[sailingdog]

Please forgive Sailormann, he's a eurocentric monohull heathen... I call things the way I see them...good, bad or ugly.

The outer hulls are generally called amas or floats... they are most definitely not pontoons.... or training wheels. The crossbeams are also often called akas. The terms ama and aka are from the Polynesian terms used for their Proas... but have been adopted for use with Trimarans.

The cabin space on a trimaran is generally a bit smaller than that of a comparable LOA monohull, since you don't have the depth of hull, since the hull is usually fairly narrow and flares to accommodate the cabin—stowage is much more limited. Also, you don't have a deep bilge to stash stuff in—the bilge on the Telstar is all of 2-3" deep. However, there is considerable stowage for relatively large, light, bulky items in the amas. Be aware that you can't get to the central ama storage area when the hulls are retracted.

IMHO, the Telstar's crossbeams are very strong, even though it is a folding system. The beams do not fold in the direction of the major stress on them—ie. the vertical plane. The Corsair folding system depends on eight bolts for the rigidity of the amas in the vertical plane.