A TRIMARAN FOR THE MED
She's 42' LOA largely inspired by Venom 42 but destined to live in Mediterranean waters, and that had implications I simply wasn't prepared for.
The future owner had some very specific ideas for the design. Ideas that were grounded in the desire to sail mostly single handed, and to be able to safely back into the marina spaces along the shore front of the typical Mediterranean port facilities where boats tie stern to with access on and off the boat by way of a passerelle.
At the heart of the design concept was a cockpit arrangement that allowed the skipper to pass quickly and safely across the boat when tacking and gybing. The boom had to be high enough that it didn't pose the threat of a serious head injury.
In addition to the port and stbd helm stations on the aft beam there would be a central helm station in a more sheltered cockpit forward of the platform between the beam mounted helm stations.
The minimal accommodation requirements made it relatively easy to produce a streamlined hull and cabin profile with minimal wind resistance.
The owner's vision for the design was admirable. Basically a fast day sailer that could make passages of two or three days across and around the Med. in relative comfort and handle the unpredictable fresh winds that can spring up in the Med.
So far the design exercise was pretty straight forward, but having to provide for a passerelle that could be stored under the cockpit, include an anchor launcher and chain locker in the bow, and add a bow thruster that would provide adequate control to be able to back into stern to parking spaces, it all added up to a very complex design exercise that consumed many many hours of work and probably a couple of gigabytes of discarded ideas.
The arrangement in the bow was particularly difficult. It was my first experience with a bow thruster. It had to be far enough forward to provide enough force against the windage on the hulls, but in a very fine bow we also had to accommodate an anchor launcher, a chain locker and capstan, a furler on the forestay, and a bow pole for the gennaker.
The reality was that we didn't really know if we could make it all work and the only way to find out was to go through the design exercise. The minimal accommodation requirements gave us a good head start but as we dug into the detail it just became really really complex and it was probably going to be expensive to build.
As you probably know already I'm a sucker for fast trimarans and I would have loved to see this project come to life. But in reality I think you have to question whether a trimaran is the right configuration to fulfil the design brief, in particular the ability to reverse park into a narrow space between other boats with a fresh side wind, with or without the assistance of a bow thruster.
Maybe it should have been a cat or even a fast mono? Yeah I'm probably losing you now, and you've lost me as well.
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