Historical multihulls

Two Malcolm Tennant Wild Thing designs, late 1990's, Nigel Irens F40 Fleury Michon, 1986, David Alan-Williams Steinlager, late 1980's.

 

Gary, whats the earliest picture you have of a big tri flying the main hull? Any idea when designers first considered that to be a way to go faster?

 

Did anyone make or design a Trimaran with large outer hulls and a smaller middle hull?

 

The Malcolm Tennant Wild Thing design from the early 1980's had longer floats (near 40 feet, main hull 38, see jpeg); he also did the same thing with a 28 foot tri using a modified GBE cat hull as the main hull, and also with the even earlier Demon Tricycle (see jpeg) - and those were the first that I know of. But the floats had raked bows and did not have high freeboard so they weren't as extreme high buoyancy like a couple of the local NZ 8.5 designs - which look like three hulled cats.

 

Thanks Gary for and Others for posting various imges. it is interesting to see how multihulls have changed with use and purpose.

 

In the AYRS Catamarans 1970 issue is a letter by Lock Crowther where he says" several multihulls have flown their mainhulls here, usually Nicol designs stripped for racing." I'm sure it's possible, when light at speed and pushing things there isn't a lot of main hull in the water, it is on the top but we haven't tried to really go for it either. With our slightly longer wing and Cavalier deck thickness we are a little heavier than stock too.

 

I should have mentioned I've seen this 40 year old, but much lightened Piver Marguerite Star lift her main hull out a number of times, also been crewing or steering on board too when it occurred - so Doug, nothing is new under the sun.
Actually it is easy to do, fairly narrow overall beam and buoyant floats that increase below water volume rapidly as they immerse - plus some hard southwesterly gusts and full sail. Pas de probleme, as Jacques would say.

 

Demon Tricycle had quite narrow beam and the only thing that stopped the main hull lifting was because the main hull had been modified to increase displacement. When sailing up wind often the main hull barely touched the water. When sailing with the jib/wishbone combination look out the thing would be on fire.

 

That is what I was thinking, it would almost be a CAT most of the time. Just a little center hull to keep propulsion and keep some fuel (weight).

 

I sailed on original Demon Tricycle once with Garth Tapper before he made the modifications to the main hull and rig; the boat was featherlight, carried a B Class wing mast rig and had a very high power to weight ratio (for the times - and even today); the minimal main hull was similar to what you're talking about mydauphin. At one time during the AMSA race, (which we easily won) beating for the finish into a westerly, a good gust came through and the Demon Tricycle main hull lifted out and we just powered away leaning on the long leeward float.

 

First image; Paul Ricard in original 1979 form, second image with new beam, third with fixed rig and new, longer main hull; the only parts of the original was the tiller arm. The final Paul Ricard extrapolation was foil tri Cote d'Or, which is still around after various refits.

 

Older boats

I started a thread about really old boats.
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/history-modern-catamaran-40667.html

 

Not to forget these blokes; Centuries ahead of any Western developments. From Edward Dodds.

 

John Shuttleworth's Brittany Ferries GB always struck me as a beautiful boat.



He's got an essay on multihull seaworthiness that's a good read too...
Multihull Design Considerations for Seaworthiness.

 

I'd say millenia, not centuries.

James Wharram and some other catamaran designers have written some
interesting papers on Polynesian migration you are probably aware of. E.g.
http://www.lapita-voyage.org/en/files/ThePacificMigrations.pdf

I used to think that rats hitch-hiked aboard these vessels and that's why they
are useful to date the arrivals of people to previously uninhabited islands.
Apparently, though, they were taken deliberately as food.