fast but lightweight cruiser

Thanks for the reply Gary. Good to see you are still thinking about it. I have started to reread your Sid thread to study the construction more. Somewhere in that thread you said you used if I remember correctly the freeship software program. Is that correct and if so Is there a thread you can recomend to learn about it. Your boat Sid has really got me interested in coming up with something myself. I am by nature a hot rodder. In that I take a proven design and change it to suit my needs. I like to tinker with things, see how I can improve them. You have opened my eyes to see that if a boat is built light, simple and without high tech materials the entry cost is much lower.
nelson

 

There are some Freeship tutorials on the net, google.
Have to say I use Freeship very basically, more to look at what might be possible (and to compare the differing design readouts) because when building Sid, I only loosely adhered to the measurements and pretty images and ended up following my nose. Interestingly, I thought Sid would end up 30odd% heavier than the reality, just building in old fashioned bent ply and light glass/carbon sheathing; complete boat ended up at 235 kgs ... so far seems strong enough.

 

docking and anchoring

Last night I started thinking how I would use such a boat. Now I am speaking only from my experience with monohulls and cats that I have sailed on. I have never owned or sailed on a trimaran. My question is with the short floats what would docking be like. From what I have read a normal tri noses into the dock with one of the float bows. A round fender on the float bow seems to be the favorite. Tie off the bow and bring in the stern either with motor or a long stern line. This is with no wind of course. Would the short floats be a problem. I realize with sid and groucho being tied on to a mooring you might not have to dock very often. In my area on the great lakes there are no moorings and not much in the way of ancorages. So docking will be quite often.
I did a lot of cruising when I was younger on my schooner. Docking I didn't have to do much except to fuel up/water or at the customs dock. Mostly it was anchoring out and using the dingy, this was east coast US and Canada and the caribean. Where would you keep the anchors on board? I dont like them in the bow for weight reasons. Closer to the mast and low is my preference. With my schooner I carried 6 anchors of various sizes, but I realize on a multi there is a limit to what you can carry weight wise.
Nelson

 

Thanks Gary
I will look at the freeship tutorials.
nelson

 

Good questions, Nelson. My designs are square or close to, beam to length. So entering a marina is something I don't consider - because manoeuvrability would be tricky in close confines. Also Sid and Groucho for their size, are very light and carry reasonable sized wing masts ... so in fresher winds, nosing to a dock, you would have to come in dead to wind - and that is mostly not possible. This is something I've actually not considered because I moor in open areas - or run ashore or close to, because of multihull very shallow draft. The long sloping transom makes getting on and off the boat easy.
One time we walked Groucho along the jetty out of Westhaven marina and then jumped aboard (onto the short float, no problem), walked along the beam and sailed under the wing mast alone to clear the area. Groucho has no motor. So normally I avoid these places. Although in the past I've seen Mullet boats skilfully sailing into the marina area, this is now frowned upon and I think, even illegal today. Pity. But probably sensible.
Groucho has an anchor area, sort of a shallow well with a cover, just forward of the mast base. I carry it forward to bow to anchor. Also carry a two part dinghy/paddleboard thing each side of the cabin.
Sid's alloy (of course, ha) anchor is stored down below by the dagger case.
If you sensibly carried an outboard on your proposed multi and placed a fender or two outside the float, can't see any problems coming into a marina; would be the same as any other trimaran. Bow and stern lines would keep you in correct position, same as usual. However the wing mast has to be watched. If a gale comes, it needs to be feathered into the wind direction. On a mooring, of course, the boat weather cocks and you have no problems with mast positioning.

 

Thanks for the reply Gary. I should have asked you what type of cruising you want to do. Since this is your design.It would seem to me that a wing mast that is not too deep would be a better choice if entering tight quarters alot.ie marinas. Most of the sailing I did was single handed so I tend to think things through before hand so I am prepared. I like to sail up/off an anchorage without using the motor.
So I would think cruising sounds like it can be done alright with a foiler.
On page 1 of the light brigade and I quote" in reality everyone is trying to go slow. But that is what the majority wants-they would like sports cars but invariably end up with family saloons." I believe you wrote this and I couldn't agree more. But Ferrari makes four door family saloons now. So maybe we can have our cake and eat it too. A light weight and minimalist cruiser may be able to do everything.
I was anchored in St.Georges bay on the island of Bermuda one day when a trimaran sailed into the harbour with 2 sailors on board. I later heard that they had taken 3 and 1/2 days to cross to Bermuda from New york. I had done much the same passage on my schooner and it took me 8 1/2 days and had run into a hurricane coming up the coast of the US. If I had gotten in faster I would have missed all those 9 metre waves that I has so much fun with. At that time I wished I could have sailed that fast. But the idea of sailing a tri didn't occur to me thinking that it was only a racing machine and not suitable for a live abourd cruiser. How I was wrong.
nelson

 

Well, one of the real joys of sailing/cruising is sailing fast and effortlessly. I've been on too many slow dogs to ever enjoy plodding along again.
I think we're seeing, because of the recent appearance and acceptance of foil supported craft like the AC and C Class, more will appear, both from crazed individuals and production builders too (even Gunboat is coming out with a radical beauty).
Actually that quote from Light Brigade is from Jim Young - he was 100% correct.
Lock Crowther was years ahead of his time with his Buccaneer tris, which were and are fast cruisers. We crossed the Firth of Thames from the top end of Te Kouma to Ponui Island on a stock B24 at an average of 15 knots, took an hour ... on a cruiser - and that was before the boat was altered with longer main hull, foils, new rudder and so on. Did I mention it was fun?

 

Wow. I was just looking at a map of New Zealand. What a great place to be able to sail. All those inlets, bays and islands.
How far a field did you or Jacques plan on sailing with three devils? Would she be ocean capable? Or only meant for coastal cruising?
Gary you have been sailing Sid for a couple of years now. How has the light construction held up?
nelson

 

Yes, we are absolutely spoiled here with Hauraki Gulf islands and the Northland coast.
Three Devils is just a loose plan, no reality as yet.
Sid is far too cramped below to enjoy cruising, really just a day sailer.
Sid is holding up very well; there are a few places where the deck bends a little underfoot - now reinforced with a layer or two of carbon.
On my first multihull, Supplejack, one of the first open wing deck catamarans here, 1979, the owner of a Kraken 40, Duncan Stuart (who had the top boat here, Krisis - until we beat him) came on board once and remarked/quipped,
"If you close your eyes you can't tell the difference between walking on the trampoline or on the deck."

 

Hello Gary,
Yes, you do have a really special place to live and it looks like you can launch from your own beach. I was there in 01 and only wish I had stayed longer. I did get to see the long white cloud though and I'll never forget that.
I am writing because I have really enjoyed your posts here, both with the boats you have been building and sailing and the historical contributions. Also because I noticed that you use the compound plywood method on some of your boats.
I'm wondering how you got started with that method and how scientific you are with modeling for designing hulls.
I have always loved the Tornado hull shapes and have admired what the Gougeon's could do with this method, but I always saw it as a very esoteric method that only a few people could do well.
Recently I have been thinking about building a small racing trimaran and have started trying to learn the tortured plywood method by making scale models as described in the Gougeon book.
I have only just started but have made a model Tornado hull from panel offsets available online. Next, I'll work on modeling a fuller main hull shape.
Have you found that models scale up accurately? I'm very interested in your take on the method and hope you don't mind telling me a bit about your experience with it.

Russell

 

hi Russell, I am not scientific, don't make models, make a few drawings, tend to follow my nose. learn a little from mistakes - but not always because I continue to find different ways to horribly mess up. Like right now, this afternoon in hard gusting winds, the loads were to much for Sid's mast base and it collapsed. I sailed home with the mast spanner resting on the box area of the beam. Luckily I have block and tackle shrouds so was able to tension the floppy rig up. More carbon reinforcing needed in that area.
Rodney March's original stressed ply Tornado design is still a modern multihull, even though it was designed in 1968 - I call that genius. Likewise the Gougeons.
I like the method because you end up with a very light yet stiff hull, beam. mast etc ... just make sure you have the right amount of carbon in the high load areas.

 

Hi Gary. What surprises me when I look at the build pictures of Sid is how few stringers you have along the inside of the hull. From what I can see there is only one where the forward bunk and aft bunk sit on. I just don't have the experience in tortured ply to know how stiff the hull is in any one place. I know that the ply will be very stiff because of the curve induced into it. But how much deflection there is when sailing would be interesting to know. I don't know if deflection is a bad thing or a good thing. Just curious thinking about it.
Your coming into spring now as we are getting snow. Do you do much sailing in the winter season in NZ?
nelson

 

Thanks for the reply Gary.
I figured that you were more of an artist than a scientist. I need to get my head around the tortured ply thing in a way that is predictable. Maybe I'm more of a scientist.
Sorry about the mast base. Sounds like an adventure.
Santa Cruz, I have an ancient set of plywood Tornado hulls on my motorboat. There are two stringers in the flatter section of the hull. The skin is 3 or 4 mm thick. These hulls have seen some extreme use in the 15 years or so that they have been carting me around and so far so good.
My wife put together a video of last summer's trip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41qoqxMVkBU&list=UUVkWkVo0rpJ1I3xgJjmYUFQ

 

Russell, what a great boat(s)! And what a spectacular place to live. Thanks to you and your wife for letting us see the video.

 

Russell, seeing that excellent video and your outside-the-box thinking, the tensioned ply technique for you to comprehend should be zero problem.
If you feel uncomfortable with the "unscientific" approach there is a slightly more conventional way ... and that is to build upside down, lay out your keel stringer, frames, gunwhales and bunk stringers ... and then staple glue one length of a scafed ply sheet at a time to the keel stringer, let it cure then epoxy coat the insides of the sheets then bend them down to staple/glue to the gunwhales. For transitional areas where the tapering bow sections change to the tapering to stern after sections, shorten your scarfed ply lengths. I know this reads as too simple ... but it is.
ps: Repaired, rebuilt and strengthened the below male mast bearing on Sid this afternoon; the reinforcing plate had shattered so laid in multiple layers of carbon around the new pile.
Nelson, the curved areas of the hulls, sheathed in epoxy box weave glass are very stiff, no deflection. The flatter area, like on deck require some carbon and extra bracing.