Waterstay tension on Tremolino trimaran

Since I have less time and a little more money at the moment I bought an early Tremolino trimaran to get out on the water. This model uses the hobie floats and has a ply main hull, It was dirt cheap and is in good useable condition, my question relates to the waterstays. I've fitted up the floats on the beams and am curious what the general consensus is on waterstay tension. I gather I want some tension on the waterstays when the floats are hanging in the air on the ends of the beams but not too much.

 

Gday Owen

I had this problem with my Twiggy decades ago. My one would have all three hulls do their own thing which I thought was normal. I went out sailing on a friends one and his was like a homogenous whole - it all moved together on the waves. So I went back to my boat and tightened the underwires until my Twiggy moved like a single boat rather than three hulls sort of staying together. So tighten up till you get the thing as a single unit when sailing.

 

Thanks Phil, I was thinking along those lines and perhaps pretensioning the stays prior to rig fitment will make the thing a little stiffer. It's a pretty clever system really and nicely thought out the waterstays go to a pin that also inserts through the float attachment base and doubles as a mount for the sidestays. I'm guessing that once the rig is on and tensioned everything will make more sense.

 

Those are great boats Corely. Keep us posted.

 

Corely.

The rig stays tensions the float stays, I found on the TC 601 a balance of pretension on the float stays and then tensioning up the rig to where it just starts to lock the mast rotation, had it to a point where you could lift a front corner of the Ama's and get almost the same lift on the central hull. A lack of tension on the float stays or on the rig meant a really floppy boat. I found it best to put a 4:1 loop in the stays ( I used soft ties everywhere rather than steel shackles ) and then you could almost micro manage each tension on every part of the system. Good luck and have fun it'll be nice to be back on the water.

 

That worked out well, once the rig was on everything made sense and stiffened up nicely. I now have a shrinking list of things to do prior to launch, test run the outboard in a drum, fix a companionway leak, sort out the steering (it has a rope to a sliding track in the cockpit system, I'm just going to fit a tiller), sort out the uphaul and downhaul on the rudder that doesn't work very well. Does anyone have any thoughts on an appropriate anchor to use mostly in mud? I was thinking something like a little 3kg Bruce or Rocna on a bow roller with a couple of metres of chain and 12mm anchor rope? 12mm seems way oversized with what I'm reading maybe 10mm or smaller may be adequate?

 

A danforth would do. 9-10mm on the line would be plenty. There is a old Hobie 16 kicking around here so keep us posted!

 

I've made a bit more progress towards launching over the weekend. Laminated up a tiller out of WRC and west epoxy that I had on the fibreglass shelf. I need to test fit it to work out the point where it meets the stock will probably just let it into the area between the aluminium cheeks of the rudder case and bolt it on.

 

I test ran the outboard today, it's a stinky and noisy 2 stroke 3.5hp Chinese Hangkai motor which I'll run with for now but would like to move to 4 stroke. Any recommendations on a 4hp 4 stroke that is a decent performer and quiet? Doesn't have to be longshaft.

 

Launched her today, stinky outboard caused problems and pull cord starter rope ripped off third pull. Was made up for by seeing the little bird floating high on her lines and looking light and lovely. I'll fix the outboard tomorrow and hopefully get some sailing in soon. Adventures in gunkholing on Westernport Bay with friends and family to come.

 

Beautiful, like a bird floating on the water. I'm sure you'll have fun.

 

Way to go Corley!

 

Thanks guys, will move it to my double ended mooring today in Warneet if the weather is right. No antifoul at the moment but thought I'd enjoy the boat for a few weeks prior to hauling her out on the trailer and fixing anything that needs attention.

 

Well just shifting the boat from it's mooring in Cannons Creek was a bit of an adventure in itself. When I arrived the tide was still a bit low and the boat was sitting on a sandbank near the channel dried out. The water soon arrived at speed and I prepped the little dinghy that is at Allcraft Marine to paddle out but unfortunately hadn't accounted for how strongly the current was flowing in the main part of the channel and soon found myself floating away from the boat upstream. I found that the one paddle in the boat used canoe style wasn't adequate to make headway against it so paddled over towards the mangroves and threw the painter over a more solid branch. I had the auxiliary outboard for the boat onboard with me in the dinghy so clamped that onto the stern of the dinghy at which point I discovered the very dubious way in which the chopped strand and roving laminates in the transom had been laid up and how little stiffness they had. With the little dinghy's stern flexing rather alarmingly managed to gently motor back up to the boat and secure the painter to the back of the trimaran. Transferring the motor over I discovered that the motor has a problem with it's inertia starter, a fair bit of cursing at the thing along with some careful dissasembly and reassembly saw me able to start it and begin a very slow run down the inlet towards Warneet.

The 3.5hp two stroke was just able to make headway if the boat was gently guided towards the less vigorous areas of current in the channel and steerage was pretty good as long as movement of the tiller was gentle. Arriving near my mooring I realised my fuel situation was pretty dire I'd taken a spare tank but the slow motoring drained it at a pace I hadn't anticipated. I pulled up at the pontoon near the boat ramp at Warneet South to take stock and decided there was enough fuel to make it out to the mooring. When I prepared to head off the outboard had a new trick for me with the starter pullcord knot snapping off at the join to the handle and the cord rewinding inside the casing. I was just about ready to throw the ******* into the sea at that point but a calmer me prevailed and I pulled it apart and repaired it by fitting new cord and carefully adjusting the run of the cord to minimise any off axis pull by screwing a fairlead to the outboard bracket.

By this stage the wind had dropped and the tide was flowing somewhat less strongly so a gentle motor over to the mooring and a relaxed tie off took place, with a decent dinghy in tow this time that I had borrowed from the lovely guys over at Warneet yacht club. I went about doing some final jobs on the boat untying the fenders and putting them away, tidying up the deck and stowing the loose gear down below in the cuddy. As I pulled away from the boat I realised that I'd not fitted the tarp to cover the leaking companionway hatch or pulled up the pivoting rudder. Minor stuff in the scheme of things but I'll attend to them when I'm down next and get the sails ready to go.

So my conclusions from the day A) I need a larger outboard 3.5hp would probably do on a tender but isn't much chop on a 23' trimaran with a fair bit of windage B) Auxiliary fuel tanks have to be bigger than you would think C) Dont rush through your boat jobs and make sure you attend to everything before you leave the boat D) There is nothing better than messing around in boats even if things do go a bit pear shaped at times and I've missed being out on the water.

 

It's also great reading about your adventures. Please keep those reports coming!