fast but lightweight cruiser

Nelson, never put storage in floats, well, okay, maybe a fishing rod and such like. There was a period in the 1950s and 60s when fat cruising trimarans used the floats for accommodation and gear; it is a dangerous thing to do - you need buoyancy out there to leeward (or lifting foils?) but they got away with it because the boats were overblown, narrow overall beam, heavy and slow. If they were faster, they would have got into trouble.
3 Devils has long tube-like but maybe 100% floats because the platform is conventional 2 beam spread apart (so might as well make use of the beam design) - but the boat also carries lifting foils out there too.
In my opinion, you can't lug gear on lightweight multihulls; you have to be miserly in the comfort thing, very much like back packing. I mean all you want is some shelter, narrow sleeping area, basic cooking etc ... and the best luxury of all, fast sailing.

 

Well unfortunately a person has to carry a minimum of gear on a cruising boat. Like fenders/dock lines. That is what I thought would go in the floats. If the design has good size cockpit lockers they could go in there. Fenders are bulky but not very heavy. I can see that I will be keeping line size to a minimum just to keep weight down. Not too many charts, a minimum of tools for repairs. A sewing kit. But to take a long passage you have to have enough water and food. A light tri will be faster, If it took me 6 weeks before on my mono for a passage 3 weeks might be possible but you still need a safety margin. It wouldn't be nice to run out of water.
nelson

 

Gary is a bit of an extremist and on extreme craft it is best not to load up small foil borne amas as the volume is minimal, enough to hopefully keep things upright until speed builds enough for the foils to work.

A cruising tri is a different beastie and has enough volume to sail without foils, the old ones are great multipurpose boats built for more than speed. On them fenders are ok to put out there, indeed they are buoyant and can help if you had a ama flood catastrophe. Weight in amas does change the motion, akin to a longer pole for a tight rope walker the roll speed is reduced, this will change how a boat responds on waves and needs to be considered on a case by case basis as there are too many tri/ama variations to generalize. Fore and aft placement of any ama weight s critical for safety, nothing should be near the bows for the obvious reasons and nothing should be too far astern so pitching isn't increased. On the other end of the tri cruising extreme, Ed Horstman told me his roomerans were fine with the load in the amas or main hull as long as it was evenly distributed and kept out of the ends. You should always respect the designers parameters. if a boat doesn't have what you need, a different one is in order. Choosing the compromises between speed, load, utility etc...require you to be come clear with how you want to use your boat. And not generalize because there are many different approaches lumped together under the word trimaran.

 

Yes I understand Gary is a bit of an extremist. That is why I find his designs so interesting. They are built for pure fun. Three devils is supposed to be a cruising boat for Jacque, but I don't know how he wants to use it. At the monent he is still playing with his trailertri.
Your comment about weight in the amas changing the motion hadn't occured to me. I have been following a few farrier build blogs and one of things they have been incorporating in the stern just in front of the rudder is a floodable water tank. I am not sure what this is supposed to accomplish. Two of the boats will be raced, the third is a pure cruising boat.
nelson

 

The stern water ballast sounds like it is for keeping the bows up when running/surfing hard downwind.

Slowing the roll moment can actually make some conditions more comfortable if you have amas that can carry a bit.

The easy way to see how a tri will react to weight placement is to move volunteers around on deck during a sail to get a feel for things. Weight in the stern of amas should be avoided to keep diagonal stability going upwind. If you stall before getting to the top of a wave that is the buoyancy that will keep you from going over.

For featherweight tri cruising I think a manual watermaker is a good idea to keep weight down. That kind of sailing really rewards the backpack approach.

 

Farriers have fat arses; good for load carrying and double beds but the high buoyancy has a tendancy to push the bows down in larger waves when sailing offwind. Carrying water ballast in stern sections is a compromise that the design is incorrect (bias is too much one way). The solution is simple (to extremists) if designing a new boat, fine the sterns down ... and carry foils in the amas; and a T foil rudder will stop all the imbalanced nonsense too. These things are not difficult to understand and to implement.

 

Sounds reasonable.... I am reminded though the Polynesians shifted the group around to balance things out, modern man with fewer friends needs more gadgets.... I do side with the Rudy Choy school of move the sailbags around but if it gets beyond that either the proportions are wrong or the crew is getting greedy for speedy....

 

To those who still say my 22ft Wizard catamaran is a slow boat, despite me posting photos and gps logs, never mind owners reports, to disprove it, I got this email today.

"we came in 3rd in the race 2 weeks ago from Marina del Rey to Malibu and back. We finished ahead of the L7 (4th place) and 2 F-31's, among others. We were 3 minutes late at the start (confusion with start sequence on PHRF fleet ahead of us, and really light, drifting conditions at that time) and the boat ahead of us was 3 min on corrected time.

boat was going well in light, 5-8 kt, winds with 4 on board. maybe should have jettisoned some for the downwind leg."

I assume the writer is telling the truth, not making it up. As you can see I have not edited the email, so some text is a bit strange

Obviously racing a 22ft boat with four people, not two, in light winds meant it was overloaded, so it could have gone a lot quicker

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

www.sailingcatamarans.com

 

In my very limited experience racing cats vs. tris, the (light) cats seem to have an advantage in lighter air vs the tris, especially if the cat can get the ww hull flying early. Its when it pipes up, and the cat either has to depower (because it was already powered up in the light) or be sailed exceptionally well to keep up with the heavier tri in big air..

In general, I believe a well sailed, powered up cat is faster than a tri in most coastal conditions. Take a look at this article.

http://www.sebschmidt.ch/portfolio/99143/article/99143_article_Seahorse_Aug2000.pdf

The Tri however has significant advantages if you are a mere mortal and not a sailing god. The L7 can be pushed very hard without fear of capsize. The stability curves of a trimaran also provide a safety factor when compared to catamarans.
Others may disagree, but as a mono hull sailor who converted to a cat I can say that having my maximum righting moment at 9 degrees of heel is counter intuitive after a decades of monohull sailing. I look at the success of fleets like the lightnings, flying scots, thistles, perhaps even the i550 for example, and I think sailors such as those would be better off in a 20 trimaran vs. a beach cat. Personally, again, after growing up on such boats as the lightning and ballasted monohulls, I can say beach cats are a handfull. They are a blast, but I suspect many excellent lightning sailors don't have the strength and skill to handle a cat. Such boats, like a powered up cat, in my opinion, are more difficult to sail well, and a trimaran, although not as high performing in the top speed potential department, can be sailed to it's potential by mere mortals more quickly... and safely.

These are generalizations, that I'm sure have many legitimate exceptions, I'm trying to focus on the faster smaller beach cats vs. trimarans in the 20' to 25' range.

And this is why the Pulse 600 could really help grow the club multihull sailing scene.. If the Pulse takes off, the potential for a home brewed design to race with the pulse becomes appealing; and if the fleets become popular, I would hope we could steal some of the younger, more enthusiastic sailors from the lightning and thistle type fleets.

 

Beach cats are a handful, but only because the sail area is not routinely reduced as wind increases. No one would consider using the same sail area in 0 and 30kts for a yacht, regardless of number of hulls. We used a H14 mainsail on the H17 when it was windy, and the difference in speed was not really noticable, but the difference in control was huge. The main can be cleated and just steer the gusts, instead of having to play the sheets. Capsize becomes something you have to positively allow to happen, instead of being a lapse of concentration away.

 

perfect cruising toilet

I found this toilet that is perfect for the cruising boat. Gets rid of the hoses, holding tank, valves and is legal for boats.https://www.airheadtoilet.com/
Take a look. Its pretty neat.
nelson

 

Not sure of the connection to this thread.

Personally we have a C-head composting toilet and after two seasons experience would never go back to a porta potti or conventional marine toilet again

Richard Woods

 

Well this thread is about gary's cruising trimaran and thought he could use a head for it.
nelson

 

The C head looks like an excellent solution. I'm not a fan of marine toilets with thru hulls or holding tanks this looks like a much more elegant and simple method.

 

Since I'm clarifying ideas on the 6.5m Bad Insect performance/cruiser design, (which I think would be a good choice for Everglades Challenge) realized I'd not posted any images of changes to my proposed 10m Cruise Missile - so here's a couple showing the soft step in hull topsides, to allow more interior room, also will stiffen the hull at same time.