusive Tru-Sail feature as first introduced on the Trudeau One. The sails flap, luff and fill to give inworld visual indication of correct sail set. No HUD angle sail by numbers… no color codes… no big inworld dials… just realistic true to life sail behavior.

Alright already … this is getting to sound a lot like our write up for the Leetle Cat II. We suggest you read about the features of the “new” Trudeau boats, including T12, there. As you might have noticed about Trudeau boats, some boats have some features, other boats have other features. We try to give each of our boats a flavor of the RL ones they are modeled on.

Here are some features unique to the T12. While she doesn’t have the spinnaker (not exactly standard equipment on the H12 when first introduced in 1914), she has a very effective wing and wing setting for running downwind.

T12 is the replacement for the Twenty in our lineup, as such we have kept and updated popular features from that boat. For the cruising set is the motor and the boom tent and sleeping accommodations.

Customization templates? For you hot modders and rockers, follow these links for .PSD graphics:

Hull (2.33MB) including rudder templates

Transom naming (388KB)

Sails (9.44MB) – main, jib, furled sail and boom/reefed sail templates

(see this page for step-by-step naming instructions – T12 follows the Sea Sharp procedure – Sea Sharp lives on in T12 after all!)

Dimensions

32 prims (sit locations for skipper and a crew of three)
18ft (5.5m) LOA, 6.5ft (2m) beam, 2.6ft (.79m) draft.
Cradle – 21 prims
Tent/Lantern/Mattress – 28 prims
Mooring buoy and line – 11 prims

Come see the new Trudeau 12 at Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts.

Charmed? We’re sure!

A Cat’s Second Life

Say Hello To A New Cat

The Trudeau Leetle Cat has become a popular SL daysailer/trainer since her introduction over two years ago.  But time marches on and even classic boats can do with a facelift, especially if it makes them a better boat. With that thought in mind, Trudeau brought the LC into the yard with the goal of giving this cat a new life. And that we did – we proudly introduce our Leetle Cat II.  So where do we start? Despite her aged paint option, she is a completely new boat. You could say she is “One” new Leetle Cat.

• Completely redesigned hull – smaller, less draft, follows more closely to the RL inspiration’s lines. Actual centerboard slot (why? Just because!) Other new parts – centerboard trunk, rudder, tiller, mast, mast hoops…
• Beautiful sculpted gaff sail with just the right billow and twist to bring a tear to an old salt’s eye (thanks to the very talented Bunnie Mills – give it up for her!).
• Our exclusive Tru-Sail feature as first introduced on the Trudeau One. The sail  flaps, luffs and fills to give inworld visual indication of correct sail set.  No HUD angle sail by numbers… no color codes… no big inworld dials…  just realistic true to life sail behavior.
• Sculpted halyard and gaff detail prims follow sail rotation. Boom crotch and sail ties detailing when moored.
• True to life sail response to wind in tacks and gybes (what was Trudeau thinking in those 1st and 2nd generation boats anyway???)
• Helm location has 4 hiking positions to counteract heeling momentum. Is the helmsperson really steering by nudging the tiller with his/her feet on those outboard positions???? (thanks to Isis Rexie for that suggestion ;)
• Second bonus sit position for a passenger/instructor/crew. While Leetle Cat II is designed with single handling in mind, after some shakedown sailing we determined it was wrong, just wrong, to keep this poor person planted on the lee side while heeling. So this location also has 2 hike positions – 1 port and 1 starboard – to help “slightly” in righting the boat. Remember, on LCII, trim is really up to the helmsperson.

• While proper skipper positioning can pretty much keep you going in winds up to 10msec, there is also a sail reef point for when the winds kick up even higher.
• Despite all the tools given to the skipper for the task of keeping his boat upright – hiking, spilling wind, reefing – there are times, like in real life, when you are just caught in the wrong side at the wrong time. Watch out! – yes, Leetle Cat II capsizes! The first Trudeau boat to do so since we introduced it to SL sailing with the Beach Cat 4 years ago.  Novices and instructors don’t worry, it’s as easy to right her as it is difficult to set her over. But don’t expect help from that smug crewperson of yours!

• Self bailing cockpit – no more water lapping around the floorboards when you heel over.
• As in One 1.14, the option of controlling the tiller rather than the boat direction with the keyboard arrows.
• Geeky stuff – more than halved the script count of the original Leetle Cat as Linden Lab keeps making noise on setting a limit on the number of scripts per sim.

Customization templates? As always, we’ve got you covered to keep your Trudeau boat covered. Follow these links for .PSD graphics:

Hull (1.83MB) including rudder and CB trunk templates

Transom naming (57KB)

Sail (3.88MB) including furled sail and boom/reefed sail templates

(see this page for step-by-step naming instructions – Leetle Cat follows the Sea Sharp procedure).

Come see the all new Leetle Cat II  – the leetler cat – and sail the demo at Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts.

One, Uno, Une, Eins, Een, Ett, Satu, 日本語, 简体中文版, 한국어 …

Are there any more translations from Babelfish we’ve left out? :)

The One is the newest classic boat from the Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts. It takes it’s inspiration from a well-known Scandinavian one-design keelboat of the 1930s that has developed, through the years, into actively raced fleets in locations across the globe. From Norway to Long Island Sound, from San Francisco to Bermuda, you could say it has truly international appeal. (though RL intellectual property considerations prevent us from singling out that boat, we’ve dropped broad enough hints that any sailor worth his/her/it’s salt should have no trouble identifying it ;)

With a 7/8 Bermudian rig, it is the first Trudeau boat with fully sculpted sails and, sculpted by Bunnie Mills, what beauties they are – perfectly billowed, perfectly curved throughout the leech with wrinkles like real sailcloth, and actually texture-able.  But that’s not all. Wait until you see…

…Realistic Luffing!

On top of that, these sails are scripted to really luff!  No need to keep your eye fixed on that sail angle figure – One will let you know inworld, visually and aurally, about your sail trim. Actually, you won’t be able to keep you eye fixed on that sail angle figure as it is not to be found anywhere (but don’t worry – wind and speed numbers are still in the sail control and info-HUDs). One is the first Trudeau boat that is truly sailed by your senses.

Specifically designed with racing in mind, One has features such as the chute, ballast shifting positions for skipper and up to 2 crewmembers and naturally, sail handling duties shared by all aboard. That spinnaker bag looks like a comfy spot to relax between heats… and it is!

Customization

There are 6 built-in color combinations, all actual schemes found in the RL fleet of the boat not mentioned above (including a folkboat-y like bright hull) that we are quite proud of. But naturally serious customizers will want to make their own, and we have you covered in texture templates for covering your One:

Hull and Rudder (2.55MB)
Sails (5.45MB)
Name (208KB)
Nearly every texture found in the boat (excluding sails – 11.42MB –  for serious modders!)

(please look in your “Sailing One” card for example script and notecard for over-riding One’s built-in sails)

Extra Goodies

One has built-in mooring field and dockside details – buoy, fenders (yes, those are half-hitch knots making fast the lines ;),  cradle autorezzed over the hard, half-hull display model for your SL home.

One and her revolutionary sails have to be seen to be appreciated and you can at Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts. Sit in the One on display for a short demo of them and you’ll see why we are so excited by them!

Dimensions

32 prims (sit locations for skipper and a crew of two)
39ft (12m) LOA, 8.3ft (2.53m) beam, 6.1ft (1.86m) draft.
Cradle – 20 prims

A special thanks to the SL sailors who have requested this design – Francois Jacques, Naeve Rossini, Jane  Fossett – for me,  it was the right boat at the right time.  And an extra-special thanks to Bunnie Mills whose SL sail lofting skills made it all possible. Now I can get back to my catboats!

What’s a Patchogue?

Discontinued

So what is a Patchogue?  Something like a cross between a pirogue and Patch Adams? Nope (but that does give me an idea for an avatar). It’s actually the name of a Native American Indian Tribe, but for our discussion it’s not a what, but a where. The village of Patchogue (named after that tribe), on the south shore of New York’s Long Island, was where the region’s greatest boat builder – Gilbert Smith – developed the Great South Bay Catboat into an art form. The Trudeau Patchogue was inspired by the designs of Smith, who as a contemporary of Nathaniel Herreshoff (the legendary Cap’t Nat was rumored to have visited Smith’s yard incognito at least once, trying to find out “how he made ‘em draw so little and go so fast”), evolved traditional workboat designs into amazing pleasure and racing craft.

Commerical Beginnings

The working boats that plied the Great South Bay in the mid and late 19th century, as platforms for such commerce as duck hunting and oystering, were designed as all such boats are –  in mind to the nautical conditions they operate in.  The Cape Cod catboats for instance, similar in purpose to Great South Bay variety, were designed to withstand the rough conditions off coastal New England – heavy construction, high freeboard, wide beam. Long Island’s Great South Bay, by contrast is a semi-protected body of water, shallow (average 6 ft. at low tide), with generally agreeable weather conditions. The boats there were lighter with a very shallow draft and lots of sail.

The rise of New York City’s leisure class coincided with the waning of hunting and shell fishing as livelihoods. Sailing moved as purely a means of commercial transportation to the realm of amateur yachtsmen, who purchased better, faster and newer boats for racing each other in recreational regattas. Smith adapted the vernacular Great South Bay Catboat to this purpose, constantly refining his designs for this demanding clientele. It is widely reputed that his boats have won more races than those constructed by any other builder on Long Island. He was most remarkable as a designer, builder and artisan as well as a stalwart believer in the beauty and strength of wind. In his decades of boatbuilding, Smith never once built a boat with a gasoline powered engine (though the Trudeau Patchogue does have that engine – shhhhh! nobody tell Gilbert Smith!)

Gilbert Smith’s Great South Bay Catboat (images © WoodenBoat magazine)

 The Trudeau Patchogue

With that bit of introduction, Trudeau proudly announces it’s latest offering – the Patchogue. It, like the great majority of Gilbert Smith’s designs, is a centerboarder catboat – one sail. Think of it as a bigger (beeger?) version of our popular Leetle Cat. The Patchogue has a list of features beyond that of her Leetle sister:

• The aforementioned motor, popular with the cruising set.
• Skipper and crew positioning, adjustable under sail, trims the heel of the boat.
• Half a dozen built-in traditional color schemes.
• 2 sail reef points.
• Rezzing mooring buoy.

Customization

As with all Trudeau boats, Patchogue is modify permissioned allowing you to make her your own. These are the links to the Photoshop PSD templates for the hull (2.07MB), naming (242KB) and sail (144KB) graphics. Also contact the Trudeau sailmaker, the very talented Bunnie Mills, inworld for further information about sail customization.

For those of you wondering about alternatives for the flag, we can’t provide a graphic for every nationality, so we suggest retrieving images from sites such as this or do a Google image search. (edit: people have asked about whether I have 3D looking wavy flag templates – I don’t as it would require your flag image as the basis for the graphic. But here is a great step by step tutorial on creating a great looking flag. It’s true, the internet does have everything. ;)

Come take a look at her at Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts and (now that you know who he is ;) ) see if you don’t agree that Gilbert Smith lives on in Second Life!

Dimensions:

Trudeau Patchogue – 29 prims (carries skipper and up to two additional passengers/crew), 29 ft (8.85m) LOD, 11.5ft (3.5m) beam, 5.5ft (1.7m) draft (board down)

Trudeau Twenty Writeup

For seasoned and beginning SL sailors alike – Jane Fossett as an article on SLSailing.com with everything you wanted to know about the Trudeau Twenty. Handling tips, tactics for gaining maximum performance on various points of sail (with charts and graphs, no less!), and much, much more  – wow, theres a lot there that even I didn’t know! Thanks for the terrific writeup, Jane :)

The Leetle Cat!

Discontinued

Our latest Trudeau Classic Yacht was inspired by the Beetle Cat, a wooden one-design centerboarder catboat well-known up and down the northeastern US coast. The Original Beetle Cat Boat, named after the family who designed and originally constructed it, was introduced in 1920 and over 4,000 have been built to date. The Beetle Cat class has a long and varied history – it is one of the oldest classes raced actively and probably the only one still made of wood.

The design was taken from the catboats that were used for fishing in shallow waters along Cape Cod. The wide beam, with the rudder not extending below the bottom of the keel, and centerboard that lifts up are features that make this boat ideal for shallow waters. She is a boat that can be beached. The generous beam makes her unusually stable. Made entirely of wood, (oak frames with cedar planking) with no ballast, she is non-sinkable and the large decked area forward on the boat means spray falls on the deck rather than inside the boat. The rig is similar to that used on the old, large-size Cape Cod catboat, with the mast well forward, using a single sail.

The Trudeau Leetle Cat, with it’s single sail, is also easy to sail and ideal for novice SL sailors. While she is the leetle-est and lowest cost boat in the Trudeau line, she is not lacking in features including windshadowing, functional centerboard and sail reefing.

Customization

To keep the cost down, the Leetle Cat comes in one finish from the Trudeau boatyard. But we are publishing Photoshop PSD templates for infinite customization. Follow the links for Hull (1.07MB), transom naming (117KB) and sail (5.55MB) graphics. (see this page for step-by-step naming instructions – Leetle Cat follows the Sea Sharp procedure).

Other Features of the Trudeau Leetle Cat 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, centerboard 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 Leetle Cat :)
• Onscreen HUD provides button control for the common boat handling commands and display of environmental conditions. An included 2nd 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.
• Since sim crossings can be unpredictable, copy and modify permissions.
• Extra goodies such as autorezzing drydock cradle when rezzed inworld over land.

Dimensions:
Trudeau Leetle Cat – 29 prims,  17.7 ft (5.34m) LWL, 21.6 ft (6.6m) LOA, 8.9 ft (2.7m) beam, 1.4ft (.42m) draft board up, 3.45ft (1.05m) draft board down.

“Beetle Cat” is a registered trademark of Beetle, Inc.