[sailingdog]

Glad to help. Most modern trimarans are like mine, where the cabin and stowage is all in the main hull for the most part, and there is no solid wingdeck, unlike older designs, like the Pivers and Browns, which often had some living space in the wing decks, often fairly shallow berths.

Here are photos of two older designs—a 45' Piver trimaran and a Jim Brown designed Searunner—and two more modern designs—a Chris White Hammerhead 54, and a Corsair 36 trimaran.


Piver designed 45' trimaran


A Jim Brown 40' Searunner Trimaran


A Chris White Hammerhead 54


A Corsair 36 trimaran

More modern trimarans are a bit better at load carrying, since the older designs often had simple plywood v-shaped hulls, which had relatively low load bearing capacity and relatively high wetted surface area compared to the more rounded hull forms found today. Also, the use of crossbeams or akas, as opposed to the solid cabin/wingdeck found on the older designs, makes the cabin structure much lighter—although much smaller in volume.

The newer designs, not having a solid wingdeck, don't have the slamming issues to the same degree as the older designs. They are also a bit less likely to "kite", as they don't have as much surface area. The older wingdecks, in really bad storms could act a bit like a kite... which is really bad.

Originally Posted by kaluvic

Wow that really surprises me....
I have no multi hull experience except for sailing a Hobie 16 I owned many years ago.
Thanks for setting me straight.
Maybe I need to read the book you're recommending.