Spontaneous trimaran get together – at minimal space

Greetings from a spontaneous (well..... it took a few phone calls to find out positions and agendas which left only a “one” day window) get together at Fåglarö in the Stockholm Archipelago.



At the dock (0,3- 1 m of water) FRA 1 (the Pagots on visit in Sweden), SUI 1 (the Reiz’ on visit in Sweden ), SWE 3 (the Grims) and SWE 4 (the “Jan-Erik Palmkvist” (co-owner together with “Mr Seaon Sweden” Mats Leader original owner of first Seaon SWE1) just having crossed the Baltic back from Finland in quite harsh conditions – the Baltic can offer nasty conditions with varying and quite steep and short wave patterns). To “glorify” the “get together” the Mr Designer Stefan Törnblom with his wife May accompanied SWE4 the last miles to the rendezvous.

Obviously the three Seaons heading north the day after engaged themselves in a spontaneous race .....with the usual discussions and explanations about spots of no wind, vacation load, sails etc. (Who won? Rumours say “the Reiz’)




A lovely day and evening in likable company and weather – it did generate energy for more!

/Ulrika (assistant organizer, big fan and supporter) and Jan

More about trimarans in the news

Just a reminder for the Scandinavien readers - there are two recent articles out in the press. In Swedish magazine “Segling” nr 6 2008 there is an article comparing the Seaon 96, Corsair 31 , Seacart 30 and Dragonfly 920. In Danish Bådnyt June edition there is test of the Seaon 96crb.
As always we will work to be able to publicise the articles on the blog.

Wishing everyone favourable winds and a "decent" weather!

/Jan

Seaon trimarans in the Stockholm Archipelago

There will be six Seaons sailing in our beautiful Stockholm Archipelago this summer, four “natives” and two visitors. Of course one the visitors is our busy sailor Bernard from Bretagne who is sailing here in June and July in his Eureka with his wife Michelle. The other visitors are Sebastian and Kerstin from Lausanne.


Ready for Stockholm Archipelago

The Stockholm Archipelago offers fantastic sailing conditions (and we hope also nice weather for visitors). A multihull offers major advantages since many mooring places are crowded with monohulls needing draft enough to “dock” the bow to the cliffs – which is how it mostly is done in the Archipelago. With a multihull you can in many cases get your own bay or even an island due to the shallow draft needed. Also multihull custom in the Archipelago is even mooring one float to a flat cliff instead of using an anchor (there is no tidal water and in principle no currents).


Moored for midsummer (not at a cliff but very shallow water...)

If you are a permanent resident here, the speed is highly appreciated since there in many cases are quite long “transport passages” to get out of the inner Archipelago. Also many of the fantastic nature experiences are in the outer archipelago some 25-30 nm to sail. With a multihull you can leave for home after lunch (+ coffee) on a Sunday afternoon.


Michelle and Bernard celebrating traditional Swedish Midsummer

Come and visit us - it absolutetly worth it (article about Stockholm Archipelago in french Magazine Voile et Voiliers mentioned in our blog earlier this spring)
Midsummer regards from Stockholm Archipelago!

/Jan

Seaon “at work” – a guest blog from Norway

Report from Seaon NOR 396 M and “With course for work”

Seaon NOR 396 M is now sailing. The sailing characteristics of the Seaon 96 are spectacular! We logged 19.5 knots in 8-10 m/s (with self tacking jib and main sail) on our first training session with the race crew. The sails from Gransails are beautiful, and this week we finally got our gennacker. We have already tried it out with big smiles on our faces.

Seaon NOR 396 M has been named Liv after both the Norse goddess and the only woman surviving Ragnarøk and we hope that her name will keep her safe and sound in all weathers.

I, Anders work as a clinical psychologist and my co owner Arve as a social worker and family therapist. Liv will mainly bee used in our project called “Med styring mot arbeid” which directly translates as “With course towards work”.



Anders and Arve

In society today with higher and higher demands from the labour market, some young people have problems finding and keeping employment. The reasons can be multiple. Often they come from non functional homes and have had upbringings marked by lack of loving relations, drug abuse, and violence. Sometimes they have just been plain unlucky or made the wrong decisions during their teenage period.

We believe that sailing is an excellent activity for both vocational- and social training. Vocational: if you don’t do your part on a sail yacht the boat stops and you get a direct feedback of your commitment. Socially: you can exchange rolls and if you have a conflict there is nowhere to run. You are forced to face the conflict and deal with it

We combine this with group therapy were we address personal problems that prevents our clients from keeping relations over time, be happy in everyday life and keeping employment, because this three things are tightly knit together.


Therapy session

We have chosen Seaon 96 because we hope that its explosive performance characteristics shall give our clients the continues kicks that we think is needed for catching and keeping their interest. Or with other words: If we start were they are, then maybe they will follow. Another reason for choosing Seaon 96 is that it is a small and big boat at the same time, small to handle but with big outside spaces, so it won’t feel crowded with 4-6 clients. We also believe that coming out in the nature and at sea have a healing force in it self.

So every Wednesday Arve and I change offices for Liv and go sailing with five young men who have not been able to establish them self on the labour market. We have now had four sail sesions and so far it has been going excellent. “Guttarna” as we call them are catching the sailing very fast and we are really enjoying sailing with them.


Lunch break at Oyenkilen

But the bottom line is as usually economics. Will we be able to continue the project for next year? The economy is tight and we work this year without wages. So if there are any sponsors out there in cyberspace who like our project, it would bee fun with a screacher and we do need a trailer.

Happy sailing from Anders and Arve



Blog editors comment:
To avoid confusion – yes, there are now three yellow Seaon 96crb sailing.

Same procedure as last year… same procedure as every year - but more! 62 multihull entries ranging from Orma 60 foot trimarans to Hobie 16 catamarans.

Second Saturday of May there is The Round Lidingö Race which is the “famous” Stockholm season opening race. This year’s edition had the typical light winds increasing a little during the day with quite a few restarts due to spots and times of now wind at all.


20 min into race……SWE 3 still ahead (very small on left side of picture…) of two Orma 60 foots…(My apologies for picture qualities. Problem found to late - no other camera on board)

All can agree conditions were tricky……however there are different opinions on the results. Those who made well obviously are proud of their strategic decisions on the course……those who where not satisfied obviously agreed there was a big portion of luck involved in the results.


SWE-4 with new their genacker


SWE-3 on strategic course!


SWE-4 on beat action

The results? A very well sailed Dragonfly 25 (“reborne” and fine tuned by Gransegel Mats a few years ago) on first place, a modified A-Cat on second and Johan Grim, new owner of Seaon SWE3 on 3rd place (with Gransegel Mats (again!) as trimmer on board). Mats Leander’s in Seaon SWE-4? Obviously they were unlucky since they picked the wrong end of track at the start and got stuck ….

/Jan

Trimaran saling - spring signs in Stockholm!

Time to launch SWE 4

Finally spring arrived in Stockholm – weather and the launching of Mats and Jan-Erik’s new Seaon 96crb included. Actually it is Mats second Seaon, he was also the owner of Seaon nr 1. Thank you Mats for the continued trust in us - Jan-Erik obviously included!


Mats and Jan-Erik unpacking (sorry for the bad angle Jan-Erik!)

First days in water there was still some thin ice to crush in the mornings at the mooring, however now things really picked up and even the "hang arounds" managed to get some air under their wings.....






Mats the sailmaker, Stefan the designer and Noel (previously Gransegel now becoming multihull guru) even managed to have some nice “lunch sailing” in 8-10 knots of wind during a beautiful spring day


We are boosted with trimaran energy! Not only because it is spring and we can get out on the water again for that long missed feeling, but also because one can really feel the change of sentiment in the sailing community. For a substantially larger group it is not anymore about "if" but "when"…..!

/Jan

Trimaran beam (aka) design

As mentioned in an earlier blog I promised to high light a few issues on our choice of beam system design. Amongst others, from time to time, we get questions on why we do not have water stays.

When defining the Seaon 96 we had to make decisions on the different parts of the boat. First of all we were very clear about using a folding system that would allow us to optimise performance and functionality “in the water” Yes – it was a conscious decision where we were aware of the added time needed for assembly/disassembly for trailering by not using the Farrier principle.

Having made this choice there were quite a few other parameters to consider:

• Folding operation – considering fatigue and maintenance of included parts
• Structural safety aspects and ease of assembly/disassembly operation for trailering, i.e. potential structural risks related to assembly need to be minimized
• Water resistance and spray
• Performance – considering energy consumed by movements in the beam system
• Comfort – beam system should be experienced as rigid possible, preferably as if the boat was non folding
• Calculation, construction and testing aspects
• Ease and cost of production

A large part of our consideration was about the safety and complexity of the folding and boat assembly where we wanted to eliminate as many “unknowns” as possible – basically this implied reducing as many parts as possible.

Obviously Stefan’s experiences from glider productions with modern construction methods for wing constructions also led us to evaluate a stiff construction which we valued would add to comfort and performance. For the boat to be rigid, the beams need to be stiff in both directions. An added benefit of this is that in (worst case!) case of a mast failure this construction adds to security due to beams not being dependent on shrouds to take care of excessive “negative loads”.

Another requirement was to make calculation, construction and testing as straightforward as possible. Again, reducing the number of parts very much supported this objective in many aspects. This requirement also allowed us to verify our calculations and constructions with experts from the marine and aviation industries.

So – in the end all these requirements led to a construction without water stays.

The beam system is constructed to take all loads on the front leeward beam during CE category B conditions. To verify this construction and also production variances, load tests were defined using hydraulics, a load cell and quite a sturdy test jig. (We almost tore a roof down due to lack of calculation of….the supporting pillars to which we initially connected the beam.)

A few production changes, testing and three beams later the construction was set. To monitor any potential material and production variations we also decided to set up a continuous load testing program in production, i.e. each beam is tested individually.





All research, evaluation and testing, as explained above, made us convinced this was the solution we were looking for our Seaon 96crb….and as mentioned before, it is not as “unorthodox” as it may seem at first, considering modern aircraft and Orma 60 designs.

/Jan

Beautiful Stockholm Archipelago by trimaran

Living in the Stockholm Archipelago we sometimes take it for granted, however every now and then we get a reminder that it is something extra ordinary like this beautiful report by Hervé Hillard when he and his friends explored the Archipelago in a Seaon.

Please enjoy (the marvellous pictures for those of us who do not read French and yes, we are looking for assistance to translate it into English…) the article (link) published in Voile & Voiliers:

Text by Hervé Hillard
Pictures by Jean-Louis Gury
Map by Francois Chevalier
Voiles & Voiliers n445, March 2008




We can only agree to this beautiful report and add - "It should be experienced it IRL - in a trimaran.....!"

/Jan et all waiting for the spring in Stockholm (now having had snow for three days)

Trimaran tests

In the last issue of “MULTIHULLS WORLD/MULTICOQUES MAGAZINE” there is a test of both the Seaon (this time the article also in English! (English PDF version ) , article in French (French PDF version )) and the Seacart.

Obviously such tests are valuable both for customers and ourselves. Amongst others it also gives us an opportunity to highlight a few issues listed in the article which may not be obvious for everyone.

Philippe Echelle, the author of the article, highlighted amongst other the “lip at the deck/hull joint” (we call it “flange”. There are few ways to handle the joint of deck hull. Weighing the alternatives we finally choose the solution for two reasons:

When docked the flange protects the float from chafing against the dock. Also it is quite a strong point should one attempt a “hard” docking manoeuvre. To repair the paint (if not choosing a rubber protection like one customer has) on the edge of the flange is a simple operation, rather than having to repaint a larger area on the float. On the main hull the flange is used as a strong point for attaching the nets.

Furthermore, at high speeds the flange protects the water flow from each side of the float to join on the top of the float which under certain conditions will create a downward acting force.

Philippe also highlighted “The absence of waterstays(martingales on the arms)…”. This is probably not as unusual as it may seem, comparing the aviation industry moving away from wing stays quite some time ago. It is probably worth a separate comment (and potentially other issues) well which I will address in a future blog entry.

Finally, our company history is probably not the usual “start a company” story (if there ever is a “usual”!). The team behind Seaon has sailed together for over 20 years (and known each other for more than that!) and Stefan having optimized all the keels and rudders of the team’s racing yachts. Even though input, wishes and requirements for the design (Jan being very fond of the curves and lines of ………(anybody figured out?)) came from the whole team, Stefan is the designer in the team.

/Jan

Let the show begin! Trimarans at the Copenhagen Boatshow

Having fulfilled the usual "pre-exhibition stress" (this time maybe a little more than expected), the stand finally was ready for the "grand opening" hosted by Brian's and Alan's new started operation "Multihull" in Denmark exhibiting a Seaon 96crb and a Corsair 31.




And the show began!

Exhibition opened 10.00, at 10.30 there was a line up. It seems the Multihull interest in Denmark is big.



/Jan