Trimaran - Especially Searunner - Owners

[Rann]

No,Jack's skiff not the dinghy to transport on the tri, but a nice run-around skiff for water fun. Most of the transportable dinks sit either on a wing deck or over the sterncastle.

Here is the one I am interested in building for my Searunner 34.
All About Seaweed

Nested, it will just fit nicely over the coach roof of the sterncastle behind the sliding hatch lid and the aft end of the dinette area.

With such a dink, it precludes using any sort of traveler for the mainsheet directly attached to the coach roof. Mike Lenemen of Multimarine has designed a very simple and effective main sheet control system using an inverted V, similar to the one in the plans for the 34 but a bit more effective. Sigi and Bettina Stiemer have such a main sheet on their F-33 Hi5 in Vancouver, BC. Scroll through the pictures here and you will get a glimpse of it (third picture down):

F-33 trimaran in Vancouver

[Jmolan]

Anyone looking to build a cruising trimaran is probably familiar with the CC35'...I just ran across this one in the Seattle area for sale. Looks like a great start on a boat building project.

I do not know anything beyond what I have read in the ad.

2011 Marples CC35 Sail Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

[johnstonad]

Originally Posted by Factor

Checked on Kurt Hughes site and yep he has an extensive range of Rapid build trimarans.

The site is good. Thanks for referring it. I really like it.

[sctpc]

Originally Posted by Rann

Most of the transportable dinks sit either on a wing deck or over the sterncastle.

Here is the one I am interested in building for my Searunner 34.
All About Seaweed

OH YER make one for me too Ive been look for one for ages.

[steve ripples]

Rann, thanks for the dinghy link. Very nice lines, practical, and looks to be a quick and easy build. Love the way they do the saw in half method. Tom Jones' Dandy design is another option for a nesting dinghy but I think the Spindrift is probably better. Cheap plans, too. Great.

[Mark Johnson]

Originally Posted by Jmolan

Anyone looking to build a cruising trimaran is probably familiar with the CC35'...I just ran across this one in the Seattle area for sale. Looks like a great start on a boat building project.

I do not know anything beyond what I have read in the ad.

2011 Marples CC35 Sail Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

Scott @ XS, Boats has Jo Hudson's CC35 for sale in St Augustine as well. Video of his cruise to C America with Jim Brown are on YouTube, for those interested.
Mark

[Mark Johnson]

Hi fellow Searunners!
Some thoughts about dinghies, strictly for those still in the decision making process. I've built & tried a number of hard dinks before we resorted to our light wt RIB.

First off: The sterncastle roof is great for a large opening hatch, solar panel, and proper traveler. (MUCH better than "A" frame sheets). Jim only put his dinghy up there, because being an "A frame" 31, the wings had no decks to put one on. Otherwise, the wing deck is a great place for your dinghy.

There are a lot of dinghy compromises! The BEST rowing dinks are light, long, narrow, hard to stow, TIPPY, and terrible dive boats. Also, dinghy docks often require boarding over the bow, which is another negative of this type.

Next is "pretty good" rowing designs, like the Danny Greene "Little Bits" nesting dinghy that I built. It was VERY light, easy to row, but still TIPPY and a poor dive boat.

Later I tried a super fast, light, foam core planing dinghy. It was less tippy, and an OK dive boat "with a bow deck to climb over", but Mariam had a hard time helping to turn it over once on deck. Also, it was a poor row boat, and WET under way.

11 years ago we switched to a single floor, light wt AB RIB. We will NOT go back to hard dinghies! Our RIB will get two people on plane with an 8 HP motor, is a great dive boat, cushioned when coming along side Delphys, VERY stable when boarding, REALLY dry, and easy to get on the dock over the bow. It is also seaworthy enough that I have gone on 10 mile forays to another harbor, in 6' seas! (I would however, limit rowing it to a couple of hundred feet).

Now I don't contend that these issues apply to "everyone". Some cruisers don't go far in the dinghy, dive from it, board it over the bow, etc. AND they still love to row!

HOWEVER, IF the previously mentioned issues matter to you, this solved the problem for us. The weight of these RIBs comes down every year. Our 9' 6" dinghy was 119 pounds in '00, now they can be bought at around 80 pounds!

There WAS a learning curve, and problems to solve. The padded tube "stern wing roller" makes it a cinch to load or unload, except that on the 34, the wing is too narrow. We now load and unload with the tubes HALF inflated. We have 4 sail ties through the side hand holds to pull the sides together tightly and make it narrow. It will support my weight fine this way, when I am in it "in the water" to finish pumping it up. I can pull it up or launch it, by myself, easily!

On deck, it sits upright in a padded cradle that I made of Starboard. IF it is a day hop, a single bow painter tie down is sufficient. If it is a ROUGH crossing, we deflate it completely and use the custom "cinch strap" that we made, as well as tie it down securely to the folding pad eyes on deck. If it will be a long stay, storms are around, or we want maximum security, we put on the custom Sunbrella cover as well.

THIS way, we are ready for huge, deck sweeping waves! We have even ridden out hurricanes with this arrangement, and it IS secure.

To quickly inflate (to 50%) or deflate, we have a small power inflater, and we have the option of using the end of the boom to tackle down the 56 pound motor, which sits on a bracket on the ama floor. (I usually just muscle it onto the dinghy).

The boat is really "USED" after 11 years, but I expect it has a lot of life left in it. The uglier the better regarding theft! The RIB is extremely repairable, even in the field, and none of the dozen or so patches have ever failed. It is no less repairable than my hard dinghies were.

For us, the pluses really outweighed the minuses!

Hope this is of use...

Mark

BTW... For exercise when cruising, besides hours per day of diving, we use the inflatable kayak in the ama on the other side. It doesn't hurt my multiply injured back, like rowing now does.

[Mark Johnson]

PS...

For anchoring in areas with current that opposes the wind, causing the dinghy to get under the wings, OR in high theft areas, we use the spinnaker halyard and an asymmetrical dinghy bridle, to hoist it up along side. (Be SURE to remove the stern plug in case of rain!!!)

We even keep it here under way, when making short hops on moderate days, between islands... (done it hundreds of times).

Also, motoring up rivers or down the ICW, this doesn't slow us down like towing it would.

It works great!

M.

[rossad]

Just like to say i for one am enjoying the searunners forum here.
reading learning from way down in new zealand.
Having owned a searunner for 5 years now its been a great stage or chapter in the book one could say... i love them... they have such good area's living aboard....
now a new child of 10 months and a wife we really do enjoy our searunner...
Thanks Jim for such a genious design.

[steve ripples]

Very nice Searunner 40 for sale in Malaysia (NOT mine just to save any confusion), some lovely woodwork on the interior. Makes me wonder a bit about the weight perhaps, but the 40 is a big boat, guess she can take it. Worth a look, there's loads of pictures.

Boats for sale Malaysia, Used boat sales, Sailing Yachts For Sale Searunner 40 - Trimaran - Apollo Duck

[sassarassa]

Originally Posted by Rann

There is (could be was) at least one other Searunner (a 37) by that name of Pegasus. It used to belong to Art and Cheresse Smoot in the 90's. They sailed her from L.A. to the Marquesas, Tonga, Fiji, and New Zealand in those yers, then sold her to an Aussie while they were in New Zealand. I don't know if the man from Oz changed her name or not.

This forum is great Thanks Rann for the contact, I emailed Art and found out a lot of interesting history including identifying marks that confirmed it was his Pegasus.

thanks,

Jon

[Mark Johnson]

Hi guys,
I just got a PM about this:

SEACLIPPER 28

I see that my old Seaclipper 28 is again for sale. They are asking $15,000, and it might be a steal for that price, even though over 23 years old now. (This is a very small fraction of the "build price"). Unfortunately, I did hear that a previous owner has painted it with a one part paint, over my original AwlGrip LP, so that is it's future, (unless it was all stripped to "0" and re- LP painted).

This was, "I'm embarrassed to say", one of the most carefully built, fair, dimensionally accurate, time consuming (8 full time years), and EXPENSIVE small boats ever built. Some would, and did, call it the result of a neurosis. I called it: "Getting over my need to make art out of a cruising boat".

It was even the subject of an editors article, and cover shot, on Boatbuilder magazine.

Even the inside of the mahogany crossbeams, were glassed before building!

With the current one part paint and all, it has far less value than with LP, and I have NO IDEA of it's condition, but it MAY be a steal for a young guy, (or young couple in love). The ad claiming it sleeps 4 - 6 is ridiculous! It sleeps two!

I have a 2 hour DVD of "cruising the Bahamas" on the boat, and it is VERY fast & wet, but for the right person, seaworthy enough for trans-ocean cruising. I would call it a good Bahama boat!

Just passing that along,

Mark

[IceDog]

Thats a nice boat Mark. Is 2400 lbs a reasonable weight for that boat? Does anyone have experience of beaching a trimaran or cat and moving it off the beach by people power? What size boat would be reasonable to do this with? Where my place is in Costa Rica, there is no haul out facility nearby and to keep costs low I would want to be able to store a boat on the hard in our neighborhood when necessary, not in a marina. I could easily get thirty or 40 people to help move it (will work for beer syndrome When its in the water it would have to be on the river side which is shallow so again a tri or cat would be best (not to mention the scary sandbar). I would like to get a boat to sail locally in the Golfo Dulce and coastal sailing around Costa Rica and Panama so it would be daysailing and weekend sailing mostly. Our beach is very calm where we live without too much surf especially in the morning and it has fine volcanic sand so it seems to be a good spot to beach a boat. I am probably a year away from being ready to buy but I am trying to narrow down my boat choices and learn about these types of boats. I would like something bigger than a beach cat. Our village is called Playa Zancudo and it is near Golfito.

[PhantomBoatwork]

I have a little second hand experience in moving a couple of large trimarans up and down a beach using just people power. A couple in Bellingham washington was given free use of a small Piver tri in exchange for a general paint/cleanup and bottom job. When they were all done, they had the boat on a wooden cradle with 4x4 skids on the bottom. About 8 of us used pipe rollers and a kind of makeshift wooden rail way on the sand to move the boat during low tide to beyond the surf line. The tide then lifted the boat off the cradle, and it was pulled back up the beach for later.
A friend of mine used the same process (same beach) to launch his 37 Searunner down the gravel beach with a beach barbecue, a lot of beer, and about 20 willing grunts to muscle it down the beach. I think that Mark Hassal used a similar technique to man handle a constant camber 60 foot tri down into the river in Rio Dulce, Guatemala to launch. So, FWIW it can be done, provided enough thought has been given to not bogging down into the sand, and providing some kind of sliding/rolling cradle to hold the hulls steady until you reach deep enough water FWIW.

[andres]

Hi Mark,

I am interested in the Seaclipper 28 but I have some doubts about it's interior comfort. Do you think the forward double bed is comfortable for a not so young couple? you say that only can sleep 2, does it mean that the seat is not large enough for a third crew? I like very much the simplicity of this design but I am interested in cruising in a small budget, and I like the multihulls for the seakindly motion and stability more than for the speed.
Andrés.