My handful of regular human readers, and my truckload of regular spambot readers, might be wondering why I haven't listed any new boat designs since the Almaguin 400 and 500.

The answer is that I'm currently in the (hopefully) final stages of a graduate degree in medical physics. That means a lot of time in the lab, and a lot of late nights and weekends spent poring over calculations, making figures, and writing up a thesis.

As a result, I'm not taking on any custom design work at the moment, and I won't be finishing up any more new designs until early 2012.

There are a few interesting little craft on my drawing board at the moment. There's a sturdy little 4.5 m ply/epoxy thing that could be rigged as a kids' pirate ship or tugboat, and has some practical adult uses as well. There's a lightweight, high-load-capacity 4 m outboard skiff intended as a tender for larger boats. There's the Starwind 860 trimaran, of course, which I want to start building as soon as possible. And there's an 18 metre catamaran, currently in the early concept stages, that might develop further in a few years.

You'll see more of them in a few months. Stay tuned.