Trimaran

A trimaran (or double-outrigger) is a multihull boat that comprises a main hull and two smaller outrigger hulls (or "floats") which are attached to the main hull with lateral beams. Most modern trimarans are sailing yachts designed for recreation or racing; others are ferries or warships. They originated from the traditional double-outrigger hulls of the Austronesian cultures of Maritime Southeast Asia; particularly in the Philippines and Eastern Indonesia, where it remains the dominant hull design of traditional fishing boats. Double-outriggers are derived from the older catamaran and single-outrigger boat designs.[1][2]

USA-17—a 90-foot-long (27 m) trimaran, type BOR90.
A traditional paraw double-outrigger sailboat (bangka) from the Philippines
Trimaran warship, USS Independence

Terminology

The word "trimaran" is a portmanteau of "tri" and "(cata)maran",[3] a term is thought to have been coined by Victor Tchetchet, a pioneering, Ukrainian-born modern multihull designer.[4] Trimarans consist of a main hull connected to outrigger floats on either side by a crossbeam, wing, or other form of superstructure—the traditional Polynesian terms for the hull, each float and connector are vaka, ama and aka, respectively.[5]

Sailing trimarans

History
An Iranun lanong, a double-outrigger warship from the Philippines used in the navies of the Sultanates of Maguindanao and Sulu from the 18th to late 19th centuries. They were also commonly used for raids and piracy.[6]
Succession of forms in the development of the Austronesian boat (Mahdi, 1999)
The Balatik, a paraw, a functioning replica of a traditional Austronesian sailing trimaran from the Visayas Islands of the Philippines

The first double-outrigger boats were developed by the Austronesian people and are still widely used today by traditional fishermen in maritime Southeast Asia. It developed from the more ancient single-outrigger boats as a way to deal with the problem of the instability of the latter when tacking leeward. Double-outrigger boats, however, did not develop among Austronesians in Micronesia and Polynesia (although it exists in western Melanesia), where single-outrigger boats and catamarans are used instead.[1][2][7][8][9]

Warships with double-outriggers were used widely in Maritime Southeast Asia since ancient times up until the early modern period, with examples like the karakoa,[10][11] lanong[6] kora kora,[12][13] knabat bogolu,[14] and the Borobudur ships . These were often referred to by Europeans during the colonial era as "proas", a general term which can also refer to single-outriggers and even to native ships without outriggers.[15][16]

20th century

Sailing catamarans and trimarans gained popularity during the 1960s and 1970s.[8][17] Amateur development of the modern sailing trimaran started in 1945 with the efforts of Victor Tchetchet, a Ukrainian émigré to the US, who built two trimarans made of marine plywood, which were about 24 feet (7 metres) long. He is credited with coining the term, "trimaran."[4] In the 1950s and 60s, Arthur Piver designed and built plywood kit trimarans, which were adopted by other homebuilders, but were heavy and not sea-kindly by modern standards. Some of these achieved ocean crossings, nonetheless.[18] Other designers followed, including Jim Brown, Ed Horstman, John Marples, Jay Kantola, Chris White, Norman Cross, Derek Kelsall and Richard Newick, thus bringing the trimaran cruiser to new levels of performance and safety.

Following the homebuilt movement, production models became available. Some trimarans in the 19–36-foot lengths (5.8–11.0 m) are designed as "day-sailers" which can be transported on a road trailer. These include the original Farrier – Corsair folding trimarans, such as the F-27 Sport Cruiser – and original John Westell swing-wing folding trimaran (using the same folding system later adopted also on Quorning Dragonfly) and like trimarans.

Sandeq double-outrigger sailboats with traditional Austronesian crab claw sails in Majene, West Sulawesi, Indonesia

Modern western-built trimarans typically do not use Austronesian rigging like tanja or crab claw sails. Instead they use a standard Bermuda rig. Trimarans are also typically significantly wider. In addition, trimaran floats are much more buoyant than those of outrigger canoes to support a large sailplan. They contribute to drag when heavily immersed, and their level of immersion indicates when to reef. In terms of performance, an objective comparison by Doran (1972) in terms of maximum progress against the wind, maximum speed, and speed downwind concluded that both the traditional double-outrigger vinta of the Philippines and the single-outrigger wa of the Caroline Islands, respectively, are still superior to the modern trimaran.[19]

LoeRea, 60-foot (18-metre) trimaran used in the movie, Waterworld.

Folding trimarans
Weta Trimaran racing in the High Sierra Regatta

Several manufacturers build trimarans in which the floats can be removed, repositioned, or folded near to the main hull. This allows them to be trailerable and/or to fit in a normal monohull space in a marina. Several mechanisms allow the amas or outriggers to be stored compactly:

  • Demountable fixed tubes that are assembled before launching.
  • Telescoping tubes
  • Hinge and latch system that allows the amas to fold over the main hull to reduce width for trailing.
  • Vertical folding that lifts the amas upwards and over the main hull.[20][21][22]
  • Horizontal articulation that moves the amas forward or backwards at the same level as the hull.[23]
  • Horizontal folding of the amas towards the main hull.

Safety

Trimaran safety features include amas with multiple sealed partitions, controls that all run to the cockpit, a collision bulkhead, partial or full cockpit coverings or windshields, and drain holes in the cockpit that can adequately drain the cockpit quickly, among other things.

Trimaran capsizes are more likely to be of the pitchpole type than a roll to one side due to their higher sideways stability and speeds. Capsized trimarans are harder to turn upright after they have turtled than monohull boats. While some capsized trimarans righted by sideways rotation may suffer heavy damage to mast and rigging, many modern[24] and ancient[25] trimarans are explicitly designed for this method of righting. Harnesses pulling on the stern toward the bow, or from the bow toward the stern of capsized trimarans have been shown to be able to successfully turn them end-over-end. Several design features reduce the chance of pitch-pole capsize; these include having wing nets with an open weave designed to reduce windage and decks and nets that shed water easily. The best way to avoid capsize is to reduce sail in heavy weather.

Competition and records

Thomas Coville holds the new world record for solo circumnavigation of the world by sailing the trimaran, Sodebo Ultim, set on December 25, 2016 with a time of 49 days and 3 hours. Prior to his feat, Francis Joyon held the world record for solo circumnavigation of the world, set on January 20, 2008. The 51-year-old Frenchman circled the planet alone in 57 days, 13 hours, 34 minutes, 6 seconds in a trimaran. He beat British sailor Ellen MacArthur's record set in February 2005 for which she spent just over 71 days at sea.[26]

Francis Joyon and crew of five sailors; Dec 2016–Jan 2017; the Maxi trimaran IDEC SPORT; current absolute (wind or mechanically powered) fastest maritime circumnavigation, in 40 days 23 hours 30 minutes 30 seconds of sailing. Average speed of 26.85 knots (30.71 MPH), covering a total distance of 26,412 nautical miles (48,915 km; 30,394 mi).[27] In early 2020, the same boat won a race, retracing the tea clipper route from Hong Kong to London in just under 32 days—one-third the time it took the clippers to sail the route.[28]

Hydroptère, an experimental sailing hydrofoil trimaran, briefly reached 56.3 knots (104.3 km/h; 64.8 mph)[29] near Fos-sur-Mer, but capsized and turtled shortly thereafter.[30][31]

33rd America's Cup

Competing with a giant trimaran the BMW Oracle Racing team representing the Golden Gate Yacht Club won the 2010 America's Cup on February 14, 2010, off Valencia, Spain, beating the giant catamaran Alinghi 2-0 in the best-of-three series and becoming the first American syndicate to win the cup since 1992. The large rigid wing sail of the USA 17 trimaran provided a decisive advantage and the trimaran won the America's Cup by a considerable margin in each race.

Powerboat

Earthrace broke the world record for circumnavigating the globe in a motorized boat in 2008 in just under 61 days.[32]

Trimaran ships

The trimaran configurations has also been used for both passenger ferries and warships. The Australian ship-building company, Austal, investigated the comparative merits of trimaran ships, compared with catamaran and monohull configurations. They found that there was an optimum location for the outer hulls in terms of minimizing wave generation and consequent power requirements for operating at high speeds with a payload of 1,000 tonnes. They further found that such a trimaran configuration was superior to a catamaran for roll and lateral force in a beam sea and superior in suppressing motion sickness resulting from a head sea.[33]

The negative considerations for trimarans, compared with catamarans or monohulls are:[33]

  • A more complicated and consequently more expensive hull structure for the payload, making them more suited for low-density cargo or passengers.
  • More complicated geometry and large size per unit of cargo carried, which makes docking more difficult than for a catamaran or monohull.

Between 2005 and 2020, Austal had built 14 aluminum high-speed trimaran ships, 11 of which were for the US Navy. In 2020, they had 11 trimarans under construction or under order. In addition to shipyards in Australia and the US, the company had shipyards in Vietnam and the Philippines.[34]

In 2005 Austal delivered the 127-metre trimaran (417 ft) Benchijigua Express to Spanish ferry operator Fred Olsen, S.A. for service in the Canary Islands. Capable of carrying 1,280 passengers and 340 cars, or equivalents, at speeds up to 40 knots, this boat was the longest aluminum ship in the world at the time of delivery.[35] A modern warship, the RV Triton was commissioned by British defence contractor QinetiQ in 2000. In October 2005, the United States Navy commissioned for evaluation the construction of a General Dynamics litoral combat ship trimaran designed and built by Austal.[36]

High-speed ferries
HSC Benchijigua Express

High-speed craft are governed by a code that applies to those designed for international passenger voyages that are shorter than four hours from a port of refuge, or cargo craft of 500 gross tonnage no more than eight hours from a port of refuge. All passengers are provided with a seat and there are no enclosed sleeping berths.[37]

The demand for high-speed ferries started in the late 1970s for ferries built mostly in Norway. Ultimately, two Australian shipyards came to prominence, Incat and Austal.[38] They were initially built by many shipyards, but by the turn of the century only two companies were still building larger vessels of over 70 metres and 3,000 Gross Tons. While Incat has specialized in wave-piercing catamarans, Austal has developed high-speed trimarans.[39][34]

In 2010 Austal built the 102 metre Hull 270, although they were unable to find a buyer for the ship until it was sold to Condor Ferries in 2015 when it was named HSC Condor Liberation and began operating to the Channel Islands.[40] Prospects for trimaran ferries picked up in 2017 when Fred. Olsen Express ordered two 117 metre trimarans for their Canary Islands services,[41] they are Bajamar Express and Bañaderos Express. In 2018 a Japanese company ordered a 83 metre trimaran ferry.[42]

The first use of trimaran hull designs in modern navies was in the RV Triton, a Research Vessel for the Royal Navy. She was built as a technology demonstrator ship for the Royal Navy's Future Surface Combatant, and has been used to prove the viability of the hull-form. Since 2007 the ship has been used by the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service's Customs Marine Unit.

Littoral combat ships built by General Dynamics at Bath Iron Works are of a trimaran design. USS Independence (LCS-2) is the first of these ships. Littoral combat ships built by Lockheed are of a monohull design.

First launched on 31 August 2012 at Bali Strait, 63M Carbon Fibre Composite Trimaran Fast Missile Boat (Indonesian: Kapal Cepat Rudal [KCR]) named KRI Klewang (625) – a traditional Indonesian single edge sword, was the first stealth trimaran of the Indonesian Navy built by North Sea Boats at Banyuwangi, East Java, Indonesia. This ship combined a number of existing advance technologies into a single, unique platform; a wave-piercer trimaran hull from, constructed exclusively of infused vinylester carbon fibre cored sandwich materials for all structural elements, with external "stealth" geometry and features intended to reduce detection. The KRI Klewang (625) caught fire because of an electrical short-circuit in the engine room during a maintenance period on September 28, 2012 and was a total loss.

43 Meter Trimarans called Ocean Eagle from CMN wharf with design from Nigel Irens und Prolarge based on the Ocean Adventurer concept will provide coastal protection for Mozambique.

  • Nokia in 2005, a 60-foot-long (18 m) trimaran, built for the Open Ocean Performance Sixties (ORMA 60) series.
  • Banque Populaire V in 2009. At the time, the largest maxi-trimaran and holding the 24 hours distance and transatlantic records.
  • Foldable trimaran with the floats in extended position.
  • A home-built cruising trimaran under construction in 1972.
gollark: ... what?
gollark: ++remind 20/08/2020 gibson booked this or something, deploy apiobees
gollark: Anyone want to pre-book for my GCSË results day?
gollark: It got shut down for maintenence I think.
gollark: That won't be for a while.

See also

Notes
  1. Mahdi, Waruno (1999). "The Dispersal of Austronesian boat forms in the Indian Ocean". In Blench, Roger; Spriggs, Matthew (eds.). Archaeology and Language III: Artefacts languages, and texts (PDF). One World Archaeology. 34. Routledge. p. 144-179. ISBN 0415100542.
  2. Doran, Edwin B. (1981). Wangka: Austronesian Canoe Origins. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 9780890961070.
  3. Collins English Dictionary – 2007 – Harper Collins – ISBN 978-0-00-780072-8
  4. "Victor Tchetchet". Multihull Maven.
  5. White, Chris. (1997). The cruising multihull. Camden, Me.: International Marine. p. 45. ISBN 0-07-069868-6. OCLC 39033104.
  6. James Francis Warren (2007). The Sulu Zone, 1768-1898: The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery, and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State. NUS Press. pp. 257–258. ISBN 9789971693862.
  7. Beheim, B. A.; Bell, A. V. (23 February 2011). "Inheritance, ecology and the evolution of the canoes of east Oceania". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 278 (1721): 3089–3095. doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.0060. PMC 3158936. PMID 21345865.
  8. Hornell, James (1932). "Was the Double-Outrigger Known in Polynesia and Micronesia? A Critical Study". The Journal of the Polynesian Society. 41 (2 (162)): 131–143.
  9. Doran, Edwin, Jr. (1974). "Outrigger Ages". The Journal of the Polynesian Society. 83 (2): 130–140.
  10. Francisco Ignacio Alcina (1668). Historia de las islas e indios de Bisayas.
  11. Francisco Combés (1667). Historia de las islas de Mindanao, Iolo y sus adyacentes : progressos de la religion y armas Catolicas.
  12. Charles P.G. Scott (1896). "The Malayan Words in English (First Part)". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 17: 93–144.
  13. Raymond Arveiller (1999). Max Pfister (ed.). Addenda au FEW XIX (Orientalia). Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie. Volume 298. Max Niemeyer. p. 174. ISBN 9783110927719.
  14. Haddon, Alfred Cort (1920). The Outriggers of Indonesian Canoes. London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
  15. Folkard, Henry Coleman (1853). The Sailing Boat: a description of English and foreign boats. London: Hunt and Son.
  16. Blackburn, Graham (2003). The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Ships and Boats. I.B.Tauris. p. 262. ISBN 9781860648397.
  17. Harris, Robert B. (1965). "Catamarans: A Revolution in Sailing History". Archon. Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. (Fall 1965): 12. Now gaining popularity is the trimaran, a triple-hulled craft of an ancient origin as the catamaran. [...] Trimarans have now crossed both the Atlantic and the Pacific.
  18. Randy Thomas. "Multihulls Discovered: Part 1: Their origins, myths, magic, mana... and caveats that go along with these craft that have evolved from ancient heritage". Yachting. Retrieved 2015-01-01.
  19. Edwin Doran Jr., Texas A. & M. University (1972). "Wa, Vinta, and Trimaran". Journal of the Polynesian Society, Volume 81, No. 2. Retrieved 2015-01-01. In contrast to double-outrigger canoes, however, [trimaran] floats are often quite large and buoyant and contribute considerably to drag which slows the boat. [...] The Pacific canoes are notably more narrow ([length/beam] ratios of about 10 and 13 respectively) than the trimaran (ratio of about 7).
  20. "Animation". Retrieved 2009-08-08.
  21. "Whisper". Retrieved 2009-01-09.
  22. "trimax 1080 trimaran". Retrieved 2009-10-10.
  23. David Owen (1970). "Trimariner". Archived from the original on 2011-04-02. Retrieved 2009-05-26.
  24. "Weta Owners Manual". Retrieved 2015-01-01.
  25. Edwin Doran Jr., Texas A. & M. University (1972). "Wa, Vinta, and Trimaran". Journal of the Polynesian Society, Volume 81, No. 2. Retrieved 2015-01-01. Seaworthiness is implicit in the ability to make such voyages. A specific point illustrating the latter is the technique known to Caroline Inslanders for righting their canoes after they have capsized at sea. In brief, the mast is rigged from under side of float to a sheer legs erected above the bottom of the capsized boat. Four men climb quickly up the inclined mast, their weight forcing the float to submerge to a point directly underneath the main hull. Past this point the float's own buoyancy takes it back to the surface in righted position whereupon the canoe is bailed, rerigged and continues on its voyage.
  26. Staff (December 25, 2016). "French sailor Thomas Coville sets new record for solo sailing circumnavigation | DW | 25.12.2016". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  27. Gain, Bruce (February 6, 2017). "Q&A with IDEC Sport skipper Francis Joyon". Sailing World. Retrieved 2020-06-20.
  28. "IDEC SPORT shatters Tea Route Record >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News". Scuttlebutt Sailing News. 2020-02-20. Retrieved 2020-06-20.
  29. Though it was first announced the ship reached 61 kn: «Pointe de l'Hydroptère à 61 noeuds» (in French)
  30. Les données officielles ont été récupérées Archived 2010-10-08 at the Wayback Machine, L'Hydroptère, 14 January 2009 (in French)
  31. "Hydroptere: 61 knots and huge crash with 35-38 knots, gusts over 45". Fos-sur-Mer: Catamaran Racing. December 22, 2008. Retrieved 2013-11-19.
  32. Seiff, Abby (2006). "Fast Fueled". Popular Science. Bonnier Group. 269 (6): 18.
  33. Yun, Liang; Bliault, Alan (2014-07-08). High Performance Marine Vessels. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 238–9. ISBN 978-1-4614-0869-7.
  34. Biscevic, Tajna (2020-02-28). "Austal's WA shipyard launches new trimaran". Manufacturers' Monthly. Retrieved 2020-06-20.
  35. "Delivery Benchijigua Express – Austal". Archived from the original on 2006-04-22.
  36. "Defence – Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) – Austal". Archived from the original on 2008-08-20.
  37. International Maritime Organization (2020). "High-Speed Craft (HSC)". www.imo.org. Retrieved 2020-06-19.
  38. Talley, Wayne K. (2012-02-13). The Blackwell Companion to Maritime Economics. John Wiley & Sons. p. 173. ISBN 978-1-4443-3024-3.
  39. AUSTAL. "AUSTAL Trimaran technology" (PDF).
  40. Staff (May 27, 2015). "Allegations that Condor Liberation could capsize are 'sensationalist and factually incorrect'". Jersey Evening Post. Retrieved 2020-06-15.
  41. AUSTAL AUSTRALIA ROLLS OUT 118 METRE TRIMARAN FOR FRED. OLSEN EXPRESS | https://www.austal.com/news/austal-australia-rolls-out-118-metre-trimaran-fred-olsen-express
  42. Austal awarded $68m contract for 83 metre trimaran | https://www.austal.com/news/austal-awarded-a68m-contract-83-metre-trimaran-jr-kyushu-jet-ferry-japan

References
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