yet another mono/tri question

[HeavenBound]

Greetings from Canada!! Last year I got my first sailboat in 30 years, after spending alot of time and money in drag racing and high performance motorcycles. It is a stripped down Taser( missing alot of parts). There was enough to get it onthe water but not much else.I'm fortunate that my wife does want to sail, but we are not as agile as we once were, and found the Taser to be too tippy.So this year I purchased a '76 Hobie 14 in great shape, and have loved the stability, speed, and learning to sail all over again. My question is has anyone tried to make a trimaran out of these two boats?? From what I've read on this site the Taser, being a planing hull and the Hobie a displacement hull will still work,although some loss of speed due to larger wetted surface. Also as both are approx. 14 feet will this end up being like the Weta, and prone to pitchpole?? I do hope someone has tried something similar to this and can advise us. The main reason I'm considering this is because as I near 50 years old, sitting on the trampoline for long periods of time is becoming painful( back injuries) and the cockpit of the Taser is rather comfortable. We sail on small inland lake, winds are fairly light most of the time( 15-25 kph) and from some of the comments I've read it would be alot of fun to try to and get it to plane on the main hull often.

[Doug Lord]

Here are some old(36 years!) pictures of an experimental 20' tri I designed and built years ago. The boat had a planing main hull and amas(outside hulls) styled after a Hobie cat but symetrical instead of asymetrical.They were excellent in waves no tendency to pitchpole. The main hull would plane and it was quite fast in winds over 10 knots. The disadvantage of a planing main hull is the extra wetted surface in light air-but you can't beat the room and the thrill of planing!
Good luck with your boat-go for it!

[Richard Woods]

sorry, I count three hulls so doesn't that make it a trimaran?? Or maybe that's why you called it "experimental"?

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

www.sailingcatamarans.com

[HeavenBound]

Thank you so much for the pictures, and the vote of confidence Doug. Any ideas whether the Hobie hulls will eliminate the need for the centerboard? This is my first attempt at " boat Building" and all help is appreciated

[Doug Lord]

Thanks ,Richard- brain fade or something more? Yeah, it was a tri!

[Doug Lord]

Thank you so much for the pictures, and the vote of confidence Doug. Any ideas whether the Hobie hulls will eliminate the need for the centerboard? This is my first attempt at " boat Building" and all help is appreciated
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There is a lot of shallow water where I used to sail the boat so I tried little fins on the amas-you can see them in the pix. Worked ok in combination with the narrow amas. But I wouldn't get rid of the board-you'll appreciate it going upwind in enough water. The asymetrical Hobie hulls will work a bit better than mine did-be sure to put the flat side outboard... A symetrical ama would be faster if it was a low wetted surface design but it would cost some shallow water performance-everything is a tradeoff.
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There is a potential BIG problem that I'm sorry to say I didn't catch until now: the hobie 14 hulls may add too much weight to the Tasar! When sitting level you don't want either outside hull touching the water on a boat this size-in my opinion. You need to weigh the Hobie and consider the weight of cross arms you might use. Chances are it will be too much weight.
There are numerous catamaran hulls that you can pick up inexpensively-I got a 20' hobie miracle for $300 in good shape. To use the 14 hulls and carry two people you'll probably need something about that size.
Sorry I didn't catch this earlier.
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PS As you can see Richard Woods-a great multihull designer- posts on this forum ask him for his advice-PM him.....

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Heres some info on the Tasar that shows that it was designed for about a 300lb TOTAL crew weight. That gives you a starting place. For performance you wouldn't want to exceed that weight by more than about 40lb max.:

"The Tasar is a 14-foot (4.3 m) fibreglass 2 person sailing dinghy with a mainsail and jib. Designed by Frank Bethwaite of Sydney in 1975, the boat is technologically advanced. Aimed at a husband and wife/parent and child crew, it is designed for a combined crew weight of 140 kg. The hull weighs 68 kg, and is of sandwich foam construction. he hull has a fine angle at the bow to reduce wave impact drag with unusually clean and sharp chines aft to ensure very free plaining and outstanding stability. The foam cored hull is stiff and light and the advanced hull shape, together with an innovative rig which combines a rotating mast with a fully battened main sail, allows the Tasar to plane upwind with the crew normally hiked. The wide beam and a cockpit designed for comfortable hiking make the Tasar easy, fun and very exciting to sail in winds up to 25 knots (46 km/h)." from wikipedia

[Chris Ostlind]

Doug, did it plane with both amas out of the water... as in, it really planed on its own, main hull dynamic lift...? Or, did one of the amas have to be immersed, leveraging said main hull up via mechanical advantage, in order to, er... plane?

If the former, where are the pictures of the event? If the latter, then it really didn't plane, now, did it?

The mythical club joining ceremony lives still, does it not?

[HeavenBound]

Well, last September when we finally figured out how to sail again, we were able to get the Taser to plane upwind, with a crew of approx. 440 lbs. It took more wind but still do able. So.... if the taser having 123 sq. feet of sail area could do that, then my plan of using the 118 sq. ft. main sail of the Hobie, and reworking the 90 sq. ft. main of the taser as a fully battened jib/genoa(the Hobie 16's have a battened jib thats where the idea came from) should overcome the extra weight I hpoe. Perhaps this is just my motorsports way of thinking ( more power to overcome extra weight)

[Doug Lord]

HB, whichever way you go just take it easy and plan ahead very carefully. Your enthusiasm is great to see and will get you thru rough spots. Good Luck!

[HeavenBound]

The advertised weight of the Hobie 14 is 240 lbs. fully rigged, so that does mean a lot more weight. If the ideal crew weight is 300lbs, that leaves only 60 lbs, 100 if we include the extra Doug suggested. So to eliminate excess weight will be necessary. Any more great suggestions???

[Doug Lord]

You might consider just using very small amas with something like a cubic foot of total buoyancy say 5-7' from the centerline arranged so they are out of the water when the Tasar is level. You're just wanting(as I understand it) to reduce the tippiness-at least so it won't roll over. This would be simple- you could ty it experimentally with styro foam "buoyancy pods" and see how well it works. You could get something like a 2" diameter carbon tube(approx .093" wall) with a ferrule in the middle so you could "unplug" it when you're done. You could use a cheap second hand alum. tube just to try it out.
This would not add any appreciable righting moment but would allow you to use the tasar without worrying about it rolling over and do it very lightly.

[HeavenBound]

I 've been reading these threads since last October, and still didn't realize just how difficult this will be. It seems that the initial speed will be somewhat diminshed by having the amas in the water, but as stated earlier in this thread most things are a trade-off. I'll go with the Hobie hulls, try to get them as much as possible out of the water, and live with the results. With a small boat as this, alot came be done to move crew weight around and better the situation. One more Question. I've read on some other threads that the stresses on the rigging is 3 times that of a monohull. Is this correct??

[Richard Woods]

It is quite feasible to do a beach cat as trimaran outrigger/rig conversion. I am just finishing off my Strike 18 trimaran, with a 16fter to come soon.

However I wouldn't recommend starting with either a Taser or a Hobie 14.

The Taser is a lightweight, solid decked-in cockpit, low freeboard boat. Thus it will be difficult to add beam fastenings, for example. And there won't be much displacement (as Doug Lord said) to carry the extra weight of two more hulls.

The Hobie is a heavy boat, but more important the beams are attached on posts, forcing the mainhull to have high freeboard so that the beams fit sensibly.

The key design point is the position of the beach cat beams. Obviously they must line up with some structurally strong and wide part of the mainhull yet not interfere with the sailing deckarea.

So my suggestion, if you want to try it out, is (as you are in east Canada) to look for an Albacore as the main hull. High freeboard, long open cockpit, lots of displacement, usually wooden. So all big pluses.

And I'd look for a different 14ft beach cat.

Sorry to be negative about your project

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

www.sailingcatamarans.com

[HeavenBound]

Thanks to one and all for your expertise on what I thought would be a fairly straight foreward transformation. Well Richard, there are alot of Albacores around in Southwestern Ontario, and maybe this whole plan needs to be totally redone. I guess it's back to square one. Thanks everyone again and when I come up with plan "B" I'll certianly check with you again. WES.

[catsketcher]

In my other life I race Tasars here in Australia. They are great boats and they are good for older sailors.

Most of the competitive Tasar sailors are over 40 and lots over 50 (the current world champ is from your part of the world and about 45) so I would suggest bettering your sailing skills rather than your building ones. The tippiness you refer to is your boat's way of talking to you. You just have to understand what it is saying and what the boat needs. Putting amas on will deaden you to the wonderful world of dinghy sailing.

As a quick note - the Tasar has veed forward sections. Sit further back if you feel tippy. Get your wife in over the stern from the shore and support the boat until you push off - sit down the back on the fat stern sections until you have finished pushing the rudder down.

When sailing - never cleat the main - NEVER. The Tasar has cleats for the mainsheet and the traveller. If the traveller is cleated the mainsheet is in your hand and visa versa. Always sit the skipper on the gunwale and look into the wind to watch the gusts and lean more and ease the main as you get a gust and lean in in a lull. In the end you will learn to be one with the boat.

I may get a little flack for this but small multis are not very good for improving your sailing skills - they lack responsiveness and feedback - they allow you to sail poorly. A small dinghy is a fab boat as it will let you know when you are not treating it right. Get online and join a Tasar forum - ask questions there and if you decide to get a bigger multi one day you will be a better sailor for it.

cheers

Phil

[Richard Woods]

I agree with Phil, and would have said it, but didn't want you to feel insulted.

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

www.sailingcatamarans.com

[Doug Lord]

In my other life I race Tasars here in Australia.
I may get a little flack for this but small multis are not very good for improving your sailing skills - they lack responsiveness and feedback - they allow you to sail poorly. cheers

Phil

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I grew up racing a really neat boat called the Windmill-it was tippy-wouldn't stay upright at a dock,planed upwind and was very fast for the 60's. After that I spent several years designing and sailing small high performance trimarans basically a 14 footer weighing 80lb(in several versions) and a 20 footer. The little boat was as responsive as any boat I ever sailed and would NOT allow you to sail poorly. The big boat would. Both were tremendous fun and I think the statement above is far too broad. It really does depend on the DESIGN-you simply can't categorize all small tri's as "not very good for improving your sailing skills-they lack responsiveness and feed back-they allow you to sail poorly". Just isn't true.

[catsketcher]

I had hoped to get that one through without a bite but I think Doug you would agree that a mono MAKES you sail better than a Hobie or similar. Maybe this is not the forum for it but you can sail a small cat in an inferior manner to the typical mono dinghy and it won't put you upside down as much.

This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it. If you want to get better at sailing I would suggest going the mono road first. If you want to have fun and not get right into the whole sailing thing (and what is wrong with you if you do that!) then go straight into beach cats.

The Tasar is one of the nicest boats I have ever sailed - a beauty - and the feel of driving one upwind is just the best. They have the nice compromise of being twitchy enough for the has been and easy enough for the beginner. I know Frank Bethwaite somewhat and talked to him about his HSP. I never got to sail it but my brother did and it was a blast - it was sort of a tri and sort of a thin crazy 18ft skiff with floaties. That was a fab boat.

Okay I will hijack the thread completely now - I used to live where Frank tested his HSP designs. Every year I would see him flailing aroud with some crazy rig and stange design that would hardly ever move and then invert. In the end he went simple and designed the HSP tri - fab, fast and surprisingly unpopular.

On another note on my cessation of Laser sailing I got into Tornados. In our first regatta we placed 5th (Oz titles) and never got close to capsizing. I found it rather boring eventually as there were few boats to race against and close boat to boat tussling was hazardous. When I hit a port tack boat on a beat in 15 knots I hit the water so fast it hurt and the bow imploded. Later I sailed a 49er. Whereas the Tornado was easy to sail the 49er took all of the skills I had just to stop capsizing. At the end of my first sail with a very good skipper (multiple NSW Laser champ - 3rd worlds) we could not stop laughing and fell in about ten times. It was the most fun I had had in years. One taught me little, the other well - I was building a cruising cat and couldn't commit to the 49er. So I sail the Tasar and dream.

But I did have the pleasure of sailing a Windrider for a week or so. Now they are a hoot and fab for camping. What about getting one of these or building one of Marples designs - great boats. I am also into sea kayaking and they can't get the idea of outriggers. The windriders are like kayaks with proper sails.

Sorry for the kijack

Phil

[masalai]

catsketcher, I cannot add to your excellent suggestions and guidance, Learn the ropes on a mono (fast dingy) then eventually, through a progression of experience gained knowledge, eventually you too, HeavenBound, may graduate to a proper boat (a cruising cat or racing tri)...:D:D:D:D

[bad dog]

Hey Catsketcher

You are so right about different boats being able to teach you different things. Ok - so a boat can't teach, it can only provide the opportunity for us to learn - but you know what I mean.

The Tornado is big and predictable, the 49er light, narrow and sketchy. My old A-cat is (relatively) heavy, gentle, predictable, lovely to sail in edgy conditions. But is it still challenging me? I thought I was a pretty accomplished A-cat sailor till I got on one of Mark Johnson's all-carbon Mark Vs...

Wild, sketchy, twitchy, unpredictable, all the things I wasn't quite ready for! But what a flaming hoot!! I'm still half way tempted to try to wind back some of my 53 years and learn to master the lightweight boats, or admitting all of my 53 years and staying with my old darling (which still wins races very occasionally!). And that's just two different boats in the one class - add totally different boats to the mix and all sorts of different things open up.

So the point is - sailing a variety of boats is definitely the best way to polish all round sailing skills. Sailing one boat exclusively develops specialist skills at the potential exclusion of others, which may in fact help us sail our chosen boat faster.

In a past life I used to make surfboards (70s) and found great inspiration and ideas in other water disciplines - and even other design streams altogether. Some worked, some didn't.

Learn some skills on Boat A, understand the principles at work, try to apply them on Boat B and see what happens. It's what innovation and invention are all about!

[rayaldridge]

I can't disagree with anything Phil says, but I think there may be an attitudinal divide here that bears examination.

Phil, I would guess, belongs to the cohort of sailors that see sailing as an athletic challenge sufficient unto itself, and there's nothing at all wrong with that. But there is another large cohort of sailors who see sailboats as a particularly pleasant way to be out on the water. The latter group tends to buy cruising boats which pose little risk of capsize, and they don't have much interest in racing dinghies.

This thought occurred to me during a thread on a another forum regarding Michael Storer's slick little raid design-- a narrow box boat with a fair amount of sail. One of the first to be built capsized during the Texas 200, a raid-like event, and while the skipper was gathering stuff that had fallen out, the boat righted itself and sailed away without him. He had to pay a substantial salvage fee to get the boat back.

To truncate a long discussion, the upshot among the experienced dinghy sailors was that a sailor who wanted to participate in such events ought to take the time to learn about the boat's capsizing characteristics-- how to deal with a capsize in the most efficient and satisfactory manner. In other words, practice capsizing a lot, because it was inevitable.

I probably shouldn't have, but I ventured an opinion that maybe easy capsize wasn't something one should happily accept in an ideal open boat cruiser. I even went so far as to suggest that perhaps it might be better, if one was intent upon a skinny hull and lots of sail, to make two even skinnier hulls, and space them apart enough to vastly increase the stability and vastly decrease the likelihood of capsize. Probably this sentiment fell on deaf ears.

At any rate, my point is that if, like me, you see sailboats as magic carpets designed to make being on the water as pleasant and rewarding an activity as possible, you might well be happier with a small multi than with a tippy fast monohull, however superior the latter might be in teaching sailing skills.

I believed this so strongly that I designed a small cat even less challenging to sail than a beach cat. The boat is still lively, tacks smartly, goes well to windward, and provides a largely anxiety-free platform for learning not just how to sail, but how to cruise.

That's another set of skills entirely.

Anyway, the best boat depends on what the original poster wants. If he wants to be a hot dinghy racer, so be it. If he just wants to get out on the water in a stable little boat with a fair turn of speed, he might enjoy something like a Marples 3 meter tri or a Windrider.

[HeavenBound]

Well, I thought this thread was done, but it appears to just be getting warmed up.My wife insists I tell you she LOVES the Taser, ( as crew) I however feel that with a jib/ gennaker she will be equally happy on a multi-hull. In fairness to Phil, my skill level would increase on the Taser, but I just love the things about a multi-hull that a mono can't give. Probabably the greatest is the speed with the stability. Just this week I got up on one hull for the first time, and what a rush!!!!! To be able to be "on the edge" and still have total control is an amazing feeling. This past week I also learned of some guys( yes most of them Australians) who sail Formula 14 cats, so this got me to thinking again. Instead of just a 30 sq. ft. jib, go for maybe 90 or so. This would require a bow sprit and some other modifications (dolphin striker, new stays, redo forestay etc) So ..... at our local sailing club there is a Dingo cat. He has a aluminum tube between the two hulls at the bows and the forestays(the two smaller ones) come into it on an angle( 45 degs approx) and then straight down to the tangs on the hulls. Is this there to absorb the compression of the stays pulling on the hulls??? Has anyone else seen this type of set-up?? Does it work well?? The Dingo has seen better days and I think it could help most multi-hulls if this is right.WES

[masalai]

I doubt you could justifiably call it "total control" but I get your drift - shall we agree on, - - - 'a temporary balance twixt skill and luck... producing a "good rush"'?

[HeavenBound]

I guess I should clarify my sailing past. My dad built his first sailboat(a Dart) when I was about 8 yrs old. I began sailing solo by the time I was 12, and got into racing at a provincial level when i was 14(Petrol aluminum boats). What happened when I got my first car, was a "need for speed". So it's almost full circle to be back to my roots in sailing.

[bad dog]

"...perhaps it might be better, if one was intent upon a skinny hull and lots of sail, to make two even skinnier hulls, and space them apart enough to vastly increase the stability and vastly decrease the likelihood of capsize. Probably this sentiment fell on deaf ears."

...nope!

Re the Dingo cat and its compression beam (how embarrassing - I'm an Aussie and never heard of this one before! - but then it probably never made it here, seems to be a USA-only design)... I had a (pommie built) Catapult until recently, and had converted it from a cat rig to a skiff rig (ex 16'), which necessitated a sprit and compression beam, bridle, etc etc. I used an aluminium architectural louvre blade - sharp elliptical hollow section, which produced virtually no drag when the bow went through a lump of chop. It was very slender - about 115mm x 20mm, so I fixed a couple of diamonds (stiffening cables over vertical spreaders) on it as well.

[HeavenBound]

Thanks Bad Dog for the info. It seems that the more sail , the more reinforcing is needed. I'll incorporate one on my 14.

[kim s]

oooohhhh i like this thread. Please let me stick my oar in.

Having sailed 49s laser, venerable old flying dutchmans etc, and then a Tornado and Hurrican 5.9,iand also skippered large yachts ,is to compare a multihull to a mono is chalk and cheese. Might as well compare a dinghy with an offshore blue water cruising yacht. The skills required are COMPLETLY different.
Yes a sail works in the same manner but the attitude has to be different.
Flop a dinghy over, and your back up and flying in seconds. a multihull takes a tad longer. Therefor more skill reqiured to keep a cat on the edge.
Different skill setts and different mental attitude required.

OK--- oar in and -------relax

Kim

[HeavenBound]

I have to agree that different boats do teach different skills. It's been 2 months now and I'm still learning how to come about with only a main sail and do it as smoothly as I can on any mono hull I've ever sailed. As for the comments about a Windrider, I would LOVE one, It's the 13,ooo plus dollars that is holding us back. Used ones are pretty hard to come by around this part of the country, so we continue to dream about other Trimarans.

[catsketcher]

You don't have to buy a Windrider - they are heavy and expensive but heaps of fun. If you are going to the hassle of making floats etc then I would suggest an email to John Marples and getting something that you know will work and will sell if you want to go down the tri route.

cheers

Phil