Alon Blumenzweig / Bezalel Academy of Art and Design
FlyCat
Self
FlyCat
FlyCat
FlyCat is a folding catamaran boat that you can store at home, load on your car and sail in any water you like. The boat is made of carbon fiber for lightness and strength and take approx. 15 min to assembly and can hold up to 4 persons.
2. The Brief: Summarize the problem you set out to solve. What was the context for the project, and what was the challenge posed to you?The project was emerging as a dream of mine. I always loved the sea and dreamed of a boat of my own. I wanted a boat that could give me the freedom to sale wherever I want, whenever I want without the need of high porting fees.The idea was to make a catamaran boat that you can store at your home, put on your car, assemble by yourself without compromising the sailing experience.Today there are inflate boats that you can easily store but these kind of boats are low preformance and takes long time to self inflate. The main challenge was basically to keep everything simple and still have a safe, high performance boat with affordable price.
3. The Intent: What point of view did you bring to the project, and were there additional criteria that you added to the brief?As a student I developed the FlyCat on my own money and considered these points:
a. Simplicity and easy maintenance – a boat for everyone.
b. Easy manufacturing processes.
c. High performance.
d. Smart simple solutions.
e. Safety.
I was looking for inspiration and solutions that is new to the world of boating and merged them with traditional ones. I combined the world of folding bicycles with the world of catamarans and combined ideas and way of thinking.
I was looking for easy, cheap and smart manufacturing processes that could fit the vision of a boat for everyone.
In my research and development I consulted with engineers about the forces that the boat needed to handle, and also with a boat engineer about the hydrophobic qualities of the boat.
I did research of the new composites and materials to fit the best solutions.
The target users are sailing enthusiast who want the joy of sailing with simple and easy handling with no high costs.
I think that in our modern world we still want to enjoy the same things as everyone else, the FlyCat is a boat for everyone. It is easy to handle relatively cheap and fun to sail, but most important gives you the freedom to choose where and when to sale without any other costs. You can store it at home or your garage and fold it on the beach and sail. It suitable to the modern way of life.
We liked the access to be able to bring it to the ocean vs. docking the boat.
It’s also a very clean looking design.
Our concerns were the weight, and size of transport for transport, the speed in which it could actually be assembled, and the structural integrity of splitting the 2 hulls.