Bigger Trimarans?

I want a new 20 ft tri with a cabin nothing super fancy but enclosed to sleep 2 maybe. Most of the smaller ones have too much open cockpit. Just enclose it leaving two smaller benches for the helm and keep the cost below 50k new!! I think I am going to start designing one that uses Hobie hardware for the mast and sails that way I can find parts easier...


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Everything that made the Hobie 16 one of the world's most popular sailboats would do the same if duplicated in a Trimaran. Small enough to be quickly assembled and single handed by one, but easily capable of carrying two without incurring much weight penalty. offering great performance, trailerable and affordable.

The Hobie TI and Weta combine to sell a very decent amount of trimarans. In the 18+ foot trimaran market, there are plenty of trimarans and none of them sell worth a hoot. The instant you go above about 17 or 18 feet, you're out of the largest potential market... at least if you want to sell a lot of boats.

Apologies to the WR17, which is a great boat in its own way but not what most are looking for, you take a Diam 24 and scale it down to 16 or 17 feet and you'll have one of the best selling sailboats ever put on the market.

What you want is out there already. The market for them is not large, but it exists and is already filled with a number of boats fitting your description. The SeaRail 19 and the new Astus 20.5 both seem to check all the boxes you indicated, including a price tag of well below 50K.

Searail really doesn’t have a cabin but the Astus is my cheapest option right now. I would like to know more about them but not finding a ton of info or one I can look at.

I really like the Corsair pulse and it kinda has a cabin for my kids but not really. But I could fab up a cover (with fiberglass or vinyl) to cover more of the cockpit area to make it a little more covered. But then again I could build a cover for the sea rail too.

Normally we sail 2-3 hours in the morning (kids play on the tramps), beach it do lunch play and nap (sometimes I go solo sailing) then we head back home before dark. Problem now is the kids get cold going back so a cabin would be awesome to shield them and maybe camp in.



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The problem with small tris is the expense to make the hulls and crossbeams (ama, vaka, aka for those polynesian types). A 20 footer in glass is going to cost 30K minimum--unless you build it yourself. That pulse you like is nearer to 40K and it has no cabin to speak of--even less than the SeaRail (which is 30K). A Farrier 22 would be close to what you want, but again you are talking hens teeth (finding one or getting one and even more expensive than the Pulse). The minimum cabin equipped tri that can be manufactured and sold for a profit seems to be about 7.5 meters. Corsair is the company that's been making them longest and my 24 footer still weighed a literal ton (2100 pounds to be exact-and that was stripped for racing). Astus is trying to make smaller ones...but I don't see much traction here on this side of the pond. An updated Windrider 17 might fit the bill by eschewing the foot steering, adding better underwater foils, nets and a little cabin while redesigning the hulls narrower and upgrading the akas to something less flexible. Think of Getaway amas with a Vanguard vaka. Ain't gonna happen.

_________________
R/Thom
SeaRail 19
Triak
BMW C600
Formerly Getaway with Custom Spinnakers
Formerly raced F24 Mk II

We’ll I can dream!!!
Really the searail and the pluse are too close to my TI. And setup for a bigger 20 something trailer tri is probably not that much different than those two where the mast is the time consuming part.

The reason I use my TI so much is because I can be from my garage to in the water in less than 15mins if my wife parks the golf cart and 20 if I have to.

I figure that would be about an hour setup on any of the other Tri I have been talking about. So I might as well go bigger (even though the pulse/searail would be fun).


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Neither the SeaRail or Pulse is anywhere close to your TI - the size/volume difference alone is monumental. You might want to arrange to see/sail one of these before writing them off. They are both completely different animals than a Tandem Island.

Well, Neither SeaRail nor Pulse are anything like the TI. Either will literally sail rings around the TI unless there is no wind at all and the TI is being pedaled. The mast is not the time consuming part, as an aside. It does take some care to lift 100 pounds of metal 33 feet into the air, but certainly isn't much longer than a half hour for the Pulse or my old F242...a little longer than that for the SeaRail. You are correct, though, the time involved is about the same whether it is a F31 or F24 or Pulse, takes about an hour. I do miss the 15 minute setup for my Triak and the nearly as quick Getaway...but even a Weta takes longer than that. Windrider 17 was about the same as the Getaway and I suspect about the same speed as your TI to get from trailer to sailing. Truth to tell, though, local Islands take much longer at the launch ramp that I've observed.

While you are dreaming, might as well dream for a Corsair Cruz 970 on a hydrohoist. But not much bang for buck for me.

_________________
R/Thom
SeaRail 19
Triak
BMW C600
Formerly Getaway with Custom Spinnakers
Formerly raced F24 Mk II

Very correct! I didn’t mean close in performance /size I should have worded that better. I was thinking more open like my TI so if my my main goal is a more “protected from the elements” for the family then the TI would kinda sorta be in the same category as the other two with no cabin.

Scratch that maybe it’s better to say they are more like the bigger ones (Fboats, Corsairs, Dragonfly’s) so it would suit me more to move up to a used older one for not much more money.

And I have not written anything off it will all be about timing and luck. When they align the right boat will present itself. As a matter of fact there’s a windrider 17 for 4500 on c-list I may just buy to play with just to see. If I found a good deal on a searail near me I’d probably buy it.


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I understand, even still, the TI being so much lower and narrower, is much, much, much wetter than these other trimarans. I can't begin to make any reasonable comparison between them and the AI/TI on any level.

Whatever you do, look at and sail a few different boats before making a buying decision.

Defy - same here, all fun getting wet in the morning but kids get cold by the afternoon, even with all their extra gear on (wetsuits, gloves, boots, balaclava, cag etc. etc.). Wife to some extent too.
If I was mainly solo sailing, or we were only out for 2 or 3 hours in a day then I probably wouldn't even be thinking about other boats. But we typically make a 2.5hr drive to the coast on a sunny weekend, and like to make a full day of it, picnic, exploring beaches etc!

So I see there are mainly 2 options for us:

A) Go with something slightly bigger like the Searail 19/Pulse 600 which would give us a faster, drier ride, along with some shelter for small kids. This would extend our daily range, but I'm sure we would miss many of the benefits which make the TI so attractive in the first place, like the mirage drive, ability to launch from nearly anywhere, pull it up the beach for picnics, super low-cost to maintain, & we'd have to pay for storage as anything bigger wouldn't fit in our garage like our TI does, etc.

B) If shelling out £20K+ for the likes of above (& loosing the advantages of the TI), makes me think we might as well find the extra £s to get something we can over-night on, e.g. F22, 760 etc.
But then will the missus really be happy with a tiny cabin & porta-potty for overnights, 4-up, or would we just end up day-sailing it & camping (as we do now) on a nice campsite with hot showers & a pub in walking distance...
In which case, should we save the money & stick with option A? Or would the extra few feet & cabin for shelter be worth the extra money, even for day-sailing?

There are other options of course, e.g. look at mono-hulls to provide more comfort for the money, but I find them less attractive for reasons already mentioned. Or get a larger Trimaran (e.g. 970 or older Dragonfly 28 etc.) for multi-hull joy with added comfort, but sadly we can't afford at this time, and towing would become more of an issue.

Obviously there's no such thing as the perfect boat for us (unless maybe money was no object!), but I think our next step is to visit a major boat show this September, & hopefully view a few options so we can have an informed family argument about it!

I sort of was thinking about a larger tri in the past (to replace my 26 foot trailerable mono hull - not the TI which I would have still kept), and one thing about the larger more complex boat is that the hassle of launching and take down gets old - and especially old when you get old. Even at a 45 minute setup, you will after a while want to stay out at least a few days and will want the option of renting a slip. Standard size slips are easier to come by and less expensive. The one Tri that a friend has (I think a F24 but Im not at all sure) was supposed to be simple to collapse the ama's and was even designed so the mast rigging kept the mast upright with the ama in our out. I believe that when collapsed, the boat would still fit in a 10 foot wide slip. So when you were done sailing, fold in the ama's with the mast up and spend the night in the slip. This ability would be very important to me so I thought I would bring it up. Maybe all the larger tri allow the amas to be folded in with the mast up???

All the corsairs and most of the other boats that say folding will allow mast up while folded. Even could be done on some sliding tube designs but you have to put in temp stays. That's one of the selling points for Corsair, that they can be put into a standard slip. The F24 didn't have to have anything done, as you say, but I always used spare halyards and mainsheet to tighten the mast when I left it in a slip...belt and suspenders.

And you are also correct, 45 minutes or longer to get the boat into or out of the water restricts the desire to go sailing-especially when you get older. Add to that the diminished joy of sailing slow or wet. Here's a comparison...my Triak was slow (top end around 12 kts in a blow with spin up), but it was easy to single hand and pretty dry since you sit inside. It took 15-20 minutes to go from trailer to sailor. In the 5 years I owned it, I made 110 movies--so figure about 22 outings a year. The Getaway was a faster boat-also pretty dry and took 30 minutes to go from trailer to sailor. Top end of the boat is around 15 kts. I was leery of sailing single handed (boat was stable, but I was used to trimarans) so I rarely took it out in a blow. In the 2 seasons I owned it, I made 30 movies...so figure 15 times a year.

My SeaRail is fastest boat I've ever owned. It takes much longer to setup and take down--hour and a half each way, so I split it into two days or take crew. Boat is pretty dry except in a blow with chop (so far). Don't know the top end of the boat, yet, but it should be in the low 20s. I've only owned it since last October and have sailed it 11 times so far...and I'm still figuring out stuff, which makes it fun but scary this time of year when the winds are normally 15-25.

Point being, what makes this a fun hobby for you. If it is family fun and you need a cabin for littlies, you need a bigger boat with shelter. If it is family fun but don't need shelter, TI (Getaway) is a good boat. If it is performance you want, there are lots of performance boats but they typically cost much more than TI. And, of course, if you don't have the money for what you need for it to be fun, perhaps you need a different hobby.

_________________
R/Thom
SeaRail 19
Triak
BMW C600
Formerly Getaway with Custom Spinnakers
Formerly raced F24 Mk II

RedKite:

The idea that the Searail or Pulse 600 are only "slightly bigger" than the TI is far from the reality. These boats are absolutely huge compared to the TI. You have to look at more than length to really understand the difference. Again I would suggest you find one and look at it or even try to arrange a test sail.

Any one have a searail or a pulse on the east coast?

Where I am at now we have access to a boat ramp about 6 houses down. I normally golf cart the TI to the ramp and take it out rigged. If we get a searail or the like I would put it in on Friday evening and just tie it up next to the ramp for the weekend (we have like 4 spots for boats depending on size). So that would eliminate the worry for long setup times.

What does the searail draft? At low tide I have a sandbar that can be as shallow as 2 ft that I have to cross to get to deep water. I normally find it with the TI’s dagger and recently broke a rudder pin because I remembered the dagger but had the rudder cleated down.


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