The Future of Formula 40 Trimarans

great reading on site. what design is the 40 you were looking at purchasing?


Barry

 

F40 Trimarans in the market...

Barry, I dont have the intention to buy a F40 Trimaran... as there isnt one out there to fulfill my own needs.

There is one Crowther 40 for sales at 105-110 Thousand Euros with very, very small space inside. Nothing to live on...



... and Trimaran Fildou for 75,000 Euros in the market is without any accomodation, a pure day sailor... nothing for offshore long distance.



And I dont think that the racing-cruising versions, e.g. Trimaran Spirit (just refitted)...


... or Trimaran Aotea (Antrim Design, California) will come soon into the markets.



And the guys of cruising version Trimaran Qingdao (built in China on the basis of an Antrim Design) seem to have lots of fun... cant imagine to see this boat soon on the market...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNajkw4gQpE


I still have not a fully picture of F40 Tris... maybe there is one out there undiscovered and waiting ;-)

 

F40 circuit trimarans still sailing (not an exhaustive list)

Biscuits Cantreau 1 - now owned and sailed by Team Turx

Biscuits Cantreau 2 - Was renamed Running with Scissors was sold fairly recently as a fixer upper in the US.

Biscuits Cantreau 3 - Kupsis recently sold I've heard set to restart a racing program

Biscuits Cantreau 4 - Now in NZ will be relaunched early 2016 after a rebuild the boat suffered a main hull structural failure after poor repairs by previous owner.

Pleione - In the Golden Oldies

Fildou - F40 foiler recently had a mast failure new rig and out sailing again.

Promocean - Adrian Thompson designed trifoiler still getting around from what I hear.

Full Pelt - I hear it's still around demounted in a custom 40' container.

Adrenalin - Gougeon designed and built F40 races out of Ao Chalong Yacht club.

Star a la Trinite - Sistership to Mike Birch's Bagages Superior now renamed "The Edge" and sailing out of the UK.

There are a lot of 40' trimarans around that fit rather closely with the F40 box type rule but never competed in the circuit. I'm not sure for example if Spirit of England ever sailed in the the circuit but it certainly did plenty of ocean racing.

 

The F40 Race...

Tks Corley... interesting. Some names are new for me

It is really a pitty, that the initiators in the 80ths missed the smartness to start an officially and registrated "F40 Class Association" (NGO)... which would have a complete list nowadays available of all boats and owners.

I am still surprised, e.g. by your list, that there are some different boats out there.

The French did a "F40 Race"... kind of "Golden Oldies Trophy" in 2009/2010. The (co-)organizer was Michel Durocher. The guys had created a nice logo for and website http://www.racef40.com (which is already down).



I found it accidentally within my researches about Tri Fildou... all infos in French language.

(Rec.: Its always the same as we know it since the 90th. The French are doing their thing in the world of Trimarans, even not communicating their projects internationally... Vive La France - Grand Nation! And the rest of the world ignoring... not a good way in my understanding.)

There is only a short video documenting this symbolically race:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTFJTpLuzM8


The clip shows the potentials of the F40 and their beautyness... can it still attract the youth or do they prefer the more radically foiling on Catamarans ?

In the vid there is another F40 Trimaran with the sailing number 150, called Embarquez !!!. I am not 100% safe about... but I think this construction was designed by VPLP and built by CDK in 1986 for participating in the Route de Rhum in same year.


I have the strong believe, that this "old boat class" could get a revival with some small modernifications (e.g. Wave piercing bows, T-rudder, foils) and a new set of rules, learning from the mistakes end of the 80th to avoid a collapsing.

 

The Formula 40 already had foiling mashines

Indeed... this was surprising for me. When I fell over Fildou to learn that these racers and their designers already had foiling in mind !!

So can we say, that these boats in the 80ths had been far ahead their times related to the "foiling boom" being initiated lately by the Amercias Cup in 2013 ???

 

Jay, I'm not sure I've ever seen a 40 footer that actually flew except for Dr. Sam Bradfields 40' Skat. Most tri's that used foils in the "old days" used foils to partially lift the boat("foil assist") rather than for full flying. If you run across any that were actually fully flying I'd be very interested.

You've probably found this already but here is a "Foilers!" article on "Fildou". Foilers! is a more or less monthly newsletter by Fred Monsonec about my favorite subject.
https://foils.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/gros-plan-sur-fildou-f40-a-foils/ It's in French but I just click translate and then can mostly read it.....

Dr. Sams SKAT:

 

"... and Trimaran Fildou for 75,000 Euros in the market is without any accomodation, a pure day sailor... nothing for offshore long distance."

Err, where did you get that BS? Meaning "day sailor" sic - Fildou, under another name which I can't remember FINISHED the infamous 1992 Route du Rhum - when nearly the whole 60 foot multihull fleet was decimated, capsized, broken up etc in the Atlantic crossing. That was no day sail.
Just watched your video: Embarquez is the original Biscuits Cantreau with an added after/main traveller beam - and Fildou looks heavy and overloaded (think there is a diesel on board) whereas originally the F40s were empty - meant to weigh 1800 kgs.

 

Trimaran Fildou... Day sailor or Extreme sailor ?

Gary I havent spoken technically under the aspect of a sea-kindly design... I looked at the pictures and specifications when the boat was for sales around 2002... here on this website documented: http://multihullforsale.free.fr/Englisch/englisch.html

Interior and Safety...

Cabin - 1 main, 1 front cabin, sleeps 4 people
Kitchen - none. Equipped with camping gas cooker
Toilet - none

Only some very few extreme purists can handle it to stay over 3 weeks on such a boat. A radical extreme sailor can manage it under such given circumstances for 3 weeks trans-ocean.

The boat itself can go trans-ocean, no doubt about the seaworthiness.

For a "normal, sportive sailor" I see the given conditions under deck this beauty Marc Lombard designed in 1986 as "too extreme"... at least for sailors in 21st century, isnt ?

That's why I said "day sailor". It's a great boat for weekend and short handed regattas over some few days and here it can fit the needs of very simple accomodation to find little bit sleep and heat some water for "dried food".

 

Embarquez is the original Biscuits Cantreau...

Tks... yet I have not "trained sharp F40 eyes".

There is another boat, called Pléioné, same a former "Biscuit Cantreau" (no. 1).



Is it the same boat now known as Embarquez ???? Looks so...

 

If the F40 tri has an X beam it will be the original Biscuits Cantreau; there were a few others of this configuration like ORMA 60 Gitana 10, and also a couple of 50s too - but they are rare. Here is Gitana 10.

 

"Foil-Assisted Trimarans"

Tks for the beautiful pic of Skat... mind blowing. As it is a very specific topic "foil assisted Trimarans", I answer you here in your own thread:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/dr-sam-bradfield-45406.html#post750050

 

Foiling or foil-assisted Trimarans....

yep... I have noticed.... and I should have studied more seriously my bad French, instead I learnt "Latin"... In school yet I had not the Trimaran addiction... as I got it 10 years later. If I had known about and as France is the Tri Mekka in Europe, maybe I'd have been more motivated to study this language as kidd.

Luckily many of the French sailors nowadays speak ENG. But compared to the 90th it was a language barrier... no chance to enter into the French market as Non-French sailor. Impossible that time.

Okeys... another topic. ;-) Back to the world of Trimarans.

 

The whole space argument is a bit spurious in my opinion it's a boat not an apartment. People used to go cruising and cross oceans on small monohulls like Vertue's so the space argument is a moving target.

http://www.cheoyleeassociation.com/vertue.htm

The obvious conclusion is if you want lots of space buy a catamaran.

 

Healthy environment on sportive Trimarans.

At least I want have a toilet on board, Corley... and cooking a meal. And not freezing in the berth.

Remember, I grew up with sailing in the 70th... I made my offshore skipper licence in the beginning of 80th. There was no luxury on board of boats (even no heating system under deck). It was purest form of sailing. I liked it that time... and so it can be nowadays.

I am not one of these guys who need a washing mashine, Expresso mashine or micro wave on board. Not important.

But I want have a healthy environment, not ruining my physical constitution and ending with Rheuma or artritis (or backbone problems) only because it is a radical boat of extreme puristic eqipment.

There are enough racing-cruising trimarans out there which give good accomodation, in a simple and healthy form... where you can have stand hight under deck (at least in the range of 1.95 meter head size to avoid neck and backbone problems), sit in a small saloon taking your warm meal which was cooked on a two flame stoven... same there you can work on laptops with solar energy... and you have enough space in the navi to do your weather routing and navigation work.... plus you can have a safe and healthy sleep without wetness all around. - And here and there you can take an astern deck shower to keep yourself clean (Rec.: Hot water can come from a "solar shower camp bag").

No luxury... but smartness to have a stress free and healthy time on board (for me sailing in rough weather per se is not stress as I know how to handle it safely.)

I would not do it so minimalistic like the Russian way as seen on the Trimaran Energy Diet



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQIiQhTFf30

 

The problem is that people rarely define what comfort means to them in the way you just have. What is comfort is it apartment living with air conditioning and heating with lots of space. Or is it a boat with reasonable headroom a couple of comfortable berths a headspace and a functional galley?

Equally most people don't define what they mean by performance. Is that going to be good averages and easily driven in light conditions or is it 20 knots plus and 300+ mile days?

In the cruising context my definition would be for a 40' trimaran a boat that can achieve a 8-10 knot average and has a good fuctional galley, headspace and comfortable berths/settee seating.

Tim Clissold drew me an initial concept for a 40' cruiser racer trimaran. It was envisioned to have a decent amount of payload it's on my blog if you are interested.

http://trimaranproject.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/tim-clissold-tc1221-40-trimaran-concept.html

It's hard to justify building a trimaran with so many on the market at a reasonable price like the fantastic cruiser/racer trimaran "Strontium Dog"

http://www.apolloduck.co.uk/feature.phtml?id=415675