Though Taino is an interesting craft, beautiful it ain’t. By way of contrast, here are some images of a rather nice looking powered trimaran that I’d found on the internet.

This is the Xplora, designed by Chris Wall, while he was a design student at Massey University in New Zealand.  The trimaran was created in order to compete in the New Zealand Yamaha Design Challenge, which involved a watercraft being put through a series of straight line and circuit races, the only restriction being that the boat was limited to an 8hp outboard (a Yamaha outboard at that, naturally).  Chris’s trimaran won the 2005 event, and was runner up in 2006. (In the third photo, the craft can be seen behind a wave-piercing catamaran called the Spypedo, which won the 2006 event.)

    Floating into the Future – Massey Marine Design

    Boatdesign.net - second photo of the Xplora

    Spypedo - 4m wave-piercing catamaran

To me, Xplora is one of the best looking real-world powered trimaran designs around. It’d be perfect as a runabout, zipping in and around a harbour. 

Cheers,
Paul

I wonder how much lift those airfoil-section crossbeams generate, because that thing looks like it’s half way to being an ekranoplan.

that thing looks like it’s half way to being an ekranoplan.

Remove the Yamaha and replace with an ultralight airplane engine/prop. Of course, then you couldn’t enter the Yamaha Design Challenge…

I agree, nice looking boat.

Have found a number of print media articles, about the Yamaha Design Challenge, which show the Xplora trimaran in action:

    Boating NZ - August 2006 - pp 10-11

    Massey News - June 2005

    Trade-A-Boat - July 2005

    Attache - Winter 2005 - pp 10-11

In one of the articles, it’s mentioned that Xplora had a top speed of just over 18.3 knots (21.1 mph, 33.8 km/h), which is not bad on just 8 horsepower.

Cheers,
Paul