fast but lightweight cruiser

A difficult thing to achieve but here is my main hull ideas for a 10 x 8 metre trimaran, a blown up and inflated Sid type with single but long chord (2 metre) main beam, cabin set aft and same height of beam, 4-5 metre floats with fixed L foils, main hull daggerboard set to one side, two 10 metre 350-400mm chord wing masts set on beam and long cabin top, maybe wishbone rigged but probably not.
Been thinking this over for sometime.
Yes, live aboard too.
Your thoughts ... and your similar boat type fantasies?

 

Fblc

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Like all your boats: absolutely gorgeous! From thinking about absolute minimum weight for too long it seems that the flare might add excess weight
but it adds room too so maybe not "excess" weight. And the flare is undeniably sexy! And works well with the single beam structurally, I'd think.
Are you going to build it?

 

If the flare can be used for "wing bunks" go for it. Nothing opens up a tri interior more and you sleep over the hull through water noise not in it. Off watch can sleep while others can still sit down to lunch.

 

Yes and thanks Cav and Doug, that's the intention of the flare.
If you look at most cruising designs the main hull cross section is stepped - but I want to build light in thin gauge ply (then reinforce, double up and carbon in necessary areas) and bendy ply is amazing stuff once it is tensioned, hard to beat. But I am biassed, yes.
Thought of strip planked paulownia or varying foam strips but having done that, compared to ply/composite building, is fiddly and slow.
The rigs would be same setup as Cox's Bay Skimmer - which means large sail area, down low, spread between two wing masts, and that combination goes to windward way better than most think. Reaching and off wind; need I say more.

 

I like it, no step to slap. Fast build method. The biggest problem for me on the F-boats is the folding eliminates the wing bunks, even on the F-36 demountable. Being able to open an eye and see what mayhem the crew is speeding up for is also a + not to mention anchor watches. Rig sounds like a good way to keep the sail area up and strains down.

 

Henk de Velde was pretty impressed with the twin mast rig on the trimaran Juniper when he did his circumnavigation. He also found the wingmasts good for driving to windward when in really bad conditions.

The new design looks sweet Gary, thinking of doing some cruising?

http://smalltridesign.com/Trimaran-Articles/Velde-interview.html

 

That's right Corley.
On my old Bamboo Bomber 32 foot catamaran Supplejack, which had a wing mast, we got caught in savage katabatic winds off the top of Coromandel off Cape Colville and I chickened out and retreated with no sail up, averaged 17 knots for half an hour then had to beat, with just the mast but now in flatter seas; boat went beautifully in 40-45 knot gusts.
Better than any storm sails, no flapping, no noise, no straining, just fast sailing ... and we were at anchor in no time.

 

wing mast limit?

Gary, Since you have "been there", is there a point at which a wing mast becomes more of a problem than a regular stick of the same height? Like in our unexpected 60 kt summertime line squalls. No where to run, no where to hide.
B

 

Bruce, If the platforms are light, even with conventional masts, they will sail at anchor ... but wing masts make it worse, no doubt about that. However if the rudder(s) is/are lifted, plus the dagger/centre board too, the light boats will skid about ... but with rudders down, either allowed to pivot or fixed, the boats will sail frenetically to the end of their warps, jerk to a halt, and then swerve away on the other tack. Unacceptable - you end up steering the boat at anchor.
Remember the Oracle horror stories with the monster tri - blokes on watch all night when it blew.
Old Supplejack was just the same (see photo with the boat blocked up and the fixed down rudders) - they were quickly changed later to vertical designs that could be lifted out, no skegs. Big mistake.
But we didn't know much in those days. Feeling our way along. 30 odd (actually 40) years ago.
However the proposed dreamtime light cruiser has rigs only a bit taller than the platform is long, also chords are not great. Should be tame enough. Like the CB Skimmer.

 

Sorry Bruce, don't think I answered your question correctly.
Actually in that same bare rig fast sail down from the Cape in Supplejack (whose catenary wing mast chord at largest point was 30 inches, height 42 feet) the boat handled the williwaws coming off Mt. Moehau very well. What wind speed in those quite terrifying blasts, I don't know, 60 knots? - the water torn areas were half a mile wide and completely white and in the worst, I steered off almost to the gybe point, way off course, boat doing 20 plus knot speeds, and probably a lot higher than that when reaching - and fast enough for me to really worry (but couldn't do anything about it) that even with that small area aloft, the boat would turn over ... but it didn't. Light boats run away and reduce wind strength.
The wind change happened very quickly and seas hadn't had time to build, also it poured rain, filling the rib tied to forward tramp in about 30 seconds - and that downpour also kept the seas down too.
I've sailed numbers of miles with no sail since then on other wing mast boats and never had any problems. If you lock the mast spanner to 40 degrees or so - so the mast can't flap, you can steer up or down many degrees and there is no noise, no problems. To windward you can flatten it to 25 or so ... and the boat will climb. That was a revelation.

 

Looking, sounding, very good. I very much like the idea of the single main beam & the two wing masts.
As a matter of fact, already a few years back, I've been musing about a similar (kind of) concept 9,42 x9,42 metre-ish, swiveling 2,44 metre cord main beam, one wing mast, kind of cruising trimaran.
Mind you no fancy stuff though like Gary but I'll dig up some drawings and try to digitize a few to let you get the picture of my wanderings.

In the link Henk de Velde talking with Chris White about anchoring! Juniper and sailing her under bare poles in high winds.
http://chriswhitedesigns.smugmug.com/CUSTOM-POWER-TRIMARANS/Trimarans/JUNIPER/10638289_LFkdP#!i=1630430784&k=kqSSNvn
http://chriswhitedesigns.smugmug.com/CUSTOM-POWER-TRIMARANS/Trimarans/JUNIPER/10638289_LFkdP#!i=1630280234&k=7dFqb7p

 

9.4 x 9.4m sounds a RACE boat to me, Hasyb - but then again you want a swivelling beam ... so I understand.
Very interesting comments on the videos regading wing masts in big weather; I agree, don't stop sailing.
However Loick Peyron was very critical of the large 1.5 m wing mast on the ex-Steinlager trimaran when he lost the boat - and also big 85 foot Royale with Caradec singlehanding, with another very large chord wing mast, (2 metre, maybe more) - seems that area was too much in savage conditions. But I'm not talking about such monsters, just conservative 400mm jobs.

 

When the crap really hits the fan a fixed stick is really predictable. One thing that concerns me about wing masts is how they ride to an anchor, storm anchor or drogue. Would a Wharram Tiki double masted rig work on that boat? It is a low cost cruising wing mast compromise. I got to watch the Nicol hit with 60+ knots while on shore cursing I wasn't aboard but it did fine laying to a mooring with its fixed rig. My uldb had to have the keel up and rudder out in the same conditions or it would sail at speed in all directions until pulled up short by the mooring.

 

I went to the ETNZ launching, quite a windy evening (doesn't look it in the photograph - but it was) and was most impressed how the big cat in the basin with its huge full wing, had the wing free to turn, allowed to swing gently with the changing gust directions. Agreed, that was sheltered water; there was absolutely no problem, everyone went about their business quite nonchalantly. I also checked out Prada a couple of times because they quite often left the boat fully rigged and on a swing mooring overnight, also they appeared totally unconcerned.
But I've found the wing masts have to be locked fore and aft when moored/anchored - but in my experience the foils HAVE to be up.
So it was very interesting to hear Chris White saying that, with a double schooer-type rig, they lock one to port, other starboad - and that stopped the tri from sailing while anchored.
But that is bad windage, and you couldn't do that with a single rig. Well, you could but don't like the sound of it, dragging back on the anchor, would rather the windage was reduced, airfoiling.
But there are no rules, right?

 

Every boat is different N'est pas ? Sailors have to find these things out about their boats...