Sailing Trimaran

Well..
Trimarans was a thing way back, in many cases they were built for speed and custom made, but not for a family of four with stores, but for hippie enthusiasts.
Not sure they are more stable than a cat but probably faster.
Think of them as a narrow mono-hull with stabilizers on each side.
Never owned or sailed one, but impressed with folks doing it.

less places to enter and Moore
three time the mooring and marina fees

When my present wife decleared my large monohull cruiser racer out of bounds for her and our small children (she hates slooping floors while on sea), I either had to stop sailing at all or look for something else, as I am life long true hearted sailor.

I looked into several large catamarans and trimarans with different type of sailing gear.

Pros and cons of trimarans:

Smaller trimarans are very fast, as most of the time only the narrow center hull and one sponson is in the water. Some of them (upt 40 feet LOA) have retractable sponsons which makes their beam during mooring not wider than a comparable monohull but those boats have no living space at all. And they have very low draft. The center hull is much more narrow than a monohull and the sponsons are unusable at all, eccept for maybe sails.



Larger Trimarans may have cabins in the sponsons but they are so narrow and so uncomfortable during heavy weather or while on the hook in swell, as the sponson out oft water will bounce into the water in relatively short intervalls, that nobody wants to sleep in them. And it is very noisy inside one of them. It's like sleeping in a timpani. The other problem with cruising trimarans is their limited buoyancy associated with much lower usefull load, as only the center hull has to carry all weight. On a static upright in the water sitting trimaran, only the center hull is in the water and both sponsons are in the air. As soon as the trimaran is sitting so low in the water, that all three hulls are in the water, all advantages of the trimaran are gone. The combined resistance of the three hulls is then larger than of a comparable monohull. And personally, I found most trimarans ugly.

That's why I came up with this 50 meter catamran with Dynarigg. Upright pushbutton sailing with sufficient comfortable living and deck space. I hope to be able to post the first results of our naval architect very soon. The deriving of the mast forces into the connecting bridge deck is very complicated and requires some very advanced 3D cad and finite element computer simulation and towing channel research with wind force simulation. A lot of expensive R&D.

HTMO9

You might find three You Tube videos done by a couple who go under the name Gone With The Wynns of interest. They sailed a catamaran around the world and are now building a new, faster one. They were asked to deliver a sailing trimaran about 7 months ago and the three You Tube videos they produced about the boat and the delivery are excellent. In fact the Gone With The Wynns You Tube channel is generally a delight -- they are a charming couple and they produce entertaining videos. They were not impressed with the trimaran, although the boat was modern and high-tech.

I've never quite understood the rationale for sailing trimarans. They have more wetted surface than catamarans given three hulls, so trimarans are slower. Sailing trimarans under around 60 feet have very thin outer hulls unsuited for much accommodation and the center hull is thin as well. So no real bonus in interior space. Three hulls are more expensive to make than a catamaran. Modern sailing catamarans are well-proven voyagers so I do not believe there is much of a safety advantage, if any.

Sorry, the Rapido 60 which was mentioned above may be fast but it meets all criticisms we wrote above. With 60 feet LOA of the center hull, it has the internal space of maybe a 35 ft monohull sailboat, the sponsons are not usable for anything, except maybe sail storage and its beam is larger than my present 165 ft cruiser racer sloop and therefore has the same med mooring costs. The cockpit is dangerous and the trampoline nets on both sides can't be used during voyage (much to dangerous). This thing is expensive and totally unusable for a family with children. And with only this single little engine in the centerhull, I would not like to maneuver it in a tight harbour.

I have looked into many types of sailing trimarans, most of them custom build but none of them got me convinced. The sailing Trimaran is a sportive vesssel for racing and spartanic ocean crossings of younger people but by no means a family boat or for sailing with guests for every day use. Btw. I did not use the dragonfly example to promote it, I only wanted to show the retractable sponsons and the sailing performance. We have several of them in any North Sea tidal yacht harbour but none of them leaves the harbour unles there is perfect weather or there is a club race scheduled.

I have sailed a few custom made Trimarans and several different large catamarans. Also I still get seasick on catamarans because of their corksrew type movement in havier sea (very embarrassing for me, as I am a fully rated commercial captain) but I rather stay with a larger sailing catamaran, then with any other type of sponson stabilized multi hull.

HTMO9

Keep us posted. I only have monohull and cat experience. The trimaran is for flat water beam or broad reaching speed. Have a look at this years Race 2 Alaska and you will find only the heavyweight mono hulls could manage the sea state and upwind beating required.
Cats do have an odd motion, many handle monohull motion and cannot manage on a cat.

When looking at larger sailing trimarans, there are not very many examples that please Your eyes. The only one I found, may be this one. It even seems to have retractable sponsons. But I believe, it will be very hard to find a yard taking the technological risk to build that monster.



All others are either very futuristic or just plain ugly. One more example.





This one does not lock very practicable and not very pretty either. But the last one is really over the top. A solar sailing trimaran suppost to be fully carbon neutral and bloody fast. I can't imagine the Med mooring fees for tha giant.



I think, I will stay with that catamaran.