Multi hulls

[gert]

What is a "F28" retractable trimaran?

[mmd]

A trimaran whose outer hulls, or amas, fold up or retract on their crossbeams to make the boat narrow enough to make the boat trailerable. There are several variations on the market, but the Farrier-designed F28 is one of the most popular, I believe. Check out http://www.corsairuk.com/ for more info.

[Todd Bradshaw]

You should get one Gert. We had a smaller Farrier tri for a while and it was a lot of fun. Everybody should sail a multihull for a while, as it's an interesting experience to buzz along at sixteen knots and only heel about five degrees. In light air, we used to lie in the bow nets, semi-snoozing with the tiller tied off with a bungy cord and still pass monohulls.

The F-series boats are pretty well designed and all of them up through the 31 footer fold down to around 8' beam for trailering. You can even run them around with the motor while folded, which gets you a lot of strange looks from other boaters. I got pulled over once by the local warden because my registration numbers were on the bow of the main hull, instead of being on the amas where he thought they would show up better. I folded them in, which puts the place where he thought the numbers should be underwater and said "How about now?" He grumbled and went away mad. I loved it! Pricey little buggers though. Last time I looked a used F-27 was worth about $45K and the new F-28's were around $75K or better.

[Ged]

Yup, that sure sounds pricey to me. I wonder how many buildable designs are out there for this sort of thing? I think I remember seeing a foldable tri design the last time I looked around in the Dix Design website. I think the folding mechanism for the amas was something of Mr. Dix's own design, if I remember correctly.

[Todd Bradshaw]

You can buy plans for several Farrier trimarans.
http://www.f-boat.com/pages/trimarans/index.html
They are extremely well done and consist of full-sized sections and several manuals covering the building and construction. Every nut, bolt, chunk of reinforcing cloth, etc. is specified in the plans (Farrier was originally an engineer and the plans show it). I bought a set of F-25 plans about 11 years ago ($1,000 for the plans and building rights - wood strip/fiberglass, Duracore or foam strip also possible). As things turned out, our interests turned other directions and I eventually sold the plans. I still have a 2/3 finished, big Kevlar mainsail up in the attic though. Being a sailmaker, I figured it would look pretty stupid to build a boat and not have any sails for it, so seeing as I had enough space at the time to build the sails, I figured I'd get started. Now I have about $800 worth of Kevlar in my attic and nothing to hang it on, which is equally stupid. Live and learn...

Nice boats though and very well written plans. Farrier seems to have done quite well with them. We bought our set of plans fairly early in the game and they were for F-25 #52, which at that price is pretty good money. He also had the plan for the F-9A available at the time, which was a 31' version and I think they sold even better than those for the F-25.

[ 06-09-2003, 12:02 PM: Message edited by: Todd Bradshaw ]

[paladin]

The original Brown 31 Searunner had dismountable amas to make it easy to transport. Build it inland and truck it to launch site, attach amas and off you go.......Still have the plans...and for the 34...and for the 41....

[Ged]

Ahhh, veddy, veddy intedesting...

Man, there surely aren't too many questions asked around here without someone having some kind of answer for. Thanks, fellas.

[Noah]

There are a bunch of these on Lake Champlain. They go like hell, and all the owners are happy. If I had the cash it would be on the top of the list.

Noah

[brian.cunningham]

Ian is a real nice guy to deal with. Lots of support.
http://www.f-boat.com/media/trimarans/Sauterelle.jpg
http://www.f-boat.com/media/animation/boat.gif
And yes plans are available in wood.
http://www.f-boat.com/media/materials/F-25.jpg

You can also get his designs in stitch & glue now.
http://www.kendrickdesign.com.au/scarab_670.htm

Get on the multihull boat builder mailing list while your at it.

http://www.multihullboatbuilder.com/

[Ged]

Thanks for the links and the visuals, Brian. Neat stuff. I'll start digging around in those links as soon as I get a chance.

[JimConlin]

See also Ian's site Ian Farrier's site (http://www.f-boat.com/)

[gert]

I like the older 18' from the 70s. Not so "glassy" looking.

[Todd Bradshaw]

The one we had was 20' with no cabin, but a huge cockpit. The model was called the Eagle or the Tramp, depending on where it was made. It wasn't as sleek or fancy as the newer boats, but was still a pretty nice boat that would comfortably hold six adults for day sailing and can be fitted with a boxy tent over the cockpit for a couple people to overnight in. You see them for sale used from time to time, generally in the $8K-$10K range. Farrier's new 22' S&G model looks pretty interesting, though he designed it for glass-faced foam panels and says plywood would be too heavy to work as well.
This is our old Eagle.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid28/pd77245b0abeb29c99fe3b2a5d946e446/fd6533a9.jpg

[Hwyl]

No discussion of tis sort would be complete without mentioning Dick Newicks Tremolino. The Ama's can be Hobie 16 hulls or Dick has plans for low leeway cresent moon section amas, the rig can be from Hobie, Dick has plans for a wing mast. It folds up for trailing, here are some links http://www.geocities.com/tremsetters/ www.wingo.com/newick (http://www.wingo.com/newick)

[Tomcat]

And Dick has a great plan from '65 for something called the Horizon 24, that has real sleep two side by side accomodations. There is one for sale right now, but it is demountable, not foldable, still small enough it shouldn't be too much bother. 7500 I think

I love Ian's boats, but to do the whole thing for 3500, I built a Kurt Hughes 24 footer. Unfortunately the plans are now 800 or something. Kurts boats are very fast, but there isn't much camping room with the layout on mine.