Welcome to the fold Phil. The other Nicol that threw you was another California build, a Buccaneer 40 (He used the name before Crowther). What has to be taken into consideration is the gestation proximity to the Trimaran mecca that had Piver, Brown, Cross, Horstman and Kantola turning on the hippies who with herbal aromas wafting in the sea breezes sat down and got creative with everybody's designs. I've probably looked at more Nicols from weird angles than most in the last dozen years so it isn't fair.
The bulkheads are misleading. They go to the top of the wing at deck level, the boats as designed have a double main hull and ama gunnel, one at deck level and one at wing bottom level. That one stays continous while the upper one gets relieved for wing bunks etc.... On stock cabins timbers run up to the cabin top from the main hull onto the beam etc.... There is a large structure for mast support joining the cabintop to the main bulkhead and beams and cabin corner post timbers going all the way down to the wing/beam bottom.
Beams don't need a truss like a Searunner of course, they can be composite etc.....
The stock Nicol wing is pretty well thought out with things that can be overlooked. For example there should be beam gussets with timbers where the beams meet the ama side on the indoard outside and on the outside of the mainhull where the beams go through. Lots of the early problems were from people omitting these parts which give a much better gluing surface as well as turning the beam into a sandwich "box" in key stress areas. They aren't shown on every drawing on the plans I've seem but on a beam detail with instructions "typical beam".
The angled wing back edge helped transfer loads to the main hull from driving to windward in a sea. Lots of other stuff, there were about 13 various crossmembers or beams in a stock Cavalier to spread the load and support the deck.
