TC601 trimaran design by Tim Clissold

In response to Lami's queries, yes you should be able to get a Pro built TC601 for quite a large discount on the Pulse. Its cabin is certainly larger than the Pulse and quite comfy as a 1 1/2 person over nighter but not really a full enough width for comfortable sleeping for two unless of course you fancy that two in a one man tent feeling. My guess at 20ft the TC601 will be a fast small Tri with a comfort factor getting you to the next port on your trip where you can refresh in a nice hotel room. The price difference between it and a larger say 24 footer is a rather large number of 5 * hotel rooms.

I have to say it feels much larger than a 20 footer and really feels like a 24 footer such is the space in the cockpit, I'm surprised how wide it is at the cockpit end.

Certainly on the boat we are building at the moment the materials cost is high but not as high as I was expecting in some ways. Carbon is the way to go, we are buying 200gsm carbon for £10.00 a sqm and knowing the quantities better that are needed, we could get that price down a tad. By using carbon and say 160gsm glass as the outer protective skin you save appreciable quantities of epoxy on the 600gsm glass you would need on both sides of the foam which would mean by using carbon there is a cost saving over just glass.

In hours terms we should have a pretty good idea once we get a boat on the water but the boat has been set up for a quick build with wide curves and a relatively straightfoward build. But be prepared that it may take longer than you would expect. To date we are into about 50 man days, we are now at the stage of building the rear cockpit coamings, another 10 man days and we should have the boat hull complete ready for priming and painting.

 

My figure is based on making a marginal ama to the point where it can float like a canoe all the bulkheads and stuff are in but it isn't decked or mounted to the beams, or painted. The rationale there is that if you buy donor floats, the aren't bolt on sail away ready either, there is all the work, or more, you mention still to do. And as such I would not buy amas, when I can built them quickly to a pro designed compatible shape, and possibly lighter. In ply it is hard to beat the price.

 

Thom, I agree that you could build floats for this boat and my guess is that at some stage specific floats will be designed for it. But donor floats are really just the left over of all the other stuff you get for your money, the sails, mast, sheets and blocks, they're the expensive items to buy individually with the floats thrown in if you like.

Certainly though building the hull halves is quick, it's just all the other finer detail such as dagger board cases that seems to take the time. I must update the build blog as we now are about to cloth up the outer skins on the cockpit and cabin top which will mean it's nearly prime and paint time.

 

OK done quite a large update of the build blog at http://lwr600.co.uk/TC601/build1.html and the central hull is now fully complete and being readied for fairing and painting.

I have to say I'm impressed at just how fair the hull is straight out of the former, it took less than 4 hours to sand and fair the cabin roof area ready for priming with only a few areas needing filling, mainly around the HD inserts and along the vertical join line with the usual cloth overlaps needing most time.

I can't recommend more highly the use of a multi tool fitted with a 1/2 moon diamond blade more usually associated with tile grout cutting and removal. It takes off the high points like butter and certainly speeds up the sanding process. Most car auto body shops have moved over to net abrasives such as Abranet. It is expensive to buy but lasts probably 6 times longer than the more normal abrasives and best of all, if you connect your sander up to a vac there is no dust.





Lots of connundrums along the way and slowly we are sorting them, I guess thats the route all builders of the first boat tend to go, that of sorting out the differences between the computer world and the real world. Interesting project.

Weighed the bare hull, 102kgs so by the time we take off all the excess epoxy and glass and fill and paint, we should be in that 110kg zone. So slightly over weight from the hoped for 100kgs but still respectiably good in some ways. Certainly if we resolve and improve the build method from lessons learnt on this first boat and use Infusion or Vacumn to lay up things, then a sub 100kg hull would be possible.

Getting on with things and hopefully we will have it sailing later in the year.

 

Are you going into production on this boat, Wayne? I think it looks like an outstanding boat-can't wait to see it sailing.......

 

Nice to see the build progressing! Looking at the space in the cabin, this could very well be the multihull equivalent of a seascape 18 that i've been looking for.

 

The space in the cabin is surprising, sort of a "quart in a pint pot" but let's not kid ourselves, it is not big enough for 2 adults to sleep comfortably, now a couple of kids in there and two adults under a boom tent, that would work well.

The boat actually looks better in the flesh than on the photos and I think we got the aesthetic shape pretty good in the design process considering it began as a chined hull in the 1st iteration.

No plans to put it into production although there has been an expression of interest from at least 1 manufacturer. The design was always a homebuild, built under licence, as neither Tim or I have the manufacturing setup to put it into production.

What the design lends itself to is any small boat repair company who want something to build or work on in the quieter moments, i do believe these small T20 Trimarans are on the cusp of becoming a reality and on to become desirable day sailors, I think there may well be enough profit margin in them to tempt some of these small boat building companies especially if they use donor boats such the F18's, to build a few.

 

What kind of price would you imagine a builder would offer these at and what profit would there be? Seems unless you go for full scale production you'll never achieve economies of scale and therefore the price would struggle to be workable?

 

Gosh what a question, how much is a boat worth ? I guess the answer is what will someone pay. If say there is Pulse just been purchased at $ 40k and there are a couple of F22's about at $ 50 - 70k then an equivalent boat albeit not completely new, would have to fetch 30k.

If however there are only F24's, a couple of Windriders and a couple of wooden homebuild's all sub 20k, for sale nearby, then would it achieve 20k ?

I'm a great believer in supply and demand and if there are scarcity of a certain thing, then the price will be always high. As the nearest competitor to the TC601 is the Pulse 600 with its all most identical size and sail plan and there is a scarcity of 20ft sporty Tri's with small cabins then I would suspect a newly built all carbonTC 601 with a later F18 donor boat in refurbed condition, may well fetch more than an older F24.

So why would a local builder take the risk of building one in the quiet season, we all need something to continue keeping staff busy in the quieter times and is there a profit, certainly yes if a newly built TC601 can get anywhere near F24 prices.

 

Electric or gas

Just finished up the fairing and painting and starting to think about all the ancillaries like sail hardware and small outboards

I think I'll need a 4hp engine or thereabouts, correct me if you have experiance of a small light weight multi and what actual size is needed as there's very little info I can find. If so I'm really in two minds. 4 stroke outboards are expensive and for the very limited time you would need an outboard, would an electric motor be suitable. You can now get 62 kg and 83kg of thrust, that sounds about right I think but again there's little to reference against, for what seems not a lot of money, yes you will need a battery as well.

There are quite a lot of pro's to go the electric way such as weight and mounting ease and the ability to split the head from the motor leaving only very little weight at the back of the boat.

Any body out there with any actual on the water experiance ?

 

Depends on what you want the motor for. If you just want to get into harbours, then a 2hp should be fine. I've got a 2.75hp Honda, which is aircooled so no hassles with water pumps, flushing, etc., and that pulls my 21' trihull powerboat around no problem (it's 1750kg), provided the current is low (<1 kts). Against any current or wind you'll need something bigger, probably more than 4hp, but on a 21' tri you'd be sailing in any case, and avoiding currents with planning.

 

I have used 3 different motors on my last 17' daysailer, and still have 2 of them. I'll be on the water in 3 weeks with my 18' trimaran that is similar in weight and should give a good idea of comparable performance.

I started with an electric trolling motor. Worked great in and out of the marinas. Worked horrible for motoring back when conditions got bad. I live in the southwest United States. It's often 100 degrees in the afternoons here. Even on the water it's hot. If the wind dies and you're 3 or 5 miles away from the marina - yeah, you can definitely swim and cool down, but sometimes you want to go back to the beach or whatever. Trolling motor just wasn't up to the task on a single battery. Maybe 1 mile at best was what I could get out of a single battery. It also lacked the power to push a boat with a lot of wind resistance against a 15mph wind. I have one marina I like to sail out of that is shallow up a channel going in. It's too shallow for a keel boat to leave the keel down. So if the wind was out of the marina, the trolling motor couldn't get me back up into the marina.

So, I bought motor #2 - a 2hp evenrude/johnson (they're the same motor shared between them) 2 stroke trolling motor. It was more than powerful enough for everything I needed. I did not like a few things about it though. First - the shaft was too short. It didn't do well in a choppy swell to keep the prop in the water. Second, it was unreliable. Ran like a champ whenever you didn't really "need" it. The moment you did, it wouldn't want to run. Third, the little 2 stroke lacks any type of transmission. If the engine's running, it's spinning the prop. When you want to just float in one place in a marina waiting for your partner to bring the trailer down the ramp, you have to shut it off or motor in circles. There is no reverse, you just turn the motor backwards. Easy enough, but not ideal. If it were reliable enough, I would stick with it. The little Honda is probably great.

Motor #3- Nissan 3.5 4 stroke. This little motor is fantastic. Reliable, quiet, fuel efficient, light weight, has neutral so I can just let it sit at idle if I want. Long shaft, so it stays in the water. Lots of power - more than enough for small sailboats. My guess is that with my new trimaran I'll be able to get close to 10mph wide open. That's a lot faster than a trolling motor could maintain. And would make almost any current a non-issue. And should be powerful enough to push into any wind I'll likely encounter.

For me - I say spend the extra $ now on a nice 4stroke outboard with a f-n-r transmission. It's so nice to have a modern reliable outboard. And I picked mine up for $650 - used for two hours. A guy at one of the local lakes put it on his 30' cabin cruiser and tried it out. Said it wasn't enough power to troll the big boat. Sold it to me for half price. A new 2.5hp long shaft Nissan/tohatsu could be bought new IIRC for around $850 locally. I think 2.5 would be plenty, and that's what I would buy new if I were buying another. I wouldn't really even look at a 2 stroke again.

So I guess my final recommendation is to use a small 2 stroke if you have one already. If not, buy a nice modern 4 stroke. 2.5hp should be plenty. I just checked prices and I can order a 2.5HP Tohatsu shipped to my door for $860. A Suzuki 4 stroke is $750 shipped to my door. I'm not sure you can get anything new for enough less than that to make it worth the hassle of a lesser motor.

 

Do you think it could be possible to find a factory to build and sell just the hull and beams for say $5-8k if you were building out of a set of molds? I think if you could do that, it might be an option to get a lot of people on board who might not have the time to build themselves, but would be able to put together a full trimaran with trailer for maybe $15k with a fair amount of work themselves. Not unlike the F22 version that's just the hulls.

 

Beams are no problem, a standard Ali tube is about as good as you can get, a broken carbon or Ali mast, as we are using, is just about ideal as they have a nice wing section for aerodynamics.

The folding system is simple and just 6 Ali tubes with rubber bushes one end and a rod end the other, they can be locally made for not a lot of money.

Nice idea re setting up a moulded hull, we would welcome a factory to come foward and make the hulls and it would save a huge amount of time. Sorry at 5 -8K it would be a non starter, as they have to pay for the moulds and set up fees and what could be a risky start up. We need to be realistic about the cost of building hulls moulded or hand built.

To be honest I don't know how Corsair are sending out full boats at 35K. At that level they can't be making any margin and I would expect that price to go up to nearer the 50K level once a few have been sold and interest is beginning to get under way.

 

It seems like it's really hard to get the labor costs down with foam core. Maybe it's just not possible.

The other big cost is the foam its self.

I wonder how much markup is in the foam core boards.

An alternative that would greatly help a home builder like me would be even just the ability to buy the two halves of the main hull and the bulk heads pre-made and finish the rest myself. Those are by far the hardest parts for a home builder. And the parts that would benefit most by having a mold even if it was still a rough finish that needed fairing and paint.