New Uffa 10 Trimaran Design Building (Free Plans Too)
The Uffa 10 Trimaran is a new design from boat designers Ottavio Di Blasi and Jacopo Faggioni, who reside in Italy. A sailor (and current Uffa 10 builder) named Aurelio shares the following with us about his trimaran building project.
According to Aurelio, Jacopo is willing to share the building specs (probably in PDF format over the Internet) with anybody who wants them … for free. (I’ll assume this is true for the time being — until I hear otherwise).
Anyhow, many thanks for sharing your story (and this new design) with us Aurelio!
……………
Building a New Uffa 10 Trimaran
by Aurelio P.
My name is Aurelio P. from italy and we’re building a custom-made small trimaran (for participation in 10 ft class regattas like the ones you can see at www.diecipiedi.it … and for pleasure). Following are some photos of the boat in progress.
This new Uffa 10 isn’t the same boat as the Triciclo trimaran, but it is in the same box rule of the class that the Triciclo is in: max 10 ft long ( only hull ) max 3,00 mt wide (for multihulls) and max 8 sqm sail area.
The Uffa’s name is in honor of a man named Uffa Fox. Uffa Fox was a famous English dinghy designer of last century.
I really like multihulls and wanted a small trimaran for sailing with my girlfriend. Since the Triciclo trimaran is only for one person, a new trimaran for the 10 ft regattas here in Italy had to be developed.
The New Uffa 10 Trimaran Under Construction
Also, I wanted an elegant width and foredeck … and a teak central hull with white amas … plus a carbon mast sloop.
Additionally, the Uffa 10 trimaran offers more buoyancy in main hull ( 150 litres ) and in the amas ( 100 litres ) and more room in the cockpit (wide 96 cm — instead of 45cm of Triciclo ).
The crossbeams are curved aluminium. And the amas slide into the crossbeams for easy transport ( on top of the car or small trailer). I estimate the set up time (to go sailing) for this boat to be about 20 minutes.
Curved aluminum tubing for the akas on the Uffa 10 trimaran
The carbon mast and boom for my Uffa 10 trimaran is being made by C-Tech composites from Auckland, NZ. It will be taken from the NS 14 dinghy class.
The building plans for the Uffa 10 trimaran are not on the web. But anyone who wants the plans can obtain them for free by contacting boat designer Jacopo Faggioni at: jfaggioni AT jfaggioni.it
(Editor’s Note: Click here to see what I’ve heard is the 2009 champion of the Diciepiedi Class — a trimaran named “Fas To Fly“ And click here to see some other small trimaran models in this class.
October 29th, 2011 at 9:44 am
I really enjoyed the article about the Uffa 10. I just love small homemade tris anyway. But when I saw the page at http://www.diecipiedi.it/ns/flotta/flotta2.html, I was totally envious. I’d give my left ama to have a group of designers / builders / sailors like that to hang out with here in the US. Where are we all hiding?
October 29th, 2011 at 9:15 pm
Never was quite sure if Italians do it better, but for sure , they do it in so many different ways ;-))
October 29th, 2011 at 9:19 pm
Basically these 10 ft prototypes follow the 10 ft class rule which is very loose, but for two things: hull length 10 ft and sail area 8 squae metres If I recall correctly.
They make the best of okume plywood which is found over here in sheets 10 by 5 ft, so that with one sheet you can make the full side or bottom of one little skiff without any joinery
October 29th, 2011 at 11:23 pm
I just … ahem … KNOW you’re referring to how Italians have development some interesting trimarans Stefano. The truth is that the Europeans are waaaaaaay ahead of us North Americans when it comes to these smaller self-built multihulls. They have a lot of regatta participants at their events, whereas such gatherings along the shores of our coasts are somewhat sparsely attended. But that is what we dream about (hope?) changing thru the influence of websites such as smalltrimarans :-)
October 30th, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Hey, some of my best friends are Italians! But I kinda wonder, when Italians come to the US, do they lose a bit of that characteristic flambouyant creativeness, forget how to relax, and start working too hard? Heck, I can’t even get Joe to come down and visit me where the good weather and sailing is — in Florida! As for American creativity in the small-tri realm, most of that seems to be in California — or used to be. The whole east coast seems to be full of nautical Luddites who are stuck making new copies of old fashioned “traditional” monohull boats. Geez, I feel SO alone here…
October 30th, 2011 at 7:26 pm
the 10 ft tris could make a great project for kids in school age, the smaller ones even crewing in couple on these small boats otherwise intended as singles.
This would probably be a nice way of volunteering some work in schools by building twin boats and perhaps having some contests later. Building small (the kids AND the boats) tris enthousiasts in the lead mines/ luddites land would be thrilling :-)
October 31st, 2011 at 7:24 am
My reaction is the same as Frank’s- I’m always digging around online to find these kinds of projects and it’s neat to see so many examples in one place and see a development class that encourages this kind of thing. So thanks again Joe for doings such a great job collecting these articles.
It’s also nice to see the whole Uffa Fox connection being made- his designs were really at the forefront of modern high speed dinghy/skiff sailing, and way ahead of their times…and speaking of luddites, since Uffa Fox is now inspiring trimaran designers does this mean that we can now speak of a designing planing dinghy trimaran without being hit over the head with a slide rule and told that trimarans cannot plane?
Funny that with no amas mounted this boat looks pretty much like many high performance mono skiffs that use wings for crew ballasting and plane regularly…it would need more deadrise forward for my local (ocean) conditions, but on relatively flat water sit far enough aft and that won’t be a problem at all and this thing should scream…it’s actually sort of reminiscent of a lot of old 8-10′ homebuilt power hydroplane and flatbottom plans from the 40′s-60′s.
It’s not for nothing that Uffa Fox designed fast powerboats before coming up with his planing sailboats. With suitable planing amas a boat like this could carry a ton of sail- it would require paying attention and non-beginner skill levels to manage it, but it would likely be way less touchy than a catamaran. And like I say, the way it’s set up in the pics is basically like a mono skiff with wings, so adding amas that stabilize it via dynamic lift gives you better stability without all the wetted surface and drag involved in developing that same lift via displacement amas. The other benefit is that as you add more sail power (within reason), the planing boat just goes faster rather than sinking.
So I’m waiting to see what kind of amas this one ends up with- if they are anything like the main hull and it all stays light enough, I can’t see how this boat could be anything but a rocket in decent winds…hopefully more people will explore high performance planing tris that combine the speed and exhilaration of small boats like windsurfers, Moths and Musto Performance Skiffs with the safety and simplicity of a trimaran.
Watch the following video of 12 foot skiffs racing under sail at powerboat speeds and consider:
-a lot of the energy wasted in making the things bounce could be harnessed with properly positioned surfboard-like planing amas providing stability
-that lift and stability to leeward would mostly negate the need for extreme hiking and trapezes and sailing flatter would allow for more consistent sail performance
-it would also significantly decrease the number of capsizes
- due to the spider-like nature and large footprint of the tri platform you could likely get a better sail area/weight ratio *and* you’d have more options for using rigs that generate lift :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlHu0laYqiQ
October 31st, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Great small trimaran comments/ideas guys. Your contributions really take a simple, straightforward post to a whole other level.
October 31st, 2011 at 7:41 pm
one other thing re: developing flotillas of this kind of boat and general interest in these kinds of dinghy style tris…
I don’t know about other US states or Europe, but in CA any sail powered (or non-rowed/paddled) vessel over eight feet is required to be registered with the DMV and to display registration numbers…and the fees are pretty much the same if it’s nine feet long or ninety, so you see tons of under eight foot sailboats like Sabots that benefit from beating this rule but after that there’s not so much to be gained by staying under 13-14 feet or so which is still car toppable…so you don’t see as many boats sized in between 8-13′ here as you’d expect.
It’s an asinine rule- why should ANY non-motorized boat be required to register as a motor vehicle? …and as a country aren’t we trying to promote and incentive-ize alternative/green energy use, rather than punishing it by making a small sailboat as costly to keep legal as the same sized motor driven boat? Hello?…
sadly, creating and exporting asinine rules seems to be what CA does best and it’s a growing industry.
November 1st, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Asinine rules is one other thing in which Italians do pretty well, also thanks to the strong support of the EU i.e. European so called “Union”, whic legislates also on bananas size and the way it has to be measured (external curb, not the internal one mind you … )
OK, I suggest then that given the local US condtions *4 by 8 plywood panels and obligations, you may launch here your own rule… perhaps tris under 15 ft .. and sail area.. you name it * used sails are a bonus so choose something readily available.
We could actually launch an international rule here to be spread out in all continents.. The gauntlet is launched !
November 1st, 2011 at 7:08 pm
Hi Stefano,
Here in CA our legislature was recently considering a law to mandate the use of fitted sheets in hotels, because making a bed with flat sheets is allegedly a serious workplace safety risk for hotel maids who might injure themselves tucking them in (I am not making this up).
If I know how these things work, the EU banana measurement rule is probably critical to child safety and without it our entire future is at stake…it’s almost always “about the children”.
Like I say, I’m not sure that all US states have a similar size limit for non-registration of sail-only vessels…just looking it up quickly I see that Florida has a far more sensible 16 foot limit, Texas is 14 foot, but then Kansas and Colorado have no such exemption at all and even the tiniest manned sailboats, rowboats and even sailboards have to be registered and numbered in those states when used on public waterways.
So I’m not going to worry to much about it from a design standpoint- I was just offering a reason for the size distribution being weighted towards under 8 foot sail trainers here in CA.
For something intended as an inexpensive and easy to build trainer/racer, ten foot/3m seems to be an obvious benchmark for the reasons of material sizes, ease of setup/use/transport and also to offer the possibility of more rig options and real performance- the realities of volume necessary to float a person in an under 8 foot vessel that has any freeboard tend to make the resulting hull shapes pretty stubby and slow, and there’s also the fact that as you get smaller, things like gunwales and spars and mast steps and boards/rudders have to still stay of a certain size to function so small boats like that tend to be heavy for their size.
I’ve actually been thinking a LOT about this, and have been playing around with a development class rule for a small, cheap, easy to build trainer/racer based on some tortured ply methods and hull forms I’ve been messing around with for quite a while…here’s what I have so far-
“WEDGIE” class measurement rule
This rule is intended to allow for sensible design development and performance within the class while discouraging unsafe practices and “rule beater” solutions that would tend to make all but the most expensive boats non-competitive.
maximum overall length 10 feet
maximum overall beam 10 feet
Main hull sheathing excluding transom: maximum two sheets of 4×10 plywood material
ama sheathing maximum one sheet 4×10 plywood material per ama
All hull exteriors shall be developed from plywood sheet materials; this material can be cut and reassembled using any method of construction including stitch and glue, ” tortured” ply, strip/clinker/carvel planking, etc. as long as the materials involved in the exterior hull sheathing are taken from the sheet sizes/quantities specified.
all rudders and movable lateral resistance methods i.e. leeboards, centerboards, daggerboards and associated trunks must be externally mounted with no hull openings.
no lifting foils allowed
rig: united luff and foot length maximum is 24 feet with a maximum single spar length of 15 feet
**********************
Some of it may sound crazy, but there’s a method to my madness and you kind of have to understand the building method to see how the rule makes sense and can yield what I hope will be a pretty quick little class racer. For instance, the designs I’ve come up with that fit this rule have no cockpits, footwells or openings in the main hull, but use trampolines like a Hobie cat…not the easiest setup for long leisurely cruises, but that’s not what this boat is about. A huge benefit is that you lose all the weight of framing a cockpit, no sheer clamps, no seats, nothing.
Same goes for the external boards and cases rule- you not only have a safer boat without centerboard and daggerboard trunks that can leak or be torn out in a hard grounding, you can save a significant amount of weight by using something like a leeboard or by attaching a board case to the crossbeams more towards the ama. And it’s all far easier to build and maintain, easier to make things break away when necessary, and allows the asymetrical nature of tris going upwind to be exploited by angling boards to weather and putting them in a better position than the main hull centerline.
The sail area rule allows for quite a bit of interpretation- using something lateen or delta shaped you can get about 72 square feet of sail area- manageable but still a lot for a ten footer…but if you went with a radically roached marconi rig with a 15′ luff and 9′ foot you could conceivably carry nearly 130 square feet of sail, if you dared.
I do have drawings, photos of models, and (very rough and conceptual) Carlson .hul and FreeShip .ftb files I’d be happy to pass along just to get everyone’s juices flowing. There’s still a lot of work to be done on my particular designs as far as actual building goes (there’s quite a bit of non-traditional joinery going on that needs testing), but if anyone with some extra time and money on their hands wanted to try doing one full scale I’d be happy to work with them on it to the degree that I’m able.
I don’t have anything posted online and no time to really set anything up at the moment, but perhaps Joe could help by hosting the files here in another thread if I pass them along….?