Small Tri's under 20', any mention of foils is banned..

Clissold has a 20ft Tri design listed as unfinished on his website, I do know he's working on that design, could be interesting to see what he comes up with in the short term.

Carbon has come down a lot in price recently and if you take the fact that you use a lot less resin and save an awful lot of weight ( the one thing we look for on a multi ) then it has its merits.

 

The Scarab 18 strikes me as the best design between the Strike and Scarab18.
Too many angled parts at the front of fore side of one while the other is smooth and good looking.
One ,you can walk on and motor when the Amas are folded ,the other not .
Price of the plans,you can not beat the price of the Scarab18 plans for a better boat to boot,two strikes eh!!

 

Hi Thom, strip can get heavy because of the epoxy. There are a lot of glue joints and if they require much filling the amount of epoxy can add up quickly. I wonder why the builder didn't use ply for the cabin side/sheer panel, it would have been easier.

Size wise the best thing I can tell anyone is to make a mockup in cardboard to see what it is like. Get big sheets/boxes a roll of duck tape and loosely follow the study plan. It doesn't need to be perfect to let you know if you can live with the room.

 

Plywood has a lot of glue too, or should. I just glued together a table using two slabs of 1" ply 2x3 so in total 12square feet to wet out, and it took 7.5 pump skirts from the large pump (2-1 mix). That is not nothing, way more than is required in a crack filling operations. I didn't have the pressure I would normally use, so this was a little rich on epoxy, buth then there weren't a half dozen or more joints being made.

The problem is people use weird blends that are heavy because they are going all home brew, or want a wood match, or they want a contrasting strip. There are many ways to keep the weight down. Use different strip sizes so you can have less joints over flat sections; use lightweight bog mixes for filler; use poly glue, it foams, and while epoxy is stronger both will split cedar. And it is more than strong enough after top sanded and top coated, where a lot of little bubbles fill in with epoxy; or profile the strips with interlocking beads so the gaps disappear, though that wastes materials and time, and adds little when the outside is painted, even if the inside is not.

I think you have a point on the plywood, it just seems to be that when people go to strips they go overboard and want a million molds and curves. The Piver idea, or the Seaclipper idea, may have the right balance, but people have to want it, and in some cases they have and in others less so.

 

The maybe counterpoint to that is the experience of people who row the atlantic. While a trying experience, many seem to actually improve in appearance, due to exercise, fresh air, and diet. In a really small boat, it could make sense to have a pedal station either to augment the speed when one isn't making much progress, or just for the daily exercise, when the conditions permit. And also to provide options near shore, were many interesting areas are coming under no motor rules. There might be options for a rowing station to drive a prop. Since the nets and other stuff get in the way of conventional oars. Stand up paddling works pretty well on tris. As do Yullohs, at least from a rear cockpit.


The boats that are used for such crossings are similar to Third turtle, Argonauta, Tremolino, etc... Center cocpit designs. One flaw the row boats have is they can roll dangerously, which one hopes could be avoided in a tri. A small tri with provision for dropping a spar, might be able to prep for a storm. I assume unlike a mono the spar is not a plus in bad weather.

All theory anyway, I don't expect to do that kind of trip in a small boat. The real issue is how much fun a small cruise would be in a small tri with family or one friend, or even by oneself. I remember VW bus trips back in the 60s as high points. In the real world, a far larger problem with kids is whether your boat will be ready for them in the one or two years such activities are pleasurable. Kids today are different than they were, and while some remain self-contained, many of them are connected to friends, and I can't imagine being in a can with their parents. Just because one was adventurous does not mean one's kids are. Much of the social pressure is getting that out of them. They can't even ride a bike to school, local rules in a nearby town banned tobogganing. So there are a few years, particularly if you have two, when they might be adventurous, not all wired up, big enough to swim, and so forth. And is you boat there and ready to go, or did your deadline slip, and you never made it to the starting line.

 

That is were a really simple boat to build like RIchards is an advantage. If the kids remember time on a boat, it will be sliding off the transoms of my small self designed cat, or some sails they took before loosing interest, on the "larger" 24 footer. Living in Canada with different properties is part of my issue. If one lived in a temperate region the yachting season would be longer.

 

Well, had to join in - although stretched the thread title rules a little to make a 6.5m version (as is the Patterson 21). So this is my racer/cruiser main hull (and without Doug's not-to-be mentioned fixations, just long floats a la 3 Devils). Main hull a little more complicated to build than flat ply panels ... but not really when you get down to it.

 

Changed my mind on the long floats, instead cheated a little (in regards to no unmentionable foils) and drew a float/foil combination, 4 metres length and set at 45 degrees ... and attached to a single, airfoil shaped beam (like Sid's). Advantages: light weight, simple, float behaving like a foil and therefore providing stiffness and stability, actually IS a foil but don't tell anyone. The coloured image has it angled at 45 degrees.
Trifoiler? dimensions: 6.50 x 5 metres. Will give some thought into designing a folding beam.
Will have to build this thing.
Do I need another boat?
Madness.
Maybe that's what I will call the trifoiler?

 

*****

Six times ,Gary-you used that nasty word six times-God help you....
Why don't you tell them why, Gary,why Gary?

 

LOL! You guys are too funny!

 

Because I'm a tricky shyster (like our disgraceful ShonKey Prime Minister).
It was that little beauty 21 foot tri design of John Patterson's started me thinking about a small boat but .... with a few "unmentionable" devousnesses thrown in.

 

Reading the last few posts has triggered a massive thunderstorm outside. This is not good.

 

It's not the thunderstorm you should be worried about; its the flying monkeys that follow that are the true terror!

 

Gary, sorry but that Ama would be one fugly piece of plywood out on the end of a weird beam, would it work, maybe, would any one buy into the concept other than yourself and Doug, probably not.

As we are on this thread discussing more practical and a bit more aesthetic looking boats that could form into a T20 class, what does everyone think of Max beam width, most designs seem to be around 4.5m. I sort of favour 5.0 meaning a slightly less volume Ama but in real world terms would the extra width on such a small boat, start to effect the handling and sea kindliness of the boat?

 

Ignorant disrespect

Wayne, I would have thought that you would have more class than to make a half-*** comment like that! I'd also think you might,just maybe, be able to understand the underlying beauty of the concept Gary has for his boat.