Trimaran - Especially Searunner - Owners

[dano098]

Hi everyone, I just had a pleasant conversation with Dennis regarding the boat. I am a undecided if I’m up to the work involved with verifying the boat’s integrity and preparing her for more than day sailing. But Dennis was very forthcoming. If at all curious get in touch with him!

[snort]

Gluvit or Life Caulk on the aluminum struts of the Searunner 31? I couldn't find this info in the building guide.

[Tusitala]

AFAIK Gluvit is an epoxy, not really sure of the gluing properties with wood to metal. Something more flexible probably is a better way to go. Lifecaulk is useful if you're going to want to disassemble it anytime soon. 3M 5200 is even better as a bonder/sealant, but if you plan to take it apart anytime soon plan on a painful session with debonder and a putty knife. I prefer the quick cure version, it's a little more viscous and tends to stay where you put it instead of running all over.

Pat

[snort]

Thanks! Tusitala.
The joint is bolted, aluminum to fiberglass over plywood, so I'm going to suppose whatever is in between probably serves as a sealant only, which suggests Life Caulk would be more appropriate.

[Kaimana]

Originally Posted by snort

Gluvit or Life Caulk on the aluminum struts of the Searunner 31? I couldn't find this info in the building guide.

Ahoy Snort

Been building SeaRunners since 1968, when I walked into Jim Brown's design studio in Davenport, California and bought the plans for my SeaRunner 25. I built that boat, then built a 37 when I was 19, then a 56-footer of my own design when I was 24, and have been a professional boatbuilder and fisherman since then.

Our family boat shop is building these now:





Here's my opinion: Gluvit is a hard epoxy product, and is not suitable for bedding things like the aluminum struts on that boat (which Jim calls A-frames), because it exhibits poor to no adhesion at all to metals. It will separate from the aluminum, and then the joint will leak, but you won't see it or know it because it's inside the joint.

Life-Calk is what I use for underwater fittings, and nothing else, and you BETTER GET THEM IN THE RIGHT PLACE THE FIRST TIME, because when you try to take them off, the Life-Calk also rips off the epoxy-glass covering over the wood, it has such extreme adhesion. It's easier to cut around the fitting with a chisel, then pull the fitting off, and you will only rip off a small amount of wood in the area of the fitting, then have to reglass that area, if you do it this way.

3M 5200 is a good compromise; it seals well, adheres both to clean metal and fiberglass and painted surfaces, and you can get the fitting off later by a cunning combination of sliding a razor blade around the edges of the area, then following with a sharpened, really thin putty knife to cut the rest of the 5200 seal and remove the fitting.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it,

With Warm Aloha, Tim

[snort]

Tim,
Up until now, only Tom Seaver was my hero.

Anyone who designs and builds a 56-foot sailboat, not mentioning your other accomplishments, is a special person!
Mahalo from me in CA, having lived on Maui and the Big Island years ago.

[Tusitala]

Tim, I suspect the LifeCaulk you mentioned is their polyurethane version of 5200. Yeah, it's really good stuff. Standard Lifecaulk is easy to disassemble and can even be used in applications where the surfaces are wet when applying.

Pat

[longjonsilver]

Altho i have read every post on this thread, and taken notes, i do not remember reading about use of drogues, and sea anchors on Searunners. I found this reading on this thread:
https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...-241424-8.html

Victor Shane has an enormous database of case studies on drag devices. Here is the link to case studies of Searunners:

https://dragdevicedb.com/?s=searunner

A 40 a cuppla 37z a cuppla 34z and a 31 as well as other trimarans are in the database.

Well worth reading imho. Maybe i will post some conclusions as i digest the experiences of the above folks...

jon

[Tusitala]

That was really interesting, well worth reading. thank you Jon.


Pat

[Close Call]

First I’d like to say thanks for everyone’s contribution to this thread, I’ve been following it for years and have found it a wealth of knowledge.

I’m a few years out from the final phase in my career that will allow some longer term cruising. Some of these older trimarans really suit my needs and wants better than any of the new designs and after being in touch with a lot of designers I recently purchased a set of building plans for a John Marples Seaclipper 34. It’s not a racer, has a simple rig, decent capacity and most importantly demountable (twice a year).

I’ve built enough small craft to know I shouldn’t be building this thing but it’s simple and small enough for me to pull it off in a few years time.

This thread has really been searunner focused, but I’d love to hear thoughts on the the Seaclipper 34. I know of three boats built, one in mass now in ny, one derelict in La Paz and one in Brazil. I’ve never seen one in person and want to know more before I order up 15k in materials.

I see A-frame 31s that look good from time to time that tempt me and I wish there was a demountable CC35 (that Marples supports). So not much else out there without dropping 200k In the way of a mid 30 foot cruising tri with 1500 to 2k capacity without a carbon/laminate rotating rig.

Thoughts appreciated.

Close Call

[Tusitala]

So in the early 80's my wife and I built a Seaclipper 28. At the time John Marples suggested we build the 34, but neither of us really liked the lines of the boat. We should have listened. At the Multihull Symposium in Annapolis is 1985 we met a sailor/builder from MA that sailed down on his Seaclipper 34 with his family. Boat was really attractive in person, didn't display any of the lines we found awkward on paper when seen in 3 dimensions. If we had built that we'd likely still be sailing it. The boat was built by a guy that wasn't a 1st time builder, think his first name was Steve. He built that boat in record time as I recall. He didn't spend huge amounts of time fairing and sanding, especially along any of the selvage edges on fiberglass taped areas, and it looked just fine. Boat seemed to sail well also, and appeared to have a reasonable amount of room aboard. Wish I still had pictures, but hey, it was 35 years ago. You can put something like this together pretty quickly if you don't let yourself get lost in the details, like buying galley equipment and winches when you don't have decks glued on yet. It's the type of boat that has a very high success rate of completion for a 1st time home builder, unlike something with lots of flairs and curves.

Pat

[Close Call]

Originally Posted by Tusitala

At the Multihull Symposium in Annapolis is 1985 we met a sailor/builder from MA that sailed down on his Seaclipper 34 with his family.

Pat

That would have been Steve Miller, I have an old Multihulls article by him. He built the boat in 2100 hours which I doubt I can do, but I have built a few boats and I mostly know what I’m doing and can persevere through low morale. Part of the allure of this build would be minimal systems simple galley, LED lighting in and out, vhf, chart plotter, one solar panel, composting head and maybe a tiny diesel. Still a huge project but rebuilding a 40 year old 31 foot searunner sounds scarier.

Agree on the looks kind of strange on paper but the photos I’ve seen look pretty good to me once you get away from the plan view profile.

Did you get a chance to go below on the 34? It’s reasonable long for cruising, has good headroom and just barely enough payload capacity. But it must be small, the layout doesn’t look as good as a searunner 31 or 34. Maybe it’s the beam and lack of wings? There is an option for wing berths but I’ve yet to see a photo of one built that way.

Close Call

[Red Horse]

Sea Clippers are an easy build. mostly flat panels. I built a CC35 the Sea Clipper would have been faster. I believe a Sea Clipper won one of the trans Atlantic races in class some years ago. Theres a short video or pictures floating around some where.

[andres]

Here is a couple of pictures of a SC34 with wing berths that I found in the web a few years ago. Unfortunately I don't have any interior pictures.

[Tusitala]

I was aboard but did not go below, but had a chance to look in. Compared to our 28 it was huge and spacious. A Seaclipper like the 34 would be very fast to build, similar to a Fast Cruiser Constant Camber 37 only you're not building the panels first. Something like the CC35 is an order of magnitude more complex. Of course, with a Constant Camber boat you're not building a structure of bulkheads and stringers to support it, so there's that.

I would think adding a wing to the Seaclipper would add considerably to the build time since both framing and enclosing become much more complicated. Keep it simple and keep it light.

The boat that won it's class in the single handed trans atlantic race was a 37' Fast Cruiser Constant Camber. In smaller sizes light cruising boats that are well sailed can perform quite well against heavily loaded racing boats.