Hedley Nicol Trimaran Plans

The stock forward lowers are led to a outboard chainplate attached to a 2"x3" 3' long timber aft of the beams on the sloop, the boat used to have them so maybe they are still there. This gives room for the overlapping jibs. The ketch might place them a bit more forward so the upper is parallel to the mast. The forward timber might come down from the forward mast beam just ahead of the ama frame. I rigged our removable staysail to bulkhead 1 which I beefed up. This opens up a slot with the forestay which is close to 3' back from the bow. The ketch staysail is forward of the anchor locker because of the stem mounted forestay but a wider slot wouldn't hurt. Your mast is longer than stock by a few feet. This shouldn't be a problem as the boats are conservatively rigged. The sloop used a 38' mast. The pdf shows the various rigs, if you blow up the image at a copy shop you can use a scale ruler to compare to the stock rig. Match the scale to a overall boat length of 36 feet, the office supply stores stock rulers.

 

nicol mods

Hi Cav, thanks for the info. The summer I spent with Bob Perry, we considered many multihull designs for future production at Ta Yang or Ta Chiao. After meeting with Yves-Marie Tanton at TaChiao USA in Seabrook, Texas, we drew plans for a cruising 44 footer. The Condor 40 factory experience was studied. Our boat was never put into production because the USA-Taiwan connection ended when one partner died and the other was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Nicol's underwater lines were/are way ahead of their time. I'd like to discuss whether, or not, uppers run directly to the floats used in conjunction with uppers run to the mainhull via spreaders, create less mast-compression loading than only uppers run via spreaders to the mainhull or forward beam. Best Regards.

 

These boats have lots of wire up already! I think what would happen is the beam would deflect a small amount as in normal heavy air sailing taking tension away from the outer/upper and more load would be transfered to the main hull spreader uppers increasing the compression load again. Probably have a bit more compression any way. The lowest compression is going to be the stock rig. I give the diamonds led to the mast strength points as it hold the mast in column . When our stick dropped do to a faulty forestay deck installation (previous owner....) it wasn't damaged. Of course it came aft as we were closehauled but I was impressed.

Searunners for example have far more mast compression, Jim Brown told me to watch out for ply mast base shims when surveying as they would delaminate and squish out under load.

Cross tris usually run the uppers to the amas and use spreaders with the lowers that are led inboard. This keeps compression down and allows big overlapping sails, probably the best compromise.

 

Quick late summer update. We had to go cruising this year a month earlier than planned leaving the interior unfinished (now I'm trying to beat the approaching fall....) and the outside and bottom rough. So the Vagabond looked like a vagabond but then so did we so all went well. I did take a few hours to give the transom the sharp edge treatment. Thickened epoxy was put around the well rounded edge of the stern after sanding, then brought to a sharp edge with various files etc....after curing. All fast transom sterned boats should have a sharp edge to help the water break away but the Nicols with their big sterns need this even more so. It helped with low speed drag and flattened out the big offwind wave more than I would have thought possible without a stern extension.

 

Pretty...

 

Still snow on the tall mountaintops...it is hard to get an idea of the scale when everything is so large and you can see so far.. Big currents too, up in Johnstone Straights in BC.

 

Paint my dear friend. White paint.

Haven't you heard? All the snow melted last century ....

 

And I thought our hippies smoked too much! Such a warm outlook should help with those cold winters.

 

Here is a local 25' clipper for sale on gumtree, pity about the coachroof mod otherwise probably not a bad boat. I'd have to chop it off and rebuild it with the standard profile.

http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/seaford/sail-boats/trimaran-sailing-boat/1029624988

 

Time for the saw! Alan Nicol has the plans....if someone over there can persuade him tell him I'm still good for a copy.

 

Hi

Discovering this thread has been like finding the golden nugget of Hedley Nicol knowledge, and I have hardly been able to tear myself away from reading all the wonderful and insightful posts relating to Hedley Nicol trimarans over nearly 30 pages. Wow!! and thank you

I am the co-owner of a Hedley Nicol (Buccaneer?) trimaran named "Aquila" which I purchased together with two friends some years ago. At the time she was little more than a floating guano island, the previous owner having used her as a weekend houseboat (he didn't sail and had removed the masts and rigging) before he purchased a catamaran and she was left unused and neglected at her mooring. Amazingly the bilges were dry, and apart from a guano topped deck she was in sound condition and so we commenced our (ongoing) efforts to restore and get her ship shape again.

From what we were able to ascertain, The previous (2nd) owner had purchased Aquila from a South African naval architect by the name of Tony Stemmet who had built her in 1968 / 69 in Cape Town with the intention to go cruising with his wife, however she sadly passed away and Aquila remained at Langebaan lagoon.

Over the past few years we have sought to restore her to some of her former glory, however there just seemed to be so little information available locally about Hedley Nicol designs that we weren't (still aren't!) exactly sure which design she is? Suffice to say it has been very exciting to discover this thread (thanks to Google) and I'm greatly looking forward to learning and benefitting from the great deal of wisdom and knowledge about these beautiful trimarans that prevails here!

Regards, Dave

Attached are some pics of Aquila - still work in progress...
P.S - we were able to track down her original wooden masts lying in a barn on the previous owner's farm however the mizzen mast was unfortunately too rotten to be used, hence only the main mast stepped.

 

Hello Dave, good to see another Nicol! Some measurements would help figure out which design, beam and length should be enough. Stringer size and planking and bulkhead thickness can help. Your boat is either a modified Cavalier or a Buccaneer as you have guessed, those especially were built with a wide range of variation because of the plan situation. A stock Nicol is pretty unusual after all this time.

It looks like a great find, the pilot house is similar to Renegade's and the bow cabin is like the ones used on Islanders, the 29'. I like the swim step stern modification.There are several Nicol's in Africa so keep an eye out.

I'd make a new mizzen though I might consider the yawl. The Haig's found the ketch easy to use. If the old mast was stock cut it into halves sawing along the front and back so you can see how it was made. They were built in 2 halves with a center web, sections were hollowed out leaving solid areas for spreader and stay areas. With aluminum foil lining the hollows there is a huge radar return.

These are great boats with a good sea motion. Keep posting and have fun!

 

Hi Cavalier,

Thank you for the welcome and the mizzen advice. We did indeed discover that the masts were cut into halves - interestingly, the original builder had in fact built in little bottles of linseed oil into the masts with semi-perforated pin-holes and location markings detailing the internal mast oiling schedule.

Your aluminium foil inside the mast is a great idea - as an ex-Naval radar operator that really appeals.

Aquila is approx 42' LOA (including the sugar scoop step) and has an approx 20' beam. I'll post exact bulkhead specs & measurements and specs when one of us are next able to get up to the boat.

Thank you!
Dave

p.s this is an old pic of her which gives a view of the wing design / i.e aft wing to hull angle which led to to think she was a Buccaneer?

 

Yes the length puts it at being a Buccaneer alright. The designed length was a bit over 39', the swimstep would make the 42'. Stretched Cavaliers and Vagabonds wind up about 38'-39'. The beams were all similar at about 20' 4" to 20' 6" as this was sufficient for the rigs and worked with stock ply lengths. Sail plans are up in the thread I'll repost the Haig's plan as it is closest to yours. I'd epoxy coat the inside and out of a new mast and skip the oil. The only downside of the foil is having a good reflection in pirate country....a reflector wins there.

 

Here is the sail and layout plan of the Haig's Buccaneer. It was built to stock dimensions so if you scale figure the length at 39' 3".