Trimarans 30' to 50'

Choices

RR, While there are still some Searunners, Horstman's and a few others around, most surviving ones are on the west coast, with a few down in Texas. The east coast of the US has never been very multi friendly for lots of reasons, and wooden tri's from the 70's and 80's simply haven't survived very well. If you find an old tri, it is almost always in bad condition . Mine was close to being scrapped when I rescued it, and it has fiberglass hulls.
IMO!! Yes,the tri market expired as a result of the condomaran trend, mainly because the tri designers didn't respond with suitable (marketable) products. Like them or not, production monohull builders provided the boats that customers wanted to buy and live with, and actually, at least some of them have turned out to be decent sailing boats that are much more user friendly than the old "traditional" designs. Multihull designers got caught up in ever lighter and faster boats, which are fun, but have an extremely limited market and are also extremely expensive to build. They have also scared off insurance companies to the point that any smaller multi is hard to insure. Moderation really isn't a bad thing in building boats.
B

 

There is a new trimaran design by Jeff Schionning. They are offering the Tracer series as a flat pack kit with plans it will be interesting to see if any builds get underway.

http://www.schionningdesigns.com.au/tracer-series

 

The recently launched Tony Grainger designed TR40 trimaran Morello

https://500px.com/photo/111388125/d...=nativeshare&utm_content=web&utm_source=500px

Nice write up on the boat:

http://www.bwsailing.com/mq/sailing-on-morello-a-40-foot-tony-grainger-designed-trimaran/

 

That is a pretty boat from that angle. nice!

 

As a tri owner of 14 years and a lover of tris still I was very surprised by the lack of usable room in a Grainger Spoon Bay 11 metre tri. I had been on them 20 years ago and hed thought them voluminous which they are compared to a Twiggy. Was on one the other day and I couldn't find somewhere comfortable to sit or stand. There was a bit of stuff lying around but compared to a cat it was hard work to fit into the boat.

As the Spoon Bay is not, or not much, faster than a similar 11m cat, is just as hard to build but has less than 3 times the interior room, including the hard to sell feature of having the toilet in an aft cabin accessible through the cockpit, will cost the same to build but give you much less resale, there is a reason we don't have many tris. Even to me, a bit of a tri nut, they don't make sense unless used as daysailers, or unless you can get a nice cheap one secondhand. Or you need to trail them.

cheers

Phil

 

I don't know Phil I think diversity is great. If decisions were made solely on the basis of pragmatism who would build, buy or maintain a sailing boat of any type? If you tot up the costs of ownership well I'm sure you could jump on an plane and charter a boat in the destination of your choice for a couple of weeks a year for less without any of the associated headaches.

Take Larry and Amy Ketten for example who built the Grainger TR40 in the post above. It weighs in at 10,000lbs fully loaded (7,500lbs dry weight) for cruising which is pretty good by the standards of 40' multihulls. They are very happy with the boat and it's relatively compact accommodations. It's a beautiful boat, they have enjoyed building and sailing it, It has proven to be adequate to meet their cruising needs. That surely is as good a measure of a boat as any?

 

Corely, 2,500lbs for load carrying is very small for a full time cruiser for a couple by todays standards.

Most these days who are going to throw 1/2 a mill $ at a boat , then foot the bills for the ongoing costs, expect a certain level of comfort. Most have moved on from the "dumpster diving, sponge bath,
hot beer life style that light displacement necesitates. For a boat thats going to spend most if its life swinging on an anchor , with short dashes in calm conditions to the next destination , sailing performance is of little consequence. Hence the modern CATTLEMARAN. If you want to sail fast buy a windsurfer.

 

I was making an observation of the boats weight not its payload if you don't want to accept the limitations of a given boat don't build or buy one. I think it's a lovely boat and would be very happy to own and sail it as I would Jason Gard's Spirit. Different boats for different folks was all I was noting, no one solution is right for everyone.

 

Yes, exactly Corely.

I was merely commenting on ......"It weighs in at 10,000lbs fully loaded (7,500lbs dry weight) for cruising which is pretty good by the standards of 40' multihulls." from your previous post.

"Pretty good" for what?. What other 40' multihulls were you comparing it to?

I took the liberty from the gist of your preceding posts to think you were refering to production multis . Do correct me if I'm wrong. Yes its light , and probably a good sailor for those that like to cut the handle off their tooth brushes, but certainly a totally different market sector to most readily available production multis.

Most production multis in the larger sizes are aimed at the cruising sector. ie they must perform at anchor. Weight is very comfortable at anchor

 

I was actually comparing it to the boats that have been weighed for the OMR handicap spreadsheet in Australia. They generally both cats and trimarans are performance cruising boats with a few exceptions more geared to racing. It's reasonable to assume that most people who would be interested in a cruiser/racer type trimaran are interested in performance.

http://www.mycq.org.au/omr/omr-ratings

The lightweight nature of the TR40 should translate into good sailing ability in light conditions. Comfort at anchor or payload or any other number of criteria are important but then it's just another compromise that has to be weighed up by the potential owner.

If you want to start up the old cat vs tri argument you can post a new thread but I can assure you it's been discussed to death over the years and nothing is really settled since in the end it's all about personal choice.

 

Owen, I think the thing for me is that a cat can go just as fast and be as much fun as a nice tri. I was recommending a friend consider a Spoon Bay but after going on one I thought, why? The performance cats designed in the last 20 years, your Pescotts, Schionnings etc are absolutely fab to sail when cruising. Plus you can have friends come around for two weeks and not want to kill them in the end.

Interesting about the money. I have lived on Kankama for about 3.5 years, and cruised her locally for another few months. The cost in materials is way less than any charter fee would have been. She makes sense financially as well as personally.

 

If I was living aboard full time with a family I'd have to consider a cat if I was a sailing with a partner the trimaran would be fine. Trailerable trimarans make a lot of sense to many people who have limited time to go cruising and open up cruising grounds that would otherwise be unavailable to them.

I don't like the Spoon Bay interiors they are too fussy for my taste and think a more simple configuration could make better use of the space. Prophecy for example had the rear toilet area added on as an afterthought.

Not all cruising catamarans are "Kankama" either the new 50' X5 production catamaran weighs 18 tonnes a bit heavy wouldn't you agree?

http://xquisiteyachts.com/x5-standard/technical-specs

 

Corley, my intention was not to upset you but to contribute to the discussion.
I apologise if you have read into my posts things that were not intended.

Cruising means different things to different people.

I certainly couldn't have lived my cruising lifestyle of the last 25 years on a charter boat. (no bareboats in the Kimberley region for starters) To me my cruiser suits me. The space/privacy afforded by the catamaran configuration
is certainly valued . Each to their own.

I hope my perspective is of interest .

 

Barra, I'm not upset but think a range of multihulls of different configurations is great. What a boring world we would be in if we all only settled on one type of boat. I'm interested in all types of multihulls from proas to trimarans and catamarans.

The thread was started because I thought some love for larger trimarans was in order particularly since there are stacks of threads covering smaller trimarans with fairly arbitrary size ranges placed on them.

I grew up reading cruising books written by the Smeaton's and the Pye's, David Lewis, Francis Chichester Tabarly and Slocum I'm sure there were plenty of people sitting around tut tutting their choice of boats and adventure. If we ran the boats they sailed through the filter of pragmatism I'm sure they would come up short and some were definitely horrid nautical things.

 

You raise an interesting point regarding admiring boats of all breeds.

I often make a point of rowing over to interesting looking boats in the anchorage for a chat as I find "most" boats interesting in some way.

I note however that some of the died in the wool multihull racing fraternity still seem to struggle with the concept that the "WAR IS OVER" .

We are much richer for the diversity in design.