Simpson Liahona Trimaran (42.5 - 26.6 ft cruising)

Smj1, yes I know... I have my doubts that it is still in the market. Yachtworld is not deleting "old sales proposals" so I noticed. I suppose its gone.

And its not the same boat as seen in my first post of Flickr pictures... the boat which was for sales 30 months ago in April 2013 looks like this from inside and is located on coast of New England (USA)...


While the owner on Flickr is a boat from "down under"... which looks inside and outside differently, it is designed as fully "bridge decker" without trampolin nets





... with beaching in Funnel Bay (Australia)


and Airlie Beach (Queensland / Australia)

 

Richard, actually Robert Buckman Harris was from New Hampshire, born there in 1922. He passed away last spring at the age of 93. Bob was many things in his long life, I'm proud he was my friend and an early mentor. He was a multihull pioneer, building his first catamaran, Naramatac, at Great Neck in New York and launched in 1952. The Ocelot, Cheetah, and finally the Tiger-Cat of 1959 was about his most successful small cat. She won the Yachting Magazine One-of-a-Kind race that year. He worked a long time at Sparkman & Stephens (NY) and moved to Vancouver in 1970 to build multihulls but ended up being very successful in Taiwan built production monohulls. He was a bit far ahead of the multihull curve.....

 

Thank you for the update, I hadn't realised he had passed away. He was one of the few first generation designers that I never had the good fortune to meet

You can see more on those early designs here, for example

http://www.ayrs.org/repository/AYRS028.pdf

RW

 

Yachtworld doesn't have the authority to delete listings, I believe that's up to the broker. The Simpson had been of Yachtworld for over a year and is now back on, but if you want the whole story call the broker as he I believe is still the owner of the Simpson trimaran.

 

Many Tks, Richard ! - I appreciate it...

Did I read right ? "Dacron and transparent Mylar in the top part of the head sales" end of the 60th ?

(Source: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/Mylar.html ).

Some guys had their times been far ahead, not only in "hull design", hm ?

 

In the change over from cotton to man made fibres in the late 1950's many people experimented with polythene/mylar etc. Making the reinfocing was always a problem, and people didn't like sails that rattled.

So like rope rigging and lanyards which went out of favour in the 1860's but are now "in" again, sails have gone from brittle and rattlely to soft and easy to fold to brittle again

RW

 

If you read Jim Brown's book "The case for the cruising trimaran" (and if you haven't stop now and do so) you will read a story of how in 1958 Jim Brown meets Arthur Piver with a 16ft Frolic trimaran. He tells the story of the outrageous boat sitting there with its Mylar sails flapping in the wind. Piver painted it "vomit yellow" and used a TV aerial for a mast.

cheers

Phil

 

I like rattle snakes (in Western movies)...

Indeed, is this the trend ? Or do you mean "traditional tall ships" where the old rigs and techniques of rope making, caulking, wooden blocks etc. ... are used ?

 

is it sheer windage, that stops wing section over beam section connections, in todays designs?


Barry

 

one reason might be that nobody needs wing sections with sitting headroom only over the entire beam.
Who needs 8 or more additional berths, when one already has enough in the hull(s) of a 35 - 50 footer ?
The partial wing I the thing, in todays designs it is pretty often hidden.

pogo

 

yeah for sure, and lets face it most of that part has been swapped for flared hulls to give berth space, as well as general breathing room. I was thinking more though for connectives area's rather than tramps. I get that beams with a tramp would be the lighter equation, but sometimes the extra solid deck space might be desired.


Barry

 

desired extra solid deck area ?
Maybe on a daycharter trimaran ?
Solid decks mean either high freeboard of floats, or gullwinged wingdecks for higher bridgedeck clearance.

You surely know about the upper facts yourself.

pogo

 

Solid decks mean either high freeboard of floats, or gullwinged wingdecks for higher bridgedeck clearance."

in other words complication, cost, and weight! That kinda answers my own question there.

Barry

 

The main reason had been differently, I suppose.

The beam connection instead of using a wing and bridge deck connection was the result of "X" form being used on FujiColour (built in 1990)... from here it started to become a safely and stable connection between outriggers and mainhull. Many attempts before let crash the boats as the heavy loads destroyed the beam material too quickly.



So we can say that before the "X form" it was not really possible to build strong and fast racing trimarans which guaranteed durability in the worstest conditions... as this video is documenting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN7iHMjSoMM


Naturally nowadays we like to get the benefit of speed and therefore is being used "beam connections". Modern composite materials, e.g. epoxy Kevlar-Foam / Carbon and the technical procedure of vacuum infusion helped to make these forms stable and safely, in most cases.

If one wants a "roomy trimaran" in consequences the concept is going to length, e.g. on a 50-60 foot trimaran you have enough space for living compared to a 40 foot monohull. But still get the potentials from a slim main hull.

Some of the modern Tris have a kind of "wing concept", but not too heavily... e.g. seen with the Cruising-racer trimaran Strontium Dog (43 Foot) which was built 2000-2004 and got a new mast in 2012...


Looking at big Kurt Hughes Designs you still can see these "wing concepts". E.g. the 63 Footer Trimaran Rosinante (built 1998-2000)


Such boats have a beautifully interior... e.g. Strontium Dog has stand hight and still can go easily 19-20 knots. Here the power comes from wing rotation mast and modern sails to compensate the "fat main hull".


The fully "old bridge deck concept" of the 60th/70th (e.g. used for the Piver trimarans) we only see with catamarans where it was and still is a clear target to create very roomy saloons. (Rec.: Only some few cat designers preferred it to keep the deck open, e.g. Wharram design which integrates the living onto both hulls without a deck saloon.) - These sailors of the elder and heavy weighted bridge deck trimarans very often swap to Cruising catamarans so I heard as the more modern catamarans at least have same speed potentials compared to the heavy weighted Trimaran Dinos of the 70ths.

Cat sailors per se arent looking for high speed potentials as trimaran sailors like it. Only some few e.g. buying a 100% carbon Gunboat 60 pacing around with 20-25 knots.

Personally I'd feel not safe on a cruising catamaran with speed potentials in the range of 25 knots... too risky for quick capsizing. While Trimarans here give more safetyness and early warnings. So I accept to have less room/interior space for more safetyness at higher speed.

 

Roger and Anne Simpson make some of the most beautiful banjos imaginable.
Handcrafted fine timbers with incredible marquetry inlays by Anne.
He's a part-time flying instructor, she's a doctor.

Yes, there is life after yacht design !