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25th Anniversary Issue • January/February 2000
MULTIHULLS Magazine

Tribute to the Living Legends: Designers
RUDY CHOY

After “Catamarans Offshore”
By BARRY CHOY

In 1970 the MacMillan Company published “Catamarans Offshore,”
a watershed book written by Rudy Choy in an attempt to set forth
the legacy of his famed partnership C/S/K and totell the story
of how he and his partners, Warren Seaman,
Alfred Kumalae and Vince Bartolone, evolved their ideas
and principles of successful catamaran design. From the
earliest beginnings, specifically the late 1950s, they understood
what even some of the most skeptical and hardened
yachting traditionalists have only recently come to
accept: that multihulls are not only superior to conventional
yachts in many respects, but more importantly, are
the wave of the future. From the very beginning Rudy,
Warren, Alfred and Vince’s fundamental design standards
were creativity, simplicity and evaluation by careful empirical
observation, notions that today stand anyone desirous
of building anything operating according to the
laws of physics, in good stead. The acid-test of success for
each of their creations was conducted, not by using a slide
rule, or with the boat tied to some dock as a showpiece,
but in the open ocean.

Following the publication of Catamarans Offshore, less
than two years later, C/S/K was, at least outwardly, disbanded,
and Rudy launched an ocean recreation company
in Hawaii that would carry millions of joyful sun and
star-seeking tourists on pleasure trips during its 24-year
reign. This venture, which sprang from the very humblest
of beginnings, was named in honor of Rudy’s very first
contemporary catamaran design: Aikane, the Hawai’ian
word for “Friend.”

During the Aikane years up to the present, Rudy never
gave up on his first love – designing and sailing oceangoing
catamarans: a part-time project started in 1983 literally
in the back yard of the Topanga Canyon home of partner
and lifelong friend Warren Seaman, and assisted by
Vince Bartolone and many others, was to enable Rudy to
fulfill his life’s dream: to own the transpacific elapsedtime
record (see Multihulls A/S ’89 pg 50 by John Conser).
When, in 1989, the 62’ Aikane X5 sailed across the finish
line at Diamond Head 6d22h after leaving Los Angeles, she
was the sixth catamaran to bear that name. She was also
the last collaborative design effort of C/S/K. The years
leading up to her record were punctuated by some unforgettable
creative opportunities and, perhaps, some of our
best work. We were also blessed by the friendship, creativity
and steadfast support of many people, friends both old
and new.

It is not without irony that a project that sparked a revamping
of all our hull designs was traceable, in lineage,
to Ancient Polynesia of over 1,500 years ago. In 1974
Rudy met with artist Herb Kane, University of Hawai’i Professor
Ben Finney, and well-known Hawai’i waterman
Tommy Holmes. Together, they sought to prove that, contrary
to the theory expounded by Thor Heyerdahl, the
Polynesians were capable of sailing, and had indeed,
sailed North and East from the ancestral lands in Tahiti
to what is today known as Hawai’i, without the use of conventional
navigation. They envisioned a modern replica of
an ancient Polynesian Double-Canoe, but had little idea
of how to design and build one. Rudy created the lines and
Warren began the construction of the 60’ long Hokule’a,
which not only succeeded in sailing to Tahiti and back
without the use of modern navigation or instruments, but
would transit all of Polynesia three times, covering tens
of thousands of miles at sea, and is at this moment returning
from a historic voyage to Rapa Nui (Easter Island).
One of our most rewarding projects (and enduring successes)
was the creation of the first luxury commercial passenger
cat for developer Chris Hemmeters’ famed Hyatt
Regency Maui at Ka’anapali in 1979. Chris’ only instruction
with regard to her design was that she was to match,
in every respect, the elegance and uniqueness of the resort.
Except for this dictum, the design and construction details
were left entirely to Rudy, Warren, Vince and Master Boat
Builder Gilbert Iwamoto. Today, some 20 years after she
sailed up to the anchorage fronting the Hyatt Regency,
Kiele V, named in Hawai’ian for Hemmeters’ daughter,
Kelly, remains a perennial favorite of hotel guests and is
sold out days in advance, year-round.

We were again fortunate to work with Chris in 1990,
who bought into the idea of an ultimate-thrills racing
catamaran for his $350 million Kaua’i Lagoons Resort on
the Island of Kaua’i. She was to be capable of providing
the thrills of a 60’ racer, but with a load of paying passengers
while still meeting burdensome U.S. Coast Guard
regulations. To add to the challenge, the boat would be
operating in steady trade winds in excess of 25 knots for
much of the year. At an overall length of 44’, Kiele VI had
a beam of 28’ – only three feet narrower than Aikane X5,
a 60-footer. Despite the harrowing conditions at Nawiliwili,
from where she operated, Kiele VI was granted a 25-
mile license – at the time the longest route for a boat of
her size, and a testament to her seaworthiness. With her
Randy Smyth-designed wing mast and sail plan and extra
wide beam, even in 25-knot winds she was exceptionally
stiff and could be steered with one finger. Sadly, in
1992, after only two years of operation, Kiele VI was totally
destroyed in Hurricane Iniki.

Meanwhile, over two decades, from 1970 to 1990,
Aikane Corporation was highly profitable, carrying over
250,000 passengers annually with revenues of over $4
million. Our dinner cruise operation was the “mistress”
that prevented our involvement in design projects and for
much of the time we considered only our own vessels, the
last of which were each over 95’ in length; planned future
vessels were over 120’ in length. But the beginning of the
Gulf War launched the State of Hawai’i, almost solely dependent
upon tourism, into a recession that still lingers.

The recession forced the closure of Aikane and closed that
chapter of our lives, at least for a time.
In 1995, while in the midst of again engaging in a new
entrepreneurial effort involving fast catamarans and the
lucrative Hawai’i ocean activity market, Rudy suffered a
stroke that robbed him of one of his best-known talents:
his speech. With this totally unforeseen setback against
the backdrop of the worst recession in the history of the
Islands, we had to discontinue our new charter business.
Though he retired following his stroke, Rudy regained his
strength and is in excellent health, his speech notwithstanding.

This July, he will celebrate his 77th birthday:
not bad for a former beachboy who flew over Europe during
some of the heaviest fighting of World War II in B-24s,
an aircraft often referred to as “The Flying Coffin.”
I was lucky to have been part of a lifelong apprenticeship
in C/S/K. I am now carrying on the legacy of my father and
his former partners. While they taught me everything I
know, they couldn’t possibly teach me everything they
know, and when I am around them I’m amazed at the depth
and breadth of their experiences and insights. In addition
to being present at the birth of virtually every C/S/K boat
built, I spent most of my life working in every phase of
Aikane Corporation – our Dinner Cruise Company. The
experience introduced me to the commercial/charter
genre at its very inception. I was fortunate to be Project
Manager for Aikane X5 through four major modifications
and co-designer of Kiele VI (and several designs that
didn’t leave the concept stage) and am on the verge of reentering
the market after a brief hiatus. Fortunately for
me, I have an irreplaceable source of advice and creative
input, albeit somewhat less verbose than in years past,
my Dad, Rudy Choy.

Timeline of projects from 1969

Kenumema (C/S/K); builder: Not on record, 1969. LOA
62’ Luxury Cruising Catamaran for M. Jehan Morault, scion
of a Nickel Mining family in New Caledonia. She was one of
the largest of our cruising designs and was the basis for
Aikane II

Aikane II (C/S/K); builder: Warren Seaman, 1972. LOA
62’ Dinner Cruise Catamaran, licensed capacity, 132, for
Aikane Corporation. She was perhaps the very first purposebuilt
sailing dinner cruise catamaran of size. She was ketchrigged
with double-furling headsails, twin diesels and twin
diesel gensets, providing AC power for food preparation and
holding, and a live band.

Aikane III (C/S/K); builder: Gilbert Iwamoto, 1978. LOA
68’ Dinner Cruise Catamaran, licensed capacity, 148, for
Aikane Corporation. This boat sailed in the 1974 Multihull
TransPac to Honolulu. Her major innovation was that most
of her 148 passengers could be seated in the main saloon.

Hokule’a (Rudy Choy, Herb Kane, Ben Finney); builder:
Warren Seaman/Polynesian Voyaging Society, 1975. LOA 60’
Replica of Polynesian Double Canoe for Polynesian Voyaging
Society. Sailed to Tahiti and back in 1976 to commemorate
the American Bicentennial, proving the validity of ancient
Polynesian northward migration and navigation by stars.

Aikane I & Aikane VI (Rudy Choy); builder: Gilbert
Iwamoto/Aikane Corporation, 1978, 1979 for Aikane Corporation.
These sisterships were both LOA 94’ and featured sitdown
restaurant-style meal service (a first in the industry)
as well as a live Polynesian Show. Although twin dieselequipped
with dual 15KW generators, these were sailing
cats. Licensed for 195 passengers, briefly both were the only
wood vessels in U.S. waters approved for over 149 passengers
with the exception of grandfathered Mississippi River
boats. (Editor’s Note: Publisher Charles Chiodi was a guest
on Aikane VI during his visit to Honolulu, and enjoyed the
ride on the bridgedeck with Rudy personally in command.)

Machete (C/S/K); builder: Jack Swart/Vince Bartolone
& Gilbert Iwamoto, 1978, LOA 40’ for Jack Swart and Rudy
Choy. Machete was conceived with basically all the specs and
attributes of the early Formula 40 Class (LOA 40’, 4,000 lb.,
transportable, etc.) but in 1974 or so, years before the European
Formula 40’s (See MULTIHULLS cover S/O ‘79)

Kiele V (C/S/K); builder: Gilbert Iwamoto, 1979. LOA 56’
for Chris Hemmeter. Kiele V was licensed for only 49 passengers
but was appointed in opulent luxury: over $50,000 in
solid-teak was incorporated into her appointments. Despite
being a cruising yacht, she has been the fastest catamaran
off the wind for most of her twenty-year tenure on the
Ka’anapali, Maui coast.

Aikane X5 (Rudy Choy, Warren Seaman, Vince Bartolone,
Barry Choy); builder: Warren Seaman/Gilbert Iwamoto,
1985. LOA 62 for Rudy Choy. Aikane X5 was really designed
in the late ‘70’s and the thinking of this earlier period was
evident in her first configuration. With the contributions of
Randy Smyth (rig and sail plan) and Bob Perkins (built the
largest Gougeon-style wing spar ever). Her performance was
improved to the point where she set the TransPac record in
moderate (13.5 knots) winds, averaging 14.5 knots VMG.She
was the original “low-tech” boat. High-tech materials and systems
were deliberately rejected in favor of simplicity. At
around 10,000 lbs. empty, she’s one of the lightest wood catamarans
ever constructed, but has endured over 30,000 ocean
racing miles, all with minimal use of carbon. We do love carbon
– when someone else is paying for it! Titanium, too!

Humu Humu (Rudy Choy/Barry Choy); builder: Dencho
Marine. LOA 79’ for Mike Miller. We performed only the initial
design for this giant catamaran. While the finished boat
does not square with most of our ideas about catamaran design,
she is, at least conceptually, one of ours.

Kiele VI (Barry Choy/Rudy Choy/Gary Dierking); builder:
CMS, Inc. LOA 44’ for: Chris Hemmeter/Kiele Kaua’i Catamaran
Company. Though she was lost in 1992, in many
ways she was perhaps the most advanced small charter cat
of the past decade. Except for raising and lowering the
mainsail, every operation could be handled by the helmsman.
She had one-finger steering even while broad-reaching
in 30-knots-true, and yet almost never flew a hull. With her
splined tube connections, she was so stiff that while hauledout,
jacking one bow even one inch would result in the lifting
of the other bow. Like Machete, the first “Formula 40,”
she could be completely disassembled for transport. Early
plans called for up to a dozen of these cats at various resorts
in Hawai’i and the Caribbean, but Hurricane Hugo and a
downturn in the “Mega-Resort” industry scrapped those
plans.

Choy/Seaman/Kumalae Explained

Alfred Kumalae, Rudy’s childhood friend, was responsible
for teaching him about the sea. Rudy’s father was a
businessman and immigrant from Korea with little understanding
of the ocean. It was Alfred who first taught
my father to study the wake of their surfboard (tied to the
bank in a river near Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii) as
they fished, in order to begin to understand how surfaces
behaved in the water. He also taught Rudy how to paddle
a canoe and how to sail.

With Alfred and Woody Brown, a famed international
glider pilot and aerodynamicist, Rudy helped create the
very first modern catamaran, Manukai, in 1947. When
Rudy decided to leave Hawai’i for better economic opportunities
in the post-war mainland of 1950, Alfred was already
living in Los Angeles. Rudy had his first experience
crewing in the Newport Beach to Ensenada, Mexico Race
(not in a catamaran!) and shortly thereafter, met Warren
Seaman. Following Rudy’s first solo design effort, the 44’
Aikane, he formed C/S/K Catamarans with Warren and
Alfred. Sometime in the early 60’s Vince Bartolone, who
had done much of the drafting during that time, joined the
partnership. Vince and his superb eye for style, helped
define the famous look that all C/S/K designs have.
The successes (with a few tribulations) are told in
“Catamarans Offshore,” The MacMillan Company, 1970.
Unfortunately, it is out of print. Alfred left the partnership
sometime in the late 1960’s and has since passed away,
but Rudy, Warren and Vince continued to work together
periodically until 1989 or so, roughly the time that Aikane
X5 set the TransPacific record.

Each partner explained

As with so many other successful partnerships, each
member contributed unique qualifications and talents to
the whole. Here are my impressions of what those were.

Rudy Choy – He was the driving force, one of the most
determined and persistent people I’ve ever known. Although
initially Alfred’s pupil, he took his knowledge to
another level by applying one of his mentor’s greatest lessons:
empiricism, or understanding through careful observation.
In addition to having a natural grasp for proportion
he is one of the greatest natural helmsmen I’ve
ever seen. Because he was no mere “armchair” designer
and always conducted maiden voyages himself, he had
great credibility with the clients. Rudy was also well-read
and extremely eloquent, and as some have said, capable
of selling ice to Eskimos. His name is most associated
with the accomplishments of C/S/K though the others
were instrumental to its successes.

Warren Seaman – I will forever see, in my mind, the
image of Warren in the 1987 Newport Beach to Ensenada
Race on Aikane X5 when we were First-to-Finish, First-
Multihull, and First-Multihull Corrected time. At 9 in the
evening in the Bahia de Todos Santos in winds so light
that scraps of toilet paper attached to rigging hung slack,
Warren, steering on the windward side, kept our 3,800 ft2
Kevlar Randy Smyth spinnaker full and drawing while
regaling us endlessly with sea stories dating back to the
dawn of sail! Warren was simply intuitive and natural at
everything he did. As a foil to Rudy’s “Gung-Ho” enthusiasm
and flights-of-fancy, Warren – who is originally
from New Jersey, and can still affect the accent – acted
as a moderator and perhaps more than anyone else, ensured
the excellent record of safety and longevity held by
C/S/K boats; he was the great pragmatist. When C/S/K
acted as builder, in addition to designer, it was Warren
and Alfred who did the lion’s share of critical tasks, such
as lofting, and detail work. Warren helped define the
scantlings of every single one of C/S/K’s one hundredor-
so wood/fiberglass designs, and always possessed a
natural feel for structure. Though retired, he still lives in
Topanga Canyon, and sails to nearby Catalina Island as
often as he can.

Alfred Kumalae – Like many ethnic Hawai’ians, Alfred
was totally in-tune with nature and is most responsible
for introducing Rudy to the sea. Though quiet and unassuming,
Alfred was quite brilliant – a naturally gifted engineer
and capable of doing amazing things with wood. I
marveled at his woodworking skills while watching some
of the detail and finish work on Seasmoke and others. He
might best be described as the ‘deep-thinker’ of C/S/K
but was also highly secretive and would even hide some
of his notes from Warren. Alfred opted to leave C/S/K in
the late 1960’s and has since passed away. Although he
had lived in Los Angeles for most of his adult life, Alfred
returned to Hilo, his hometown, just prior to his death.

Vince Bartolone – When people speak of the unique
C/S/K styling, the person most responsible for that look
is Vince. A gifted natural artist, Vince was a former aircraft
mechanic in the military, and like Warren and Alfred,
had a very technical, detailed approach to every project,
capable of rendering thoughts and cocktail napkin
sketches to finish plans faster than anyone I’ve ever seen.
His concept artwork was responsible for landing many of
the C/S/K’s projects and he created those signature color
scheme’s, most notably, those of Machete (Vince actually
painted her himself) and Aikane X5. Vince also handled
most of the selection and specification of hardware and
machinery. Although C/S/K ended as a business in the
1970’s, Vince continued on with Warren and Rudy as a
co-designer and draftsman until 1989. From the earlier
period to the present, Vince has continued with his firm
Design Concepts, and his creations still possess that unmistakable
signature look, having graced the pages of
MULTIHULLS on numerous occasions.

Rudy Choy and The C/S/K Legacy

If you look collectively at the body of their work, Rudy
and his partners left some rather evident clues to their
most fundamental beliefs about multihull designs. Above
all, they insisted on seaworthiness, the notion that every
one of their designs could (and most did) cross an ocean.
Simplicity and the avoidance of unnecessary complexity
in design, whether talking about spars and rigging, machinery,
hardware or amenities. Perhaps one of the most
important convictions, and one of their greatest contributions,
in my opinion, is the idea that weight is always
crucial and the idea that even cruising or commercial
vessels have weight limits for given sizes and applications
that should not be exceeded lest the prime directive of
seaworthiness be violated. Lastly, they believed in the finest
tradition of Herreshoff and Stephens, that yachts
must be beautiful.

Parting shots

The international multihull revolution of today is perhaps
the greatest vindication of what Rudy, Warren, Alfred
and Vince believed over fifty years ago. However, unlike
many of the greatest areas of achievement in the world in
sports, technology and discovery, it is not dominated – nor
really even challenged – by Americans. In 1995, I sat at the
lookout near the famed Diamond Head Light, hours before
sunrise, and watched with melancholy fascination as
Steve Fossett broke our TransPacific record in his French
trimaran Lakota. While we applauded this accomplishment,
and the many that have followed, both in the air and
on the ocean, we wondered why more of our countrymen
were not on the playing field. The establishment of a new
TransPacific record by Bruno Peyron in 1999 aboard the
80’ Explorer (formerly Jet Services), only added to our
puzzlement and dismay: now, both of the last two Trans-
Pacific records have been held by non-U.S. boats.
At a gathering that followed Bruno’s triumph, my father
and I visited with the throng at the Hawaii Yacht
Club when someone posed a question to me: “Have you
(I took him to mean Rudy Choy/C/S/K) ever considered
a big cat?” With a reserved smile I answered, “Yes, we
have... in 1972.” My point, of course, is that American designers
as a whole, in my view, give up nothing in the way
of ingenuity, creativity or skill to our cousins across the
Atlantic. What we have lacked from the beginning, with
notable exceptions, is sportsmen/partners like Steve
Fossett. We applaud his latest effort PlayStation, by Gino
Morrelli and Pete Melvin.
With all of the astonishing wealth created by the high
tech industry in the last decade, why aren’t there more
“Steve Fossetts?”

Author’s Contact: barry AT choydesigns DOT com