Before You Buy a Trimaran Yacht for Sale, Read This
If you love to sail and are waiting for the right time to buy a powerful and versatile boat, then buying a trimaran yacht for sale is the best decision you’ll ever make. A trimaran yacht for sale can take you to places where you couldn’t normally go with any other type of boat. This is because, compared to other boats which are single-hulled and have a hard time on heavy seas, a trimaran will easily cut through them as though they were made of butter. Also, some boats use sails to move from point A to point B, a trimaran uses its three sails along with its motor, so it doesn’t need direction from another source.
There are a lot of reasons to buy a trimaran yacht for sale, which often excites boat lovers the world over. Some are buoyed by the versatility of these vessels and for some, the secret lies in the performance. Whatever your reason for buying a trimaran sailboat or yacht, there's no denying that these multi-hull watercraft come with lots of benefits and advantages.
These exceptional vessels are simply multi-hull boats with the main hull and two smaller outrigger hulls which are laterally attached to the main hull. Due to their exceptional design, most trimaran yachts for sale excel as recreational, racing, and even as ferries.
Benefits of Buying a Trimaran Yacht for sale
Buying a trimaran yacht is a great way to enjoy the water in comfort and style. Compared to a traditional boat, a trimaran yacht can be much more economical and convenient. Many owners use their vessel for day coastal cruising, as a raid during the summer, or for regattas during the offseason.
Before we go into the details about trimaran boats, let us first look at some of the advantages buyers enjoy when they choose to buy a trimaran.
Value and performance
For most people, price and value are important considerations when deciding whether to buy a catamaran—whether it’s a trimaran or any other type of boat. The problem with most people is that they don’t know how to compare costs. They look at the unit price rather than the cost per knot.
As for trimaran cost, you can expect a good value if you pay attention to performance. A trimaran costs more than a monohull of similar length, but it is much faster.
Speed and stability
Buying a trimaran yacht for sale comes with speed and stability advantages. The superior performances enable higher speed levels which in turn increases boat range. This is why a trimaran is an excellent choice for fast-paced cruising
Thus, you can use trimaran boats to reach more remote areas than other vessels. The buoyancy of the leeward float, as well as the double outriggers also offer some form of stability to the vessels. The principle hull of trimaran boats can be flared out easily without worries or fears of being toppled over.
Once a trimaran is at sea, it can move more easily in wind and water currents. But, before you buy a trimaran, make sure it has all the features you want. Once you've decided on your price, you'll have a better idea of which model is best suited for your needs.
Space and comfort
Modern yachts and boats are usually designed to optimize comfort and performance. A multihull trimaran sailboat, as the ideal all-in-one small boat has the ideal space to offer a balance between comfort and performance without any compromise.
In contrast to a catamaran with only a single trampoline, a trimaran sailboat would usually have a principle hull which is not only spacious but also safe enough for comfortable use.
Also, when accommodated in a marina, a harbor, or even on land, a trimaran yacht for sale would save you significant costs due to the reduced storage costs.
Easy trailing and superior handling
If you want something you can handle easily, then you should consider buying a trimaran yacht. Trimaran yachts are relatively easy to trail and so sailing or cruising in new areas is as easy as it gets. Their drafts are usually shallow and so they can easily access places where keelboats may not be able to reach.
Trimarans are lightweight, making them easier to handle when compared to catamarans.
Lightweight boats can be easier to manhandle if you need to move them from one place to another. All things being equal, trimaran boats are easier to tack than catamarans.
Important Things You Should Know Before Buying a Trimaran Yacht for Sale
While we’ve discussed some of the most important benefits of why it would make sense to buy a trimaran sailboat, there are still a few things you’ll need to carefully understand and give proper consideration. These are outlined briefly in the parts below.
You will be sailing, but with who?
Most people often tend to ignore this question. Still, it is perhaps one of the most important things that will define your experience after the thrill that comes with purchasing a used or new trimaran yacht is all gone.
Who will you be sailing with?
You can’t expect an inexperienced couple to enjoy a vessel that will otherwise have been ideal for four or five experienced people. In both of these cases, the experience will be very different from each other
Structural integrity and safety considerations
As far as weight is concerned, multihulls are usually lighter than similar monohull boats although the loadings do not appear necessarily less.
Ironically, amateur builders and designers are more often attracted to building multihull despite these vessels being less forgiving of design flaws. If you’re building from scratch, you should choose an experienced builder or designer with a proven track record.
You may as well request a structural survey to be carried out by an experienced professional familiar with the structural design and engineering of multihull yachts.
Safety advantage of trimarans
The biggest general advantage of trimarans is safety. A well-designed trimaran will float with one or two hulls submerged and can usually be sailed to shore.
Trimarans are inherently more stable and safer than monohulls due to the wide stance of the twin hulls and their narrow beam, which provides a large righting moment when heeled over.
Tri's are built for surfing, so if you flip her over, you won't need to be a high-diver to get back on board. They also tend to lie flatter on their sides when inverted as well, making it easier to get back on board.
They come with twin rudders so you already have emergency steering installed. The presence of two motors implies a 100 percent redundancy in propulsion. These safety advantages mean that a trimaran yacht for sale would rarely sink.
Performance considerations
Trimarans would perform excellently well of the wind. Although this excellent performance is no doubt a key marketing point for multihulls, trimaran yacht owners should still be wary of weight and windward work as important factors to consider.
While loading a monohull boat with plenty of gear would slow it down to an extent, loading up a multihull with enormous gear would have a much greater effect on multihulls.
These boats will be slowed down a lot more and may even be made unseaworthy.
Considering the fact that multihulls often have plenty of storage and deck space, it is important that the urge or tendency to fill up these spaces with equipment is kept in check.
The tendency of the yacht becoming overweight from excess equipment as well as low aspect ratio stub keels can result in a trimaran having a poor windward performance. This is still considering the subjectivity of the “poor windward performance” itself
Capsizing resistance abilities
Trimaran yachts and multihulls are not the only boats that can resist capsizing. Many modern monohulls can achieve this feat too. However, some trimarans and other multihulls, because of their high-performance cruising made possible by increasing the beam to carry the sail, and piling on the sail area, are able to resist capsizing more efficiently.
The hull-lifting wind speed has been suggested as a measure to determine the tendency of a boat to capsize. Though there has not been any generally accepted figure, it is assumed that the hull should only lift until no more than 25 knots of speed.
If you’d be buying a trimaran yacht, you can ask the seller what the hull lifting speed of your preferred boat is. Although it’s possible they may not know, it would still be comforting to know there’s never been such an occurrence after several thousands of miles on the sea.
Still, you can ask a seller what particular wind speed they expect before they start reefing.
Motoring considerations
Trimaran yachts, like other multihulls, often spend the most time on sea motoring to windward. Therefore, the choice of the motor would prove very consequential to your experience aboard.
Boats up to about 10m in length will find it attractive to fit lightweight and easy-to-maintain outboard motors. For inboards, there are a lot of options but the choice and options should border on performance.
Comfort at anchor
This is a general advantage of both catamarans and trimarans. Somehow, most people do not usually appreciate this until they are cruising. This advantage is attributed to two things.
The first has to do with their exceptional resistance to rolling. So, for multihulls, anchorages that would have been barely effective for monohulls would do perfectly fine for multihulls.
Another reason is the shallow draft that makes it possible for most multihull boats to work up creeks and inshore in a less crowded environment where you are more protected from waves and winds.
If you’re planning to buy a trimaran yacht for sale, other things such as bridge deck clearance and close-quarters maneuvering should also be properly considered.
Although buying a trimaran yacht is a valuable investment decision, you’ll still want to ensure you tick the boxes at the right places to improve your post-purchase experience.
If you’ve worked things out with your crew or planning to buy a boat anytime soon, you can check out our boat collections at Basco Boats, to view the Trimaran sailboat for sale, as well as a host of other yachts we have in excellent conditions.