What you get for some trailering and docking inconvenience is stability, deck space, and speed - easy speed. With sail areas starting about 350 square feet for the smaller boats, and sailing displacements of only about 2,000 pounds (assuming the owner uses self control in what he keeps on board), a properly tuned tri can accelerate like a planning dinghy and reach top-end speeds equivalent to a semi-displacement powerboat. Without a good Loran or a Doppler knotmeter, it was impossible to determine how fast the boats were really going. One uncalibrated knotmeter read 26 knots before we decided to back off, though I doubt we were going that fast. On another boat, we were reading only 16 knots, and I'm sure we were going much faster.

It's the nature of boats designed for speed that they do not feel fast until they're going very fast indeed. These boats feel as if they are loafing at 10 knots, start to get interesting at 14, and begin to feel fast as they approach 20. By the time they feel fast, the bow waves meet somewhere between the sterns, the stern wave converges in a little roostertail about five boat lengths back, and the tiller numbs your fingers with tiny, high-frequency vibrations that you feel right down into the soles of your feet. The helmsman who craves this sort of speed close reaches along watching for the puffs. When one hits, he lets the boat bear off slowly, and feels it scoot out like a fighter plane that just went to afterburners. When the puff dies out, everyone aboard just looks at each other grinning foolishly, and somebody asks, "How fast?" If you own a fast tri, it has to have a knotmeter - calibrated or not - so to add credibility to the stories told afterwards. Of course, there are limits to how hard you can drive' a tri. When the leeward ama starts to submarine, it's time to ease off. There's little chance you could pitchpole in one of these boats, but the increased strain on the boat when the ama goes under invites something to break.

Every one of these boats feels fast. The only way to know which really is the fastest is to race them together, and so far that hasn't happened. But top speed is really beside the point. At high speeds, these boats are wet, require fierce concentration, and tend to terrify the inexperienced. That's fun now and again, I'll grant. But throttling down to an easy 6 or 7 or 8 knots is just as enjoyable, if not more so. At those speeds, the boats are dry, effortless to sail, quiet, and heel very little. The kids can play in the tramps, and lunch can be enjoyed on the level. No one is frightened; no one is working very hard. But the boat is still traveling through the water at speeds equal to a 35-to 40-foot JOR boat. In the long run, these qualities are what endear multi hulls to their owner's stories told in the bar notwithstanding that and the fact they can be run right up to the beach or moor in knee-deep water.

Sound tempting? You're not alone. In the past, a small tri was a project for custom builders. But that has changed. Three of the boats presented here are in production - Dragonfly since 1984. The other two have production prototypes sailing and should be providing delivery dates by the time this is in print.

The five take very different approaches to the design problems posed by tris. Some emphasize accommodations over speed or conventional aesthetics, others construction and engineering, still others lower cost. All are on the leading edge of sailboat technology and thought. Let's take a look.

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