Hedley Nicol Trimaran Plans

I have a complete set of plans for Hedly Nicols 36' Vagabond MKII Tri.
These are the original blueprints still in their stout mailing tube and never been used. Thirteen sheets,including full size patterns, building instructions and materials list are included.
Hedley called it a racer, but by todays standards it would be an attractive fast cruising sloop. $50.00 plus postage. PM me if interested.

 

Vagabond MK2 plans

Hi,
I would like to purchase those plans if they are still available. I own a Cavalier MK2 that is a modification of that boat and have been trying to find plans for some time. It is a great fast cruiser, I've compared details with other boats but plans sure would be handy.

Chris
wyrdboats@gmail.com

 

I'm still interested in those plans! My boat is 37' long which corresponds to some information I've received about the Mk2 design. I took photos of two 36' Mk1 variations in Canada last summer, the difference was mainly in the ama stern sections and profiles. The mk2 main bow also has more rake. Let me know if you still have them, I don't mind the postage. My son and I would like to make a good size model for various tests and have been slowly making patterns and taking measurements but would prefer to have the official plans for a reference, as well as insurance against disasters. The Searunner and Cross guys have these things easy ! Australia is about 18 hours ahead of us here but I can set my alarm if I need to work with you on your local time.

 

I'm sorry to disappoint you Chris, but those plans sold within an hour and are now on their way to Vermont.
Hope you can find some other plans to help you out. I appreciate the difficulty of restoring or replacing these old but good designs.
Cheers. OS7

 

Thanks for the reply, can you ask the chap in Vermont if they would be interested in making a copy of them to cover their purchase price? You guys in Australia have a home field advantage on finding these things though I have found a fair amount of the boats over here.

 

Vagabond MKII Tri Plans

Email me if you are still looking for plans.

 

Hi,
I've sent an email, we are still looking for Vagabond MK2 plans, any help in locating some is appreciated.

 

Floats and stuff

Gday all

I don't mean to stick an unwanted nose into this thread but I would urge caution if you are looking for ideas on the crossbeam design.

Hedley Nicol tris didn't seem to have any extra bracing on the wing cross sections that ran fore and aft of the cabin. There were a number that had significant structural issues (floats fell off) with this. Most wing deck tris had box beams here (Piver) or more doubling of the sections. (I don't have any plans just a photo or two of Nicols bulding yard in the 60s with a few tris being built.)

A nice Cavalier that was launched in the early 80s had reinforcing fillets led to the floats from the wing deck. I also know of two people who circumnavigated from Australia - one on a Wanderer and the other a Vagabond Mk1. The Vagabond builder/owner still has her so the boats can be structurally sound.

Good wishes with your boat

Phil Thompson

 

Hi Catsketcher,
I have enough engineering that I'm not looking for beam ideas. My boat has a beefy triple section box beam under the mast and what amounts to a wide section box beam aft. It is actually stuck together stronger than a searunner where the wing deck frames, aside from the 2 mainstrength bulkheads, just attach onto the ama sides. On a Nicol those frames continue into the amas and attach to the ama frames. Where the racing Nicols were light was in the ama framing. When fitted with stronger frames and timbers connecting the beams to the amas no problems developed and were mods suggested by Nicol's yard in the 60s after the first boats were launched. As in all things not everybody gets the updates! Francis Smith from Australia wrote an excellent book called Pelinta that is still in print chronicling the construction and years of use of a Nicol Islander he built in the 60s. He covered these structural issues and the fixes after the first boats were launched. Over here in the NW I talked to Ernest Haig who lost an ama on his 40' Nicol buccaneer prototype that he built without much factory support. Interestingly he arrived at a similar fix as the Australians. While he thinks the boats were built light he did admit that his problems came from overloading. He had a heavy diesel, big tanks and 4 teenage daughters for his first trip around the world and went on to complete a second. When his wing broke it was from wood fatigue at the thin area where the wide cabin formed a fulcrum. The boat stayed together and was towed over 1000 NM by a tanker to Alaska then SAILED home to Canada where the boat got turned into a guesthouse. Not bad for light construction. I added up the weight based on my pounds per inch immersion (which is less than his) and figured that he was routinely sailing with a 3500- 4500 pound overload and put 100,000 miles on the boat. He is happier with a monohull and people who want to carry that kind of load should stick to them. We are looking for plans primarily for a lines reference, while I can take them off my boat sometimes it is fun not to ! Plus we want to build and compare different sailing tri models. They can be really great boats and the number of well built ones still going decades on and the trips they've made have proven the designs many times over. Good construction and the updates are a must though as there isn't the margin for sloppy work as there is in some boats. It is getting harder to find Cruising tri designs and a pity that Nicol's work as well as Crowther's are so hard to find. Over here the Mariners Museum in (I think) Newport News Virginia has the Piver Collection as well as much of Dick Newick's work and will eventually also have the work of Jim Brown.

 

Re reading your post I'm not sure if you thought the forward wing was unbraced or the whole thing was hollow. There are wing frames (akas) connected to the ama frames there too as well as intermediates connected to the ama sides with full length deck stringers. Depending on the wing deck length counting the main triple beam you could have from 8 or 9 to 11 wing frames/akas. Ernest doubled the skin on the forward wing bottom fairing but I think I would suggest a inner kevlar lamination (works in tension that way) to save weight if you're driving hard overloaded.

 

Sounds good

I like Nicols - I had designs on a Vagabond Mk1 when I had a Nugget. Then some bloke came and bought it.

I liked the Haigh stories. They were well covered in a great Aussie cruising mag that is now bust - Cruising skipper. There was also another one called Triventure that lost its float near Madagascar. It like Pelinta was a 29 footer - I have lost my memory - I used to know the model - an Islander! That's it.

We met a family of 7 living on an Islander. There were kids in the floats as well. Needless to say the kids left as soon as they could. The boat may have been Pelinta - I can't recall.

We have a great Vagabond Mk2 on the coast that absolutely rips around. I saw it on Pittwater and it was whizzing around awfully well. Kept light the boats were awfully fast - When John Hitch set the Gladstone record Sid Luxford on Renegade was not that far behind and did not have the two large downwind sails the Kraken 33 had.

good luck with your models

Phil Thompson

 

We've used ours to teach/introduce sailing to 6-8th grade school kids and take injured army soldiers sailing. The boat does rip but we treat it like an airplane, more passengers= less baggage. The wing deck trimarans are really great for this sort of thing and very easy to work on the decks in bad weather as well as drier. In the current performance boats it seems this element is often overlooked but utility in the real world is often worth a knot or two.

Val Haig, who wrote most of the articles also wrote a book about their adventures called "Chasing The Dream - Tryst Around the World."

I noticed that Renegade was for sale for some time and thought Shawn Arbor's modifications were very well done. He has redone several Nicols and the work is always beautiful. The models will be fun to test things on, including the limits! I suppose we'll have to water proof some RC components.

 

Hedley Nicol plans

Hi Guys,
Interesting thread on the Nicols, A member of my family owns and single hands a Cavalier out of Airlie beach, Australia. A beautiful strongly built (Heavy) cruising trimaran, described by a well know designer/builder/surveyor in Brisbane as the strongest Nicol tri he's seen, although not the fastest (No slouch tho).
If anyone else out there in the wonderfull world of the internet has any plans (or copies) I would be interested in purchasing.
Thanks,
Gypsy28

 

The first thing to figure out is it a mk1 or mk2? I'm not sure if there were lines plans or just the patterns but the lines can be generated from the patterns. The amas on a mk1 are a bit wider on the transoms and a little shorter. Cavaliers often have a wider cabin to get double wing bunks in. Check out Chili Magic (sp?] on one of the australian multihull club sights to see a mk2. Bill Kristopherson ? in Canada developed heavier constructed trimarans based on Nicol's concepts called kismets. The first one I saw I thought it was a modified Islander. Hedley Nicol models were Clipper 25', Islander 29', Wanderer 35' , Vagabond mk1 36' , cavalier mk1 36', vagabond mk2 and Cavalier mk2 at 37' , Buccaneer 40', Voyager 45'. The Australian contingent can maybe fill in more details. I'd love to archive plans for all those boats so owners/builders can have a reference, you aussies have some great multihull history and those boats are all over the world still.

 

Great information Cavalier MK2

What are the differences between the Vagabond and the Cavalier, and the MKI and MKII?