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Trimaran Kayak AKA "Tri-Yak"

Our first attempt at a low budget sailboat

This is our first boat in line of hopefully many more boats that are in the works.  When I got the notion to want to get into sailing, I seen how expensive boats were, used or otherwise, especially sailing boats.  When commercial boats end up costing as much as a used car, the only alternative that I could come up with was to build a boat. 

Now the next problem is, we have no idea how to build a sailboat, at least in the traditional manner.  We don't have any idea about how to frame out a boat, bending plywood, or using marine epoxy and fiberglass cloth.  It's not to say that we won't learn these skills in the future as we really get into boat building but for right now, I have the urge to take to the water and very little money to make it happen. 

That's when I got to thinking about our kayaks.  We've used these small boats many times to go on river runs with no hassle, they're more than capable of carrying a fair amount of weight, so why not build a boat around a kayak? 

Some research revealed that a couple of people have tried similar ideas, building trimarans using only one kayak in each instance.  This was exactly what I was looking for.  Next question was, how?

After taking a walk through Lowe's, I got the idea to use PVC sewer pipe to make the "amas" or outriggers for the boat.  2x4 lumber would form the frame that would hold the amas and form the overall frame of the boat, including the rudder and mast.  The sail would be a lateen sail, a triangular sail, made famous by Arabian and Mediterranean ships from the Middle Ages all the way to the present. 

After doing some rough drawings of the boat, planning out the overall design, I grabbed the parts from Lowe's and commenced the building.  The first iteration of the Tri-Yak used a relatively fixed lateen sail and had a frame that was all fixed, nothing folded up.  After some testing I started making changes. 

 

First change was altering the frame to make the rudder section of the frame foldable so as to aid in transportation of the boat in the back of our truck.  I also converted the rudder to kick up for the same reason as well as to protect the rudder during launching so it can kick up when pushed against the shore.  The next thing done was the adding of a centerboard to help in drifting sideways with crosswinds.  After some more testing I ended up modifying the boat again with a bigger rudder and shrinking the size of the sail some, while at the same time adding extra lines to allow the spar on the sail to pivot from side to side to help in being able to tack (sail into the wind).  When the smaller sail didn't seem to do any good other than helping the boat windvane easily, I ended up making the newest modification, which was making a large lateen sail, just as large as the original sail, maybe a little bigger, and adding a boom (spar goes at the top of the sail, boom goes underneath the sail), which allows the sail to pivot and retain its shape the whole time, with the exception of when the wind blows into the wind from the sail side, pushing the sail against the mast, misshaping the sail somewhat and causing what's called a bad tack. 

This larger sail actually did work pretty good in allowing the boat to tack better, surprisingly in stronger winds too.  But the only problem with lateen sails is the idea that when it comes to tacking, lateen sails are pretty inefficient compared to most other modern sail configurations, so when tacking, I might at best be able to achieve a tack of 6 points to the wind, which is means I would have to sail about 60 degrees to the wind (not quite perpendicular, not at a 45 degree angle to the wind).  I know that those of you who aren't into sailing will probably have no idea what I'm talking about but those of you who do, then cudos to you! 

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When you want something built right, build it yourself.