Small trimarans under 20'

=========
I have the book and have studied that stuff a lot. However, foil assist is not covered and full foiling a little in his latest book that I have. As time goes by, foil assist and full foiling are going to become much more important from a sales and performance standpoint. Foils are more than just speed producers-they can help make for a better ride under better control.
Trimaran design, especially 20' and under is wide open.
Trimarans are ideal platforms for going very fast,very comfortably and the book on the kind of performance they are capable of has not been completed yet.
It's wide open and the last thing I would consider is a rating-at least now. I'd like to know more about ratings to learn which ones are the most used so I appreciate your info.

 

=====================
Pretty well when it holds together. I think he's broken during racing a couple of times-thats development.....

 

By horrible shape, I mean that the strike 15 doesn't look efficient at all. Blunt bow, flat bottom, hard chines, seems like it wouldn't be a very efficient shape. Reminds me more of something like an optimist in that respect, although it is rather narrow, and I'm sure that helps. Everything else though looks very good on that boat, especially the one with the carbon crossbars.

Edit: I just found the strike 15 on youtube, and I'm extremely impressed. They've come up with a VERY good boat.

 

The Strike 15 that the guy in France did looks really good. Personally I don't like the tramp, but that's his choice and he seems to do well with it.

 

The two things most of you are forgetting about Randy's tri is that like Richard stated,
a) 2 time olympic silver medalist, 5 wins on the Worrell 1000 (major achievment), 2 time Tornado world champ, 9-time USA Tornado Champ, 5 time North American Tornado Champ.

The above stated goes A LONG WAYS into the factoring of a win. This would be like me, who was on a district champ basketball team in junior high, playing one-on-one vs Michael Jordan in retirement.

B) The most important part everyone is forgetting is the race itself. This part alone completely disqualifies using Sizzors as a comparison in this argument we are having.

We have NO IDEA if the tornado got caught up at a checkpoint, stopped to rest, broke a rudder pin or any number of things that can happen on a MULTIDAY 300 MILE RACE. this is not "around the bouys" guys.

The other part you guys all forgot was mentioning how trimarans are more comfortable than a beach cat. Anyone can see after a careful look at sizzors that it is probably WORSE than a beach cat in many many ways.

Im a huge fan of Randy and his boat. But my career deals with factors and variables and I can tell you that you guys are ignoring or not seeing 2 huge ones that really should stop all usage of his boat as a design comparison or point-maker in a debate.

 

================
If you missed that than you haven't read whats been said. You obviously missed what Randy himself said about the comfort of Sizzor.....
Randy beat the Tornado TWICE-in 2011 and 2014. When Sizzor doesn't break it's definitely faster than the Tornado. Definitely. No ifs,ands,or buts. Faster.
I wasn't aware that there is any ongoing argument? Other than some ,apparently, don't think a comfortable trimaran can be designed to beat any beachcat the same length as the tri. But that seemed-mostly-like a discussion.

 

This may shed some light on specific tuning relating to my trimaran in particular. 90% of my sailing is done in very light conditions, like shown here.

Footage taken from my Trimaran.

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

The remainder is almost exclusively high-wind storm/windy day conditions.
Footage from the Hobie 16 I sail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqA36w5Qnwk

Here is how my trimaran handles the rough stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN0xedXlgZ0
Basically the amas don't have enough buoyancy in my opinion, and it doesn't help that the tops leak badly. (zippers in the skin for assembly, so every time the top of the amas get submerged, they take on about half a cup of water)

 

I just find the comfort part hard to believe I guess because my mind (and body) need some form of a traditional cockpit. I did a Texas 200 on a cat and I laid down for 5 days. I wore the skin off on the balls of my ankles sitting cross legged for hours on end.

I also dont give a too much credit to the 2 wins over the tornado because again, circumstances. There are just too many. When I write software, the first rule is dont change a bunch of crap when you have a problem. You will never know what the fix was if you do that. You attack one angle at a time and exhaust it before moving on.

I am a huge fan of sizzor and especially because of the build method, cheap! I personally think its a fast boat but I just don't know about taking a tornado from bout to bout on a reach. Upwind, sure. But then again, If you put Mario Andretti behind the wheel of a corolla and you and I drove a Porsche, we would still loose I'll bet.

 

Scissors is a beautiful and very refined boat. I saw it last year as a small regatta in Florida, where he was racing handicap against a mixed fleet. Kirk Newkirk's Nacra 20c, which owes Scissors time and is a doublehanded boat, beat Scissors boat for boat all three races. However Scissors corrected out over them in the first two races. A fourth place in the last race put the Nacra ahead for overall. This is the only hard comparison I've seen, and it should be noted that Kirk and crew are very good sailors. The Nacra is 20 feet LOA, and Scissors is 21 feet. The Nacra is also heavier and has two crew. There is a bit of apples to Oranges in my opinion. Add a 300 mile distance race to the equation and you really have dodgy data. I think this is a case of Doug hearing what he wants to instead of actually doing the homework or contacting Randy by email regarding his actual experience. Doug may be 100% correct about it this, but until I hear it from the horse's mouth, I'm not at all convinced by his claims and find them oversimplified.

 

Sizzor

Despite protestations and speculation to the contrary, Sizzor is faster than a Tornado. In the "Round the Island Race"(Ft. Walton to Pensacola thru the cut at Ft.Pickens and back thru the cut at Destin) Sizzor beat the Tornado and an ARC 27 boat for boat. Smyth was penalized and wound up second to the 27.
In the EC, 2014, Sizzor was one hour ahead of the first of two Tornado's at checkpoint 1.
There is just no question whatsoever that a tri can be designed to beat ANY beachcat its own length. More power, more comfort, faster.
I'd sure like to see what Osprey could do with its proper rig instead of the small rig in the picture. And why is it we don't see any small tri's using foil assist?
Osprey, about 423lb, LOA 18', Beam 22', SA in pix about 223-designed upwind SA close to 325 sq.ft., virtually unlimited RM Even with the small rig she took off in 6-7 knots wind. I'd like to see a Race between Osprey and the Flying Phantom and/or the 20' Nacra foiler-if Osprey had the rig she was designed for that would be a hell of a race.

Pictures, L to R, 1) on the beach by DL, 2&3) flying the first day by Dr. Sam:

 

The texel rating is mainly used in Europe, in true EU harmonisation, there is quite a lot of cross talk and swapping of ways of making both systems fairer. I think the recent addition of additional penalty for having various forms of lifting boards and high aspect boards such as the F18's are now using, mainly came from some of the contributors of Texel.

Both SCHRS and Texel are open formulae in that you can open up there excel spreadsheets and see the exact method of calculation which I must compliment them on. They are also very willing to talk to you if your club is showing a problem type or boat, but beware that you must have hard evidence to back yourself up on. I don't see a problem in that.

 

I would have to agree that the combination of Randy and Scissors in a multi leg race with any number of odd circumstances thrown in, over just a handful of races should be carefully used in any statistic.

My guess without crunching any numbers would be that Scissors should be giving time to the Tornado. Both my F16 and my A should I fit a blade jib to them, will be almost on equal ratings to the Tornado because of their light weight. If I was to open them out to 18ft beam and have light weight, then their ratings would be pretty horrendous.

 

I found results for the "Round the Island"(Santa Rosa) where Randy lost to a Nacra 17 w/spin. His average speed was a bit over 7 knots.
The rating system was USPN and the finishes were the same with or without the handicap. I've never heard of USPN and not getting any help from google so far.

 

US Portsmouth I believe, basically a statistical empirical based figure given on reported results rather than boat measured. A lot of clubs agree a figure, racing off that, just reviewing the number, raising it or lowering it depending on the mood of the handicap committee. It sort of works at club level.

The UK PHRF is now a great work in progress, the RYA have computer coupled the data using Sailwave to calculate club race data and then automatically update the overall data base using world wide data. Should eventually iron out the kinks of class fleets racing against other classes. It does require lots of data and as yet has few cat types.

 

The results sheet shows a USPN fleet and a PHRF fleet and another USPN fleet.