Furthering the development process

Palmquist Marine started with a simple question, “does my father’s invention the WINGMARAN still have merit today?”.

The wingmaran™ was invented, tested, and patented in the late 1980’s by Martti J. Palmquist. A utility patent was granted in January of 1987. Wingmaran prototypes in the 18’ long range had already attained speeds 10-15% above a catamaran of the same length and sail area. With 2 years of testing under his belt my father was ready for the next step, to build a 50’ version and to sail it around the world breaking all the previous speed records. He was confident that speeds approaching “50 knots, maybe more” were possible.

One of the main advantages of the Wingmaran, other than shifting weight from the main displacement hull onto the dynamic skimming wing, is that the boat actually becomes more stable at higher speeds and is less likely to capsize or pitch-pole at high speeds. My father’s last 2 prototypes never capsized. His prototypes were tested on Lake Sidney Lanier, GA and behind Hilton Head Island, SC.

Tragically all progress came to a halt when my father died in small engine plane crash in June of 1989.

Our family was devastated.

I, Mark S. Palmquist, was enrolled in engineering school at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA at the time. In the years after his death, I suffered from depression. Luckily, I discovered the Industrial Design School at Georgia Tech and quickly fell in love with the design process of combining art with engineering and building models by hand. Like my father, making things with my hands and learning new fabrication processes came naturally. After an award winning design career in exhibit and furniture design, my interest in sailboat design was about to be reignited…

In 2018 my father-in-law purchased a Cape Dory Typhoon sailboat for our family. I spent several weeks fixing her up and learning all the ins and outs of rigging and sailing a small keelboat with 900 lb of lead ballast. Having grown up on a windsurfer, keelboats were a different category. Although the boat was beautiful and could hold our 4 member family plus a few guests, it was not my cup of tea. With a 5-6 knot speed limit and excessive and uncomfortable heeling, I wanted a multihull. After seeing the outrageous price of purchasing a used trimaran, I started thinking that I would just have to make one instead, thus starting a 6 year long multihull design saga that is still going strong today.

Along the way I found out that the top speed of a windsurfer without a hydrofoil is higher than the top speed a windsurfer with a hydrofoil. So I began to believe that my father’s original idea of utilizing a hydroplaning wing positioned above the water line and having a positive angle of incidence could produce more lift with less drag than a full buoyancy “long & skinny” float and maybe even compete with underwater hydrofoil lifting wings. I found out that all recent sailboat speed records have been broken by hydroplaning monopods or tripods and that only 1 utilized hydrofoil for upward lift. You can quickly google the top speed of a foiling speed boat and find out that they can’t go over 90 mph but a hydroplaning speed boat has reached 317 mph. The main reason for this is that wetted surface area on a submerged foil is greater than the wetted surface area on a hydroplane once a certain speed is reached. Also, hydroplanes are subject to cavitation and hydroplanes are not.

It is true that hydrofoils have improved greatly in the last 20 years, but they are extremely technical, hard to make and expensive.

It is my intent to bring the joys of “hydroplaning while sitting” to the next generation of sailing enthusiasts!

I have learned a few things from the time of my father’s last experiments. His boats were too heavy and his wing’s wedge angle of attack was too steep. Also, his wing was situated only a few inches above the water. I have increased the resting height of the wing to closer to 6-8” above the water line which improves low end speed performance. I have increased the hull’s beam so that you can balance the boat in low wind conditions. The lighter boat has lowered the speed required for the wing to hydroplane. My prototype starts to get on plane around 5 knots, much quicker than my father’s prototypes which required 10 knots to get on plane. I have started with a small 14’ test boat and have completed plans for the Wingmaran 15. More designs are in the works.

Fish Propulsion

After seeing all the crazy contraptions used by participants in the Race 2 Alaska, I started experiments and investigations into fish and aquatic mammal propulsion. Existing propulsion systems are limited to 3 choices: 1) over-under paddles, 2) underwater spinning propellors, and 3) underwater flippers. However, the fastest fish in the sea use neither, they use a high aspect ratio tail and a streamline body undulating rapidly in a whip-like motion. People have experimented with flexible fish tails (including myself), however, I believe fish and dolphins get much of their speed from the undulation of their bodies in combination with their tails. As far as I know, besides rod-and-reel fishermen’s boat being dragged by a large fish, no one has produced a flexible fish-on-a-stick type propulsion system. Experiments are on-going and I intend to crack this nut! If you would like to join in with the development of this idea, send me an email.

The Diamond Lug - A better balanced Lug Sail

The balanced lug sail is a favorite rig for small, homebuilt sailboaters, however, I wanted to make it better. The resulting design incorporates features found in a windsurfing rig, but also with the ability to be reefed, twice, which is required for participation in most costal RAID type adventure challenges and races. It incorporates a yard and a boom. The yard is inside a luff pocket and the boom is loose fitted. The top of the sail is square. The upper leech corner is held tight with a batten. Scale model test results were promising so I made a 52 SF prototype to test on my shuttle punt. It worked very well! Testing is on going.