Golightly

I originally wanted to build a sailing canoe, the 15 foot Paulsboat, but decided that it would be too big and heavy for me. I need something light. And I want to sail and have enough capacity to carry camping gear. That's the Paulsboat below:

Remember this mainsail.

 So I did more reading and following of links and finally discovered the Rio Grande. I wasn't looking at kayak designs, but this one has enough sailing canoe attributes that I thought it might work. And then I had the idea to make it the central hull of a trimaran.

Which is interesting because my father built what was purported to be the first trimaran on the Great Lakes; the Kia Loa, an Arthur Piver 24' Nugget design. And I heard that he was building or planning to build a small tri with a canoe hull before he died. So for me to be building my first trimaran is pretty cool.

The Rio Grande kayak is 13 feet long by 30" wide, and has fore and aft bulkheaded compartments. I added 1" to the height of the vertical side because I wanted a slightly bigger boat on the same length.

Two Rio Grandes on the Rio Grande.

I've transposed the sail from the Paulsboat onto the Rio Grande build.

Here's my fluorescent colour drawing:

The ama shape will be different—see the blog—as will the colours and the foil sizes.

For the build I've used foam board (polyethylene terephthalate) as a core, with epoxy and glass inside and out: ⅜" for the hull and ¼" for the decks. (In future I would use ⅜" for all.) Glass is 6-oz on the hull and 4-oz on the decks and interior. The bottom panel is ¼" marine mahogany plywood with two layers of 6-oz cloth on the outside. Plus, all hull corners have two layers of glass tape (2" over 2½") inside and out.