Advice on Trimarans

[senormechanico]

I agree about the differences in general.
A Horstman and a Chris White tri are two completely different animals.
The same thing can be said about different catamaran models.


These photos are both "cars".

[Training Wheels]

Originally Posted by owly

This is true....Many commercially built catamarans do not have published payloads... They are too ashamed to print the numbers, and many owner built cats are designed more for performance at the expense of payload, however there really are no trimarans I'm aware of that offer decent payload for length. A look at transoms of cats and tris loaded for a passage tells the story.........


H.W.

You make way too many generalizations. We’ve got way too many spares and supplies on our boat right now, full time cruising. Does it look like our transom is dragging?
[ATTACH]184349

This was taken just a few days ago. Perhaps you need to get out more?

[catsketcher]

Nice tri Training wheels - what design is she? She sort of looks like a modernised Kelsall or racier Harris with that low flare. Shuttleworth maybe?

[FreshlySqueezed]

After years of racing monohulls offshore I decided to go down the multihull route and I had a tri built. From my (albeit limited) experience so far I’ve concluded the following:

Speed at all points of sail is effortless. Historically I would have trimmed to find as much speed as possible, now I’m trimming to de power and slow. With the latter it’s much easier to achieve the desired result

Comfort under sail is considerably more pleasant. I no longer need to brace myself and cling on when the tws gets up.

Insurance that offers good offshore cover, at least in my part of the world(Europe), was not easy to find. I know a similar tri to my own being built in Australia, the owner has had the same sourcing problem.

The business of internal space is very biased towards personal opinion; one persons big enough is another’s too small. That said I have as much space on my 11m tri as I did on my 11m mono.

Enjoy your day

FS

[SailFastTri]

Originally Posted by FreshlySqueezed

After years of racing monohulls offshore I decided to go down the multihull route and I had a tri built. From my (albeit limited) experience so far I’ve concluded the following:

Speed at all points of sail is effortless. Historically I would have trimmed to find as much speed as possible, now I’m trimming to de power and slow. With the latter it’s much easier to achieve the desired result

Comfort under sail is considerably more pleasant. I no longer need to brace myself and cling on when the tws gets up.

Insurance that offers good offshore cover, at least in my part of the world(Europe), was not easy to find. I know a similar tri to my own being built in Australia, the owner has had the same sourcing problem.

The business of internal space is very biased towards personal opinion; one persons big enough is another’s too small. That said I have as much space on my 11m tri as I did on my 11m mono.

Enjoy your day

FS

@FreshlySqueezed that's a very sexy boat. Who did the design? Would like to see ore info and specs.

[FreshlySqueezed]

She’s a full carbon slightly racier version of Grainger’s TR36 with a 16m spreaderless rotating wing mast. She was built by Current Marine out of Knysna.

Here she is underway -

[Happ]

I have 50 years in monos and my last 2 boats have been tris. If you are talking about cruising be aware of the following. Tris do not like to be loaded with gear. The AMAs can be loaded only with light items such as TP or potato chips. Basically bulk items. The beam is much wider on tris often 80-90% of the waterline. Cats beam run about 50% of the waterline. The interior of the center hull are very small compared to monos. There is very limited room so no large water tank or generators. If these aren’t important and you are looking at doing coastal cruising where water is easily found no worries. The good news is because of their speed you can make faster crossings. You can make short crossings in smaller weather windows. As to Corsairs they are owned by Seawind and production is in Vietnam. Corsairs are light because they have very stark interiors, very little if any wood. As to price they are not cheap. A 32’ Corsair will run well over $200 with not a lot of extras.

[dancor01]

Originally Posted by Redreuben

Trimarans are for sailors
Catamarans are for tourists.

In a nutshell tris have nowhere near the payload of a similar cat, but they sail oh so sweet.

Pretty much.


As for the payload I don't agree. I have a 3 tons payload on my 46 tri

[tomtriad]

I agree with Nat Herreshoff who opined "The pleasure of sailing is directly proportional to the speed." If you like sailing, and can do without a lot of "modern inconveniences" (to quote Dick Newick), then a tri is great. My 42' Newick is a comfortable racer, and a spartan cruiser, reaches at windspeed and beats at 2/3; tops out around 25 knots. I live aboard 6 months of the year. It excels when the anchor goes up. As Dick liked to say, "You can have 2 of the 3 in a multihull - performance, accommodation, low cost."

Most of the 40' cats I've sailed and seen excel when the hook goes down; exceptions are some Shuttleworth, Chris White, and Eric Lerouge designs - I'm sure there are more.

I delivered a Corsair 36 from Bermuda to Boston after it had it's rudder replaced, having lost it due to a structural design/engineering flaw in the Gulf Stream. I chose settled weather. The next year the same boat with a new owner suffered the same failure and this time was abandoned - a total loss. I would not recommend a folding trimaran for offshore work.

[Happ]

Originally Posted by dancor01

Pretty much.


As for the payload I don't agree. I have a 3 tons payload on my 46 tri

A 46’ Tri is a pretty large boat. Neither Corsair or Dragonfly have anything close. Since Corsair was in the original post recommendations from both Mfg’s is to not load the AMAs with a lot of weight. That may have something to do with the volume of the floats and the folding mechanism.

[Trimaran Ken]

I own a Corsair F-31 and before that a F-27. The only Corsairs I know of that pitch-poled were in races doing stupid things like flying a spinnaker in 30 knot gusts.

Do not confuse a F-36 with a C-36. The F-36 is a non-folding Ian Farrier boat. The C-36 is a folding Corsair that had design flaws. I am told that there are available fixes to the C-36 that resolve the flaws, but I would suggest the C-37 as a better choice.

I have never been in any kind of unstable conditions, but I have never been out in winds over 30 knots.

Space is limited, but you should know how much space you require.

[Training Wheels]

The key to a fast, cruising tri......go long and simplify!

[sauvage]

Hi,

My wife and I have been sailing multihulls, both Cat's and Tri's since 1985. We purchased our first Tri, a 31 footer, in 1987, and cruised and raced thousands of coastal miles, before building a 41 foot Tri in 1990 for offshore cruising.

We sailed the 41 foot Tri for 21 years. Logging many thousands of coastal and bluewater miles, including the pacific and indian oceans (multiple times).

We now have a 45ft Cat.

in our experience. The Tri is faster on the wind, responds and points much better than a Cat. For the purist, the sailing experience is better.

Depending on the design (of course); the Trimaran is normally a stronger construction than a Cat, and less prone to stresses caused by "racking".

Tri's which are rigged like a monohull, have stronger rigs, which offer a wider boom angle than the modern standard Cat rig. They can sail directly downwind.

The modern Cat rig has a restricted boom angle, and less stays supporting the mast. The rig is more subject to stress and prone to damage if over-canvassed or heavily loaded in rough conditions. The boat must normally be tacked downwind.

I have sailed across oceans in all types of boats - from a 24ft mono folkboat, to multi's, racing keelers, and superyachts. I loved my Tri, it was a fabulous sailing boat, safe, comfortable, fun to sail, even in extreme conditions. (We have been through a cyclone, and a number of survival storms at sea!). It was always a joy to come back to it after being away sailing someone else's boat.

In extreme conditions at sea, there is always the risk of being capsized if being caught beam on to a huge breaking wave - whether in a multi or a mono. In those conditions forget the autopilot and sail the boat yourself!!

In almost all of the capsize cases we are aware of, the Cat or Tri was "sailed over". Normally pitch-poled. Carrying too much sail, and too much speed for the conditions. Capsizing sideways is less common, and is normally caused by the same things, often in partnership with large breaking seas as above.

We now own a Cat. Why? Well, we always enjoyed sailing Cat's as well, and after 24 years of living aboard we wanted more living space, and a higher level of comfort.

We enjoy sailing the Cat, but we still miss our Tri.

[Adam T]

IMHO folding tris are marketing


Tris cannot be cheaper then cats similar size.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Adam T

IMHO folding tris are marketing


Tris cannot be cheaper then cats similar size.

Depends:
- If you are talking about a dedicated offshore boat, folding has some limitations. If you are talking a weekend cruiser, they can be a great option as you you can fit into a slip or even haul it home on a standard trailer.
- Define "similar size". Length, bean, displacement, performance, accommodations, what is your criteria?