the.com/trimaran
three hulls deciding monohulls were just sailboats with commitment issues
means A boat with three hulls — a central hull flanked by two smaller outriggers — prized for stability and speed.
from A 20th-century coinage that splices the 'tri-' of Latin tres ('three') onto 'catamaran' — itself borrowed from Tamil kattumaram, 'tied wood,' a lashed-log craft of southern India and Sri Lanka. So the word literally Frankensteins a Latin number onto a Tamil raft, and we've been blithely sailing it ever since.
- hull count
- one main, two outriggers for stability
- speed kings
- holds many fastest open-ocean sailing records
- ancient roots
- Pacific islanders sailed multihulls millennia ago
- hard to flip
- wide stance resists capsizing better than monohulls
- foiling era
- modern racers lift hulls entirely from water
for instance
earthrace — biofuel-powered trimaran that circumnavigated earth in 60 days in 2008
apollo — british trimaran that won the 1969 golden globe solo circumnavigation race