Wide-hulled trimaran?

I read the Jones books, apparently the boat performed very well and was a real eye opener for a monohull sailor. Like all the Tristan Jones books they are an entertaining read.

 

Thanks for the reference, Doug. I remember seeing the thread last year. TNTs retractable amas are very innovative. I couldn't find what the payload capacity was, but I suspect it is less than what I was looking for.

 

I hope that book of Jones' bears more resemblance to reality than the rest of his stuff!

I was a big fan of his when I was a kid, and I still remember feeling upset when I was about 13 and realised that he was either forgetful (as I hoped) or a liar (as I suspected and it turned out).

 

I think the key word is "entertaining"

 

So, do you think the wide-bodied trimaran, Outward Leg, really did perform well, or do you think that Tristan Jones made that up as well?

 

I think the boat performed well. They also put it through a lot and it held up. I think he was really surprised at the strength of construction. Some of the stories are probably exaggerated but there is no doubt he really liked the boat, it was probably 2-3 times faster than his other boats at least. They did some mods such as his "cool tubes" keel which allowed water to flow inside it. This didn't add weight when sailing but would act as a ballast keel if the main hull started to lift. I'd have to read that part again for the details. Cross trimarans can be wide and sail well, so do the Nicol's so it is not really surprising. Once your hull gets bigger than 8-1 on the water line the speedhump can get bigger but when you think of most cruising speeds that doesn't matter as much for the use. When pushed hard most of these boats main hull gets shallow or narrow reducing drag. Going through waves there can be more resistance but even a 6-1 tri is going to be more slender than the average monohull and perform accordingly. Get some used copies of the books and check into them. He may have told yarns at times but he was a sailor and the tri really opened his eyes.

 

I've ordered the three books of Jones's pertaining to his voyaging with Outward Leg: Outward Leg, The Improbable Voyage, and Somewhere East of Suez. They are rather inexpensive through abebooks.com. Looking forward to a good read, and maybe even some helpful insight to wider-hulled trimarans.

How did "Cool Tubes" work? Did they close off and capture water when added ballast was wanted? Guess I'll find out when I get the books.

Outward Leg's designer, Len Surtees, is preparing for a single-handed, non-stop spin around Australia in ZEAVARD, his new 9m folding catamaran.

http://www.surteesmultihulls.com/9m-folding-catamaran
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/surtees-centre-pod-cat-40345.html

 

I'll look up the cool tube section.....Being a monohull sailor I think he also felt comfortable driving the boat hard because of the low heel angle. I think this helped with the speeds too. He did need a wide hull to carry the loads he was used to.
When my son needed to do a school project we were inspired by the Outward Leg story to take recuperating Army troops sailing-plus it kept us on the water

 

Here is what appears to be a VERY wide trimaran.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...lly-searunner-owners-14322-85.html#post988829

Does anyone know anything about it? Make/model? Specifications? Sailing ability?

Or lacking knowledge about this particular boat, any speculations about what its sailing characteristics might be? The poster on the cruiserforum thread thought it may have come from New Zealand but the photo was taken in Croatia. That would suggest it could have been designed for open-ocean sailing.

 

Another Forum with more pictures: http://forum.yacht.de/showthread.php?135245-Kennt-den-jemand&p=1118269#post1118269

 

Manfred, thanks for the link. I've grabbed the photos off that forum and posted them below.

Here is the google translation of moonmaus2's comments:

I don't understand what he means by "I think that's been built for it. the hull above the water line has kinks"? Can you supply a better translation? I assume he's saying that something about the hull construction suggests it is not a converted monohull-to-trimaran, but an as-designed trimaran.

Did anyone on the yacht.de forum say what its sailing performance was?

 

Reminds me of the Spinal Tap song "Big Bottom".....

 

I think by kinks he means the WL beam is much smaller than the hull beam. Which means it is a specially built hull, not a monohull. It makes sense since a monohull of sufficient beam would have way too much buoyancy and ride too high once converted to a trimaran (ballast removed).

 

Hi Red, hi Imaginary, moonmaus2 has been in Croatia took the photos and posted them in "Yacht Forum" asking to get infos about the trimaran.
From the pics the boat to me seems to be a modified monohull with later added beams and floats. The waterline beam of the main hull (stern) indicated a Mono to me.

For moonmaus2 the chines (not kinks from google) indicated a narrow waterline and a genuine trimaran construction.

As I do not have further infos, I can not decide this question. Hope this helps.

 

The simplest way to vastly increase the load carrying ability of a trimaran is to build a catamaran. You can up to double your load carry per pound/dollar structure. While there have been lively discussions about the relative merits to trimarans and cats on sailing performance, raft size, safety, etc per pound/dollar. These arguments can never really be settled since every new race, condition, or level of seamanship etc... tends to skew the results. What is pretty easy to settle is which kind of hull system carries a load better, and that goes to a cat. In essence the recent posts indicate that a tri can be made a decent load carrier if it just has two main hulls, but at that point you don't need floats.

I'm a big believer in the fat tri concept, in the sense that we seem to have given up on the other roles a tri can play other than race boat, or trailerable boat. some of the roles only come into play at 6-1 main hull ratios. 8-1 are bread and butter cruising numbers. These fatter hulls have a role to play, in cruisers, and for very short micros. But overall they need to be approached very carefully. If Marples wouldn't do it, I would be loath to do it either, and would never consider spinning on an additional x percent on top. Boats won't sail or sell beyond a certain point. But they can be built.

Next way to deal with load is to cut it back. When backpacking I consider base gear to be doable on a weight budget of 8 pounds. Not the reality of long term live aboard, but unless one is planing on restoring cars on board, one should consider very seriously what all that weight is going to do to the reality of a trimaran, and why lighter options can't be found. Don't compromise on the luxury of your boat, just find different ways to deliver it. And as a result don't compromize on the sailing and financial performance of the boat either.

Mark Hassel built a trimaran that was intended to have a 10 x 20 workshop on it, but it came in at 60 feet. He built it. That is how it is done You decide on the load and service then you design the boat. If you decide on the boat, and impose the load and service, bad things tend to happen. ATMO.