RebelCat 4

RebelCat 1 - The YouTube video I made about that prototype is here, in case you haven't seen it. Now that you've seen it, I'll tell you what I was doing in Brazil on that reservoir. I had produced a CD of spiritual chanting w/ guitar and a friend many years before in Germany, and I was waiting for enough of them to sell in Brazil to pay my ticket back to the US. I'm leaving a lot out, but that keeps this brief. So I've got four months left of my visa and can't stay in Sao Paulo due to the smog, so I found this reservoir and camped there. As the video explains, I wanted to get to an island, and I made a raft to do that. The rest is in the movie (and on the DVD). Here are photos and descriptions of the birth of RebelCat 1 . RebelCat 2 - Back in the USA, I got into another smoggy situation and decided to make RebelCat 2 and sail up the coast of California for four months - for some fresh air. That was before I could think clearly (smog does that to me), because the reality of ocean sailing is not the same world as lake sailing. RebelCat 2 would not have survived the trip. Testing in a nearby lake made that clear. Full description with photos of RebelCat 2 . RebelCat 3 - Well, I found another way out of the smog - I moved away to a small town in Arizona. But the RebelCat potential was still whispering to me, so I sketched more ideas. Then I moved to Illinois for awhile, got an invitation to help with a new high school in New Zealand and spent four months there. There on the beach of the south island I made RebelCat 3 from driftwood, at least it started out as a cat. The wood was so heavy it became a raft out of necessity. It sailed once, my crew and I survived, and that was it. Recycled back to the beach. Full description and photos of RebelCat 3 . RebelCat 4 - Back in Illinois, I transformed part of RebelCat 2 into a raft for a friend's pond - still there as far as I know. Moved back to warmer and sunny Arizona, and got out my sketches of RebelCat 4. This time, I would build a cat closer to the original but using 10" pipe instead of 20cm (8"). No sooner had I begun when I saw the movie Waterworld - Kevin Kostner on his 60' trimaran - and I was blown away. Bigger is probably better here in the US, I thought (I'd been gone for 25 years, what did I know?). So I put those 10" pipes aside and got some 15" pipes 20' long. You have to stand next to one of these pipes to understand just how big they are - massive, and 90 pounds each! What have I done?, I thought, standing in the yard where I picked them up. How will I ever get these on my roofrack? Not to be undone by a couple of plastic pipes, I got them on my rack (with help from a forklift!), strapped them down and drove home. How do I get them off? One end at a time! Holy moly, those are huge. Okay, I can only be blown away for so long - eventually I'll have to build a cat with them. This was a major undertaking. Aluminum square pipe frame, massive mast, huge sails - the cat was capable of carrying a party of six adults, and I mean a party boat. How I managed to get the entire cat on and off of my roofrack is the subject of a whole story, but I did it.