Kurt Hughes 40' racing trimaran concept for Phil Stegall

Noted multihull ocean racer Phil Steggall was looking at one stage to build a 40' racing trimaran and commissioned Kurt Hughes to draw him a concept.  A more modern take on Kurt's F40 racing trimaran it enclosed a more commodious interior with more stowage while still keeping the racing edge. Construction was to be cored carbon with the platform to be square 40' x 40'.  Float foils were drawn as straight daggerboards but could be lifting foils if requested.

http://multihulldesigns.com/

Kurt Hughes 75' cruising trimaran design

Kurt Hughes still has an interest in designing large trimarans for cruising and the results are certainly impressive.  He has quite a few world cruising trimarans under his belt and the reports from the field on their motion and comfort are very positive.  This is an update from his facebook page on one of his current projects a 75' cruising trimaran.

GC32 Catamaran designer Martin Fischer comments on the foil system

In this short video Martin Fischer the designer of the GC32 racing catamaran comments on the crafts lifting foil and rudder system.  The lifting foils are of the "S"type and provide lift and lateral resistance and the rudders are 'L' shaped and adjustable to help stabilise the boat while it is flying.

Chris White Mastfoil photo

I notice over at Carbon Club they have put up a photo of the recently completed "mastfoil" designed by Chris White.

Rob Denney's Solitarry proa design

Rob Denney has been designing some very interesting proa's over the years and a recent update on his website goes into more detail on his "Solitarry" model.

 

http://harryproa.com/index.php/design/2012-10-11-10-54-13/concept-designs

 

Solitarry

Solitarry is a response to the ever increasing complexity in yacht racing, which not only makes it ridiculously expensive, but far harder work than it needs to be. It reverses the normal spiral which leads to more weight and more sail area. By removing weight, the stresses go down, followed by the size of the components, followed by the sail area required which lowers the stress, and so forth. To make this a success requires some fairly imaginative innovations.
Specifications:

• LOA 15m/50'
• 
Beam 7m/24'

• Racing weight (preliminary) 700 kgs/1,540 lbs

• Sail area 50 sq m/540 sq' 

• Draft 200mm/8” to 1.16m/3.8'

• Air draft 9m/30’ to 15m/50’

• Bruce number ready to race 2.0

• Bruce number no crew or safety gear 2.3

• Hull flying wind speed (theoretical, without allowing for mast flex)10 knots

15m/50' long, 7m/24' wide with a preliminary race ready weight of 700 kgs/1,540 lbs, a third of of which is safety/navigation gear, food and skipper. With a telescoping, unstayed mast, Solitarry is a radical boat, although most of the features have already been tried on a half size model.

more here

 

The Light Brigade, Light displacement and multihull development by Gary Baigent

This excellent .pdf by New Zealander Gary Baigent delves into the history of light displacement monohull and multihull design and is an excellent read.

http://www.coolmobility.com.au/Yacht/LightBrigade.pdf

Here is a link to one of Gary's interesting design and build projects the foiler Sid

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/alternative-marvelous-buccaneer-24-a-32382.html

and some photos of Sid

Kurt Hughes 27' x 27' racing trimaran

Kurt Hughes has been working on a new racing design for "Simmo" in Italy.  It's intended to be a performance focussed design but still have some basic cruising amenities.  It's still under development but looking good so far.

Simmo’s New Boat

We all know simmo from all the amazing videos and stills of sailing his KHSD 24′ tri Muffalo. He has been pushing me to come up with a new, bigger design for a while. Here is is. 27′ x 27′. Demountable carbon beams. Curved lifting foils. Sleeps 2 x 2.

Tim Clissold TC1221 (40') trimaran concept

I contacted New Zealand multihull designer Tim Clissold http://www.tcdesign.co.nz to do a concept for an ocean racing/cruising trimaran that still had useful volume for cruising.  He delivered a concept that I thought would have made a beautiful balanced performance boat.  Sadly my wife indicated she did not want to spend any time cruising so I changed tack to a more basic racing machine as my ocean racing approach.  I present the concept here in the hope that someone might like to pickup the ball and run with it and get plans and a boat built to them.  It's a beautiful boat and would provide a very comfortable high performance cruiser/racer trimaran.

Trimarans dont provide the living space or load carrying ability of a catamaran but if you can live without extra "stuff" they make up for it in other ways in providing a more dynamic and engaging sailing experience to the sailor and generally superior performance.  I'd say this boat would be comfortable and have adequate load carrying characteristics for a couple with kids for cruising and considerably more for daysailing or racing.

The statement of requirements was for a comfortable bluewater capable trimaran with a performance focus that was able to be a competitive ocean racing craft but enough displacement to provide for extended unsupported cruising and reasonable tankage for fuel with generator power coming from a diesel fitted with a sail or retractable shaft drive and a watermaker to keep weight down.