Grainger Spoon Bay Trimarans

I'm currently having a 12m trimaran designed but a number of Spoon Bay Trimarans have come onto the market that are seriously making me consider purchasing one instead, has anyone here sailed on or owned one of these trimarans? Any comments on tankage, sailing abilities and comfort when offshore would be appreciated. I'm hoping to have a boat that will be a capable design for the Round Australia Race whenever it happens.

 

Hi there
Perhaps get in contact with Nathan Stanton (ex Lightwave yachts) now Free Flow Catamarans/Stanton design, as when I worked for Nathan and Roger we did some work on a Grainger Trimaran that Nathan owned but I could not be sure what model it was sorry. Just a thought as Nathan is right up there in the knowledge stakes so he would be able to point you to someone who does or has sailed one. Just a thought.
Who is designing the trimaran for you?

Regards and all the best.

 

Thanks for the reply I'll see if I can get in touch with Nathan. I'm having the trimaran designed by Tim Clissold, he has done some preliminary work for me which is very impressive. My thoughts are of buying a Spoon Bay as a stopgap until the new boat is designed and built at $95k it seems like a great deal and a lot of boat for the money my only concern would be moving the boat on when I'm finished with it as selling trimarans in todays catamaran dominated market is not easy. I believe the boat in question (Hattrick) might be the old "Voodoo".

http://www.multihulls.net.au/index.php?page=ed&de=82289

 

I don't think you will go wrong with Tim he has alot of work going out presently both comissioned and poached by the 8.5 lads so he must be doing something right.
All the best.

 

Pretty sure thats not the case, that vessel with the orange stripes used to be moored at the head of burraneer bay Sydney(same bay as my boat), the guy that owned it then had a Cole 23 too.
Voodoo was built at Kurnell in Sydney & was a pretty fast, tough boat, I never sailed on it but associates had & seen better than 20 on her & I think it would sell for more but who knows in a tough market. I think there may have been 3 or 4 of the spoon bay boats built, the builder of Voodoo used to contribute to multihulls@steamradio.com http://steamradio.com/pipermail/multihulls/ so try there for info.Regards from Jeff.

 

I can recall Voodoo came onto the market through Multihulls Australia about 3 years ago at about $125,000 it didn't sell till it dropped to $95,000 it is a tough market.

 

Don't build a big tri

Unless you are rich I would warn you off building a 12m tri. I went through the same track 15 years ago. After owning a Nugget and then a Twiggy I drew a 12m Spoon Bay meets a Searunner tri. I still think it is a nice boat. I worked for Shaun Arber for free for about 10 weeks to learn strip planking. Every time I asked him for some help he would tell me I was an idiot for building a tri - They are harder to build and will sell for much less money he said.

One night when I was playing around with the interior of the design and I sketched out an accomodation plan for a cat. It had many times more room. We built the cat and I have never regretted it.

Unless you just want to race the boat I would caution you against building a tri. You will lose a heap of money. An equivalent 10.6 metre cat would not be selling for the prices of these Spoon Bays yet they would cost pretty much the same to build. Therefore going with a tri will probably cost you about $80 000. If you can handle this fine - I couldn't accept heaps less room and less comfort at anchor.

If your boat is going to be a big Voodoo Spirit then it will probably be a racing boat. I would not like to cruise long term on a boat like VS. The big floats will work pretty hard at sea and cause severe jarring unless you put the foot down. As an experienced and successful racer I did not want to have to do this again after two trips north in my Twiggy. For the sake of my wife and baby I often had to slow right down and had a fast tri just loping along to stop banging. Then we still had the problems of space and lack of load carrying the fast tri brought along.

BUT Buying a tri makes huge sense. A Spoon Bay has heaps of room for a couple. There were some problems with beams but this has been solved now. You get most of the advantages of a cat with much less cost. I would like to put canted foils into the floats for two reasons. The Spoon Bay rocks around a bit at anchor and slams in chop (or one did that I was on). Also I like to dry out and live on board and leaning over is a pain. Even without the foils I would make a small set of alloy poles with feet on them to keep a tri flat on the sand. I used to use the daggerboard on the Twiggy but nowadays I would make something up.

If you do go down the buying road - Bob Hutchings - whom Egan should know built Voodoo at Kurnell. Hat trick was built in South Australia. I think she may have had John West's rig popped on her. Check the beams - I recall there was some damage and work done to remedy them. Bigger Graigner tris from this period had some problems - Emu and MTB 920. Add more uni and DB and you will be fine.

cheers

Phil

 

Round Australia

A follow up to before

I just reread that you may want to do the Round Oz race. I haven't done any offshore multi racing of note but I did read what Lock Crowther wrote after the 1988 one. Although tris got first and second the cats came through well.

On the first night Escapade capsized - it was a very dirty night and a mono lost a crew member. Off Tassie St Therese capsized. Yumi Maru pulled out. All tris.

I am paraphrasing stuff I read last about 10 years ago but I seem to recall that Lock was of the opinion that the cats - No fixed address (Arber 38) and John West (Cowther 40) handled the very tough conditions well. He thought that 40ft was the mimimum size required and that cats seemed better at handling tough conditions. Verbatim (Crowther tri) was 40ft and easily beat the others. Ian and Cathy were very experienced.

My thoughts - build a cat (Obvious) - probably just as fast in heavier conditions and safe due to greater roll moment of inertia.

-Look up old magazines and trawl through Lock's ideas. Call Ian and Cathy and tell them what you want. They sail cats too. Mark Pescott sailed Yumi Maru. Gavin le Suer sailed John West. Call them and ask heaps of questions to get a better idea of what the boat needs. From what I recall all of the racers came back very sober about the conditions and the would have strong ideas about the boat's requirements.

cheers

Phil

 

Tim and I have discussed the issues and have extended the boat to 45' with a stern extension, to me I prefer the dynamics of the trimaran and am prepared to compromise on the issues of space and comfort as the boat is not intended to be a permanent live aboard proposition maybe for 2-3 months at a time maximum. I've heard the arguments of seaworthiness but tank testing results I've read have suggested that at the extreme high buoyancy float trimarans do quite well in large wave action.

I've read Lock Crowther's thoughts on the bicenntenial race by the way and would be very interested in getting in contact with Cathy and Ian re their thoughts on a suitable design and what they would have changed on Verbatim to better suit extreme conditions I have no idea how to contact them though anyone have an email or ph no for contact that they could send via PM?

 

I can't find an address for Ian and Cathy. They are involved in the wooden boat festival in Tassie, the wooden boat centre

http://www.woodenboatcentre.com/staff.htm

and coach kids at Kingston (I think)

Also their old boat is still kicking around

http://currentsunshine.com/

get out for a sail on it and check out a fast tri

I am sure you can track them down.

cheers

Phil

 

Verbatim

I too want a fast cruising Tri of around 45 ft.
Currently cruising on my owner built 40ft cat i get addicted to the speed and want more of it!
Ive got so much room on this thing that i find cobwebs in rooms i havent been in for 6 months.
I would be happy to trade off the room for speed and have been a big fan of Bullfrog/verbatim/Baleena/Current sunshine.
I even have a set of plans for the tri and am considering modifying it to 45ft with alternative construction matterial, Speed speed speed - Love it

 

you might like to have a look at this thread
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/42ft-racing-trimaran-35107-2.html

I uploaded some pics of the concept work that Tim Clissold has done for me on a modern take on a performance composite 12m trimaran. I did not go ahead and get plans drawn because my wife and I have decided with a young family and work commitments we are unable to go cruising and ocean racing right now maybe in 5 years.