I recently emailed Pete Ansel of
Motive trimarans to see how the project for this custom/semi production carbon construction Motive 25r trimaran is coming along. It seems much of the work is revolving around getting systems up to speed and making sure they all work as well as possible. I've also had quite a few queries about the camping side of this smart looking and performing trimaran so thought I'd ask Pete for some more details.
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| Motive 25 trimaran test sailing, photo courtesy Motive Trimarans |
From Pete Ansel, Motive Trimarans on the development process.
We should be back in the water by late April or early May after the latest round of mods. It's been quite an adventure so far and I certainly didn't expect things to take this long. The original rudders just weren't strong enough, and waiting for the new ones, took a few months, so we essentially lost the summer season which sucked. The exposure would have been great and the warm weather testing very useful. Working with even a small handful of specialty shops for various parts has been frustratingly slow! I'm now doing most of the mods myself and really enjoying the speed with which development is now progressing.
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| Ted Warren fitting up the new rudders, photo courtesy Motive Trimarans |
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| New and stronger rudder pintle arrangement, Motive Trimarans |
I have over a dozen people ready to shell out $50,000 deposits, but I'm not taking anyone's money, until I feel 100% ready. Rushing into production is the worst thing you can do. Too many manufacturing/warranty nightmare stories out there!
No doubt more will be learned with more on water testing, but there's no sense rushing to put it in the water until I fix the little things I already know are wrong! In other words... There's no sense testing a boat that's not the boat I want to test!
Here is the new 4:1 traveler which Harken doesn't offer in their catalogue, but which they built specially for me. Angling the track forward for the boomless rig, causes the cleats to be pointing down at a bad angle. I was able to correct this with two sets of custom 21ยบ Delrin wedges. The first photo shows the left cleat angle corrected with wedges, while the right cleat shows the original bad angle. I then swapped them out for extreme angle cleats, which will let you control the traveler from anywhere on the trampolines.
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| Initial 4 to 1 custom Harken traveler setup, photo courtesy Motive Trimarans |
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| delrin wedges, photo courtesy Motive Trimarans |
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| corrected traveler arrangement, photo courtesy Motive Trimarans |
Below is one of the new CNC'ed "A" brackets I designed for single handed mast raising, and the new aft mast support roller which only requires about 20 lb. of force to pin the mast foot. It was previously taking 3 or 4 people to raise the mast safely, which is fine for a prototype but not production!. Then there's the new carbon mini-deck which shows the new CB up/down lines sorted out, and with a quick release clam cleat for the down line. Both lines lead to the winches, which is especially critical when lowering the CB and fighting its buoyancy. The new CB has twin carbon rectangular tubes running its full length for strength. The new rudders are mounted to the new Gudgeons I designed and which are much beefier than the previous ones. They're set much farther apart and use a 12mm full length pintle. The tiller crossbeam is now 3 " above the traveler, so the hiking sticks don't crash into the traveler end controls as previously.
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| New A frame mast raising arrangement, photo courtesy Motive Trimarans |
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| New A frame mast raising system being tested, photo courtesy Motive Trimarans |
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| New rear mast support roller, photo courtesy Motive Trimarans |
The water stays have also been changed once again. After three or four attempts at using soft rigging which had its creep/stretch problems, they are now -4 rod rigging from Hall Spars, and of a much smaller diameter. Lots of other small mods, such as a pair of Colligo quick release, twin fairleads on the foredeck for the roller furler lines, to keep them from drooping over the sides and looking sloppy like they were before. Still a ways to go but feeling very good about the spring.
Now that I've blabbed on this far, I might as well answer your last few questions!
-RAID: People love the raid concept and frankly I can't wait to go camping on the boat myself. The trampolines have been designed with four small nylon webbing loops each, to tie down a standard 2 person tent on each side, allowing 2-4 people to camp comfortably. And I'm working with a US tent maker on custom silver tents to match the boat. Some people of course though, are only interested in racing and for sure we've had plenty of inquiries in that direction. But I find that though racers are the "loudest", it doesn't make them the majority. A lot of people love the boat as is and say nothing. The future will tell the market direction.
-STORAGE: There are eight 6" inspection ports with storage bags along the walls of the footwell, four each side, and 1 more in each ama. There is also a surprising amount of room in the center hull, forward hatch. I've crawled all the way forward in there to replace the headstay U-bolt. One person could sleep in there comfortably along with a lot of gear... but I'd prefer the tent on the tramp under the stars! For raiding/expeditioning though, dry duffel bags lash down to the front of the tramps. We have a matching set of 2 big and 2 midsize black Ortlieb dry bags, they look great! There's also plenty of room in the hatch area to sit on a piss bucket, should you be so inclined!
-MAIN FURLING: This has not played out as envisioned, though it's not a big deal. I thought the mainsail when doused would fit completely in the footwell while its sail slugs remained in the mast track. In reality, the stacked slugs and head board extend above the deck. We have a cool looking sail bag and the whole thing just rests, suspended above the deck, much like a conventional boomed rig.
-SLIDING CONCEPT: This has worked out really well, and little refinements continue to speed up set up time. Two people can launch the boat in about 45 minutes.
So as you can see, We've been busy but I'm feeling good about the boat. Feel free to check back in a few months.
Happy Holidays!
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