Beautifully Restored Somersault 26 Trimaran Sails Again
Sailor Klaas P shares about his Somersault 26 Trimaran in this post. There are some great photos too.
As you’ll see, he really has an extensive sailing background and has enjoyed several multihulls over the years. And his friend really knows how to bring a boat back into pristine condition too.
Thanks so much for sharing the story and pics of your boat with us Klaas!
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A Somersault 26 Trimaran Restored
by Klaas P
I bought the boat from Bill Murphy’s yard in 1989. It may have been hull #3. It was a 50/50 arrangement with my friend, with whom I’d also shared a Buccaneer 33 beforehand.
We took her to Curacao, where we both grew up. He, being a pilot from a local airline, and myself, flying for KLM, with frequent stops in Curacao.
Although Dick Newick had warned that it was not really a boat for the high seas, we sailed her in the stiff trade-wind conditions for 13 years. In the process, we almost destroying her.
We eventually gave the boat away to a youngster. Alas, this kid had left her hidden in the mangroves within half a year.
In the meantime, my friend and I had a secondhand Maincat 30, as a replacement for the Somersault. But the Somersault fell into deterioration.
She was in such a sorry state that we could not, in all honesty, ask any money for her. We saw the Somersault collecting dirt and mangrove leafs for 2 years.
Since I am active in the Dutch multihull racing scene, owning a Dragonfly 920 in Holland, I have a good friend who is a genius in boat-building and restoration. And he has a wife originating from Bonaire.
So I told him, “Richard you can have a nice little boat to restore and play with in Bonaire.”
He bought her and then sailed her to Bonaire in a convoy with the Maincat, since she leaked like hell.
However, my friend found no efficient restoration situation while 5000 miles away from Holland. So I had her into a container.
He started taking her apart, sawing off all hull/deck joints and replacing everything with kevlar matting , re-installing the bulkheads, which were also loose. It was same with the daggerboard casing. He also strengthened the beams with carbon. Etc. Etc.
This was all done with the intention of giving the boat to his son here. As it turned out, his boy is an Olympic short-track skater, so I suspected there was little interest there.
Since I’m now 70, I wanted to downscale from my Dragonfly. After a year, my friend sold the boat to me and I got rid of the Dragonfly.
In the recent Dutch nationals, she was as fast as the Farrier F-28′s and F-82′s. Her Achilles heel is wave action with little wind, in which she tends to “Hobbyhorse.”
I have super sails from Quantum Australia, and with these sails she sails at wind speed till 15 knots, and thereafter her limit is 18 – 19 knots.
Sailing up to 16 knots is no big deal. Although she is somewhat handicapped in boat handling speed and extreme light weather with her relative large wetted-surface area.
I had a Buccaneer 33, a Farrier F-27. a Dragonfy 920 for 14 years, and half a Maincat 30, but this little boat — I have always loved best.
I use her mostly as a daysailer, but when we were younger my wife and I slept on her for weeks on end in the Caribbean.
Long story….
Greetings Klaas P
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September 22nd, 2012 at 9:27 pm
That is one gorgeous boat, both in original design and the way it has been restored and outfitted…and the blazing sports car yellow is perfect.
Well done indeed, I know that is a ton of work and the love shows.
I’m especially taken by the outboard mount, which is a really elegant design solution with tons of benefits depending on how easily it pivots, which I assume it does to some degree…does anyone know if its a Newick designed piece or was it something one-off?
That type of pivot-around-a-tube connection in many ways mimics traditional lashings used by the original multihull designer/builders, just updated- and for the garage builder can be had on a smaller scale using run of the mill hose and tubing clamps and plastic bushing material available even at Home Depot or a corner hardware store.
For heavier duty and marine grade bits and pieces, military and industrial surplus stores often have these types of parts made from the finest materials and engineered for far more demanding applications than a small boat, for a fraction of what they would cost at retail if you could even find them.
Also look to places that deal with temporary trusses used for stage lighting and large temporary structures and similar applications that use pipe framing, and there’s a world of cool parts that are perfect for this type of thing, including many clamps and connectors designed for quick release, that would be perfect for quick small tri assembly, attaching things like ladders, motors or other accessories to an existing tube, etc.-
http://www.rosebrand.com/subcategory213/rigging-stage-hardware-cheeseboroughs-clamps.aspx
http://www.doughty-engineering.co.uk/shop/22/
To me, those pages look like a “just add tubing and hulls” Tinkertoy/Erector Set for building little tris and sub assemblies for them that are almost infinitely re-configurable and adaptable.
You have to be sensible as far as engineering and loads when you adapt this kind of thing and always keep safety first, but if you can make it work you can often get a superior part to anything available in a marine store, often at a tiny fraction of what it would cost- if they even had it.
The stage and architectural/industrial stuff is usually over-engineered to begin with and designed for heavy duty so it’s a good candidate for repurposing. It’s also usually available for interfacing tubing and wire rope stays and in the case of stage hardware, control lines for moving things like light battens, which makes it a natural.
September 22nd, 2012 at 9:56 pm
Here’s another link to an entire system of relatively economical structural grade pipe connectors that would be perfect for DIY tri builders, available in both steel and aluminum for connecting standard sized tubes-
http://www.simplifiedbuilding.com/store/components/kee-lite.html