Seeking info on Tri-Star or Piver trimaran 23 to 27 Feet

Hello!

Someone mention trimaran from Tri-Star:
http://www.edhorstmanmultihulldesigns.com/index.html
They also mention Piver trimaran (very little info available)

They look well design and I might build one if it's worth it.
I was wondering how they perform, speed, balance, design etc..?
If you are a owner or had one of these, please post some info.

Thank you

 

Build a cat

Gday

I am a trimaranophile. I love the things. I got my first - a Piver Nugget 24ft - when I was 16. I used to bang around Sydney and close waters in it until I got a Twiggy - a 31ft racing tri in which I went cruising for two years. I jumped on every tri I could and built a 38ft foam Newick 10 years ago.

Cruising the Twiggy I started drawing the next boat. It was going to be an updated Searunner 40 (a boat I really like) I drew and fiddled and talked, learnt, and worked for one of Australia's best builders - Shawn Arber.

"How do I design a cruising tri?" I would ask him and he would shake his head
"You'd be a fool to build a tri nowadays - more hassle, less room and less resale than a cat. Build a cat"
"But tris are much nicer boats. I want a tri" I would reply

I kept on drawing my strip planked tri for another year and then one night I thought. What would a cat I like look like? I sketched up a cat with an arrangement that gave us twice as much room, much more privacy, more resale and was easier to build. I had been stubborn for years and all it took was a quick sketch.

Tris like the ones you talk about are cheap secondhand. Do not build one until you have scoured the secondhand market. A good tri is a fab boat to buy, it is cheap and a good entry into the multi market but a silly boat to make unless it is a Farrier or similar.

Scour some design sites for simple cruisers of about 26-28ft. You can find some seriously solid cruisers if you look. I for one have never ever regretted switching to a cat from cruising but if I were to sell my cat and wanted to buy a multi for just my wife and myself I would save myself about half the purchase price by buying a tri.

cheers

Phil Thompson

 

Like the Grainger Spoon Bays showing up in the market now, sex on floats!

 

Sounds like good advice to me .Some of those older style tris may be good boats , but building one these days , well , it does not make sense .Years of work , Lots of money. Resale value ......****......

Unfortunately its not ( worth it ).
Like catsketcher said , if you don`t mind a dated looking solid boat ,
search the used market and save a bundle of gold and time and work.

At least then , if ( or most likely when ) you upgrade / update your boat you will have a better chance of recovering your money.

Ed Horstman`s boats look solid , but are now quite dated .That`s got to to be bad for resale value.. That goes for all the Pivers , Searunners and others.

 

Hello Boat fan!
Well, if for you building a boat is a chore, then you are right. You see, for me building a boat is as much fun as to sailing it. Sailing is a hobby, so as building it. Also it depend on the location if there are used trimaran or not. Recently I saw a piver 30' go for 12000.00. So unless I want a crappy fiberglass monohull, I'm out of luck. And last, this is a tread about INFO on certain boat model, not wether or not it's a good idea to build one.
Thank you

 

Most if not all of Arthur Piver's plans are available from the Mariner's Museum. http://www.mariner.org/library/plans_dwgs/index.php
All three of Arthur Piver's books, "Trans-Atlantic Trimaran", "Trans-Pacific Trimaran", and "Trimaran Third Book" are available used through Amazon.com. I think I paid about $25 each for them. They are mostly about the larger boats, Nimble, Lodestar, and Bird, but they also have bits about construction, sailing, navigation, and some of his smaller designs.
I purchased plans for the 25' Mariner from them last spring, and the price was very reasonable. (I haven't started it yet. I'm currently building a Dierking Wa'apa.)
The Classic Multihulls group on Yahoo has scans of a Piver catalog, partial scans of the later cabin Nugget plans, as well as some scans of the Stiletto drawings in their files section.
I think Newick's Rule applies here. Most modern trimaran designs offer great improvements in performance, but they sacrifice accommodations to do it. Materials cost is probably very similar, but sheet plywood should build faster.

 

Sorry, that link takes you to the Mariner's Museum, but this is the page:
http://www.mariner.org/library/plans-drawings

 

You might also find this site interesting:
http://fraseraerotechnologycompany.com/Marine_Division.html
Their Piver catalog scans are cleaner, the have several photos of the 25' Mariner, and pictures of an original 18' design, the Kiwi 18.

 

Hello Darthcluin !
Thank you for the info, but sadly I already found those site and some more.
Most peoples don't want to talk about an old design like the Piver series. It feels like they're ashamed or something. I think it's a good way to learn.
I was looking a Piver Nugget and nimble, well nugget too small and nimble is too big. I need to transport the boat on a trailer all the time. Then I saw the Tri-Star 26MT It looks very nice but it seems that very few peoples built or have these boat. So I'm here asking questions.

 

look at folding tris

Hello LucD

If it is a trailerable tri you want I would be looking at Farrier, Marples, Kendrick Woods or others. I owned a Nugget and almost bought a Nimble - I know these boats really well and they were not designed to fold from the ground up.

You can get a much better designed boat than the ones you consider that is meant to trail.

Have a look through some ads and search for a Trailertri 720. These are good little boats and may be in your price range. I would think it would take about $15 000 - $20 000 Aus to build a simple non folding Nugget today.

Beware of the claims of Piver in his books. He was a very interesting bloke but his boats were banged together and then given away. If you do modern epoxy techniques so that the boat lasts it takes a long time to seal the wood, glass external ply, oversize every drilled hole etc. You can't whack em together or they last only 10 years.

cheers

Phil

 

LucD,
From your posts, I gather that you really want to build your own boat. I looked up the the TriStar 26MT on Mr. Horstman's website, and from that I can see that you are willing to tackle complicated hull shapes.
Catsketcher named on of my favorite designers, Ray Kendrick. Check out this boat:
http://www.teamscarab.com.au/scarab8/design.html
The plans are resonably priced at $550 AU, construction is Stitch & Glue, and while the accommodations are not as generous as the TriStar, it looks very trailerable. I bet it goes like a rocket.
You might also look at this Kurt Hughes design:
http://www.multihulldesigns.com/designs_stock/26tri.html
While I am not enthusiastic about the price of the plans, this boat is developed plywood, has good accommodations, is trailerable, and I bet it goes like a rocket too.
I don't know anything about the folding system on the TriStar 26MT. I had considered the TriStar 25 at one point, but then I found the Mariner plans at the Mariner's Museum. That said, I do not like the folding system on the Pivers. Arthur Piver disappeared on one of his folding designs. Some accounts claim it was a Nugget, his protege Jim Brown says it was a 25 footer (which would be a Mariner), and his draftsman Lauren Williams said it was a 28 foot Encore. They also say the boat was in poor condition, and the hinges were loose. I live on the Gulf Coast, and if I build a Mariner, it will be with fixed beams. I figure if you don't have hinges, they can't be loose.
Two more books you might want to look at:
"The Case For The Cruising Trimaran" by Jim Brown
"Multihull Voyaging" by Thomas Firth Jones

 

catsketcher
The problem is that I don't have 20.000, 15.000 or even 10,000 to put on a boat. I want to build a boat because I have access to cheap price plywood, the fact that I am very handy with my hands and that I am a great scrounger.

I agree with you that any Piver has to be greatly modified to make it in today boat world. I am not yet stopped on any model.

 

DarthCluin
Yes I really want to build my own boat for financial and interest reasons. The 23/25 or the 26MT is not that complicated and has tons of space, but I have no idea of how they handle. I checked the Scarab8 but again no one can give me fact about the model. As you mention the space is not as grand but the handling is most likely different. I know about Kurt Hughes boats, and again, no facts from owner or the like.

Up to now most peoples want to discourage me to build, I have been on many forum and asking questions. Some were even pist at me because I didn't want to buy or agree with them their boat wasn't the best in the world.

In my area, multihull are very rare, it's a monohull kingdom. I could get a mono dirt cheap (probably where all the fitting and mast will come from for my future boat).

The Piver needs many innovation to fit the bill, but it's doable. I didn't know about the 25' mariner until recently, I still know very little about it. I was looking at the 27' Chariot or 27.5 Quest and now the 25' Mariner. The AA series sound much better from the description and with modern modification, who knows. One of the mod could be putting tube a little like the Buccaneer 24 (this is a guess) but the hinges have to go.

The boat has to be trailerable and as much as possible below 1500Lbs. In my nec of the wood, sometime the bottom raise very fast because of sand, rocks or any other crap that lay there. I saw many keel get damaged or broken, for this reason, dagger board in the ama are interesting. I want to be able to leave Friday afternoon and come back Sunday afternoon for 2 or 4 persons.

 

If you want an older style tri might be worth checking out Searunner and Cross designs. They are supposed to sail better than the Pivers.

 

Cheap tris

Gday LucD

I agree with the last post - the Searunner 25 can fold fine - again you may be able to pick one up really cheap, I did see a post on one a few years back and the guy got it cheap.

If cost is a really big problem then a simple Piver may be okay. I would widen the Nugget about 2 feet and increase the beam depth and get rid of the side decks. A simple tri can be quick to build. Peter Snell, the designer of the Easy cats, built a Piver AA 38 in 4 months. He can build fast but the boats are fast to stick together. One big reason is the lack of finicky interior furnishings.

Maybe we have this the wrong way around. LucD, why don't you have a look at the boats you can get cheap - donor boats. Then we can help advise on a design that could use the rig and deck fittings. A donor boat is a fine thing to use - I did this on my little folder.

Of course with a tri probably the ultimate donor boat is a tornado or Hobie 18. The you can use the floats, the rig and the deck fittings and all you need to build and buy is the main hull and beams. A Nugget once had a reverse donation and got the floats from an A class of all things. A good mate did this with a free surf boat and a cheap Hobie 18. He has a nice 26ft daysailer tri with little effort.

cheers

Phil