The Starwind 860 is a power trimaran that I'm currently developing for my own use. She's intended to be a versatile, practical boat for a wide variety of duties on inland lakes and canals, the Great Lakes, and coastal regions.

The drawings for the Starwind 860 are currently in work, and construction of hull number one is underway.

The Starwind 860 will face a variety of missions:

• Canal and lake cruising for 4-6, with some camping on shore; voyage duration 2-7 days
• Extended canal, lake and coastal cruising for 2; voyage duration up to 30 days
• Day trips for 4-6, with kayaks, dive gear, etc. along for the ride
• Cargo duty at the family cottage: at least one tonne of building materials, queen-size mattresses, long and/or awkward shaped objects, and the ability to work from the boat without stability concerns

At the same time, she'll be operating in a broad range of conditions with many different types of crew:

• Wind and sea states from 0 to 4 in typical use, capable of handling force 5-6 if necessary
• Crew will include young children, seniors and every age in between, plus dogs

We're also putting some performance and dimensional constraints on her:

• Top speed of 20 knots when lightly loaded
• No mast (we have low bridges)
• Trailerable with a common minivan or light truck (thus max beam 2.5 m, max weight on trailer ~2000 kg, bridge clearance on trailer ~4 m)
• Fuel consumption should be minimized (thus range maximized) to the extent possible given the other criteria

In order to fit all of this in one boat, something has to be sacrificed. In this case, I'm willing to sacrifice build simplicity and time. Trimarans are a lot of work to build- there's no way around that, and it's the main reason why you don't see many of them coming off production lines. The tradeoff for the extra work is a very stable platform (for the cargo/workboat role and to give pontoon-boat-like comfort to the senior crew and the day-trippers) and slim, efficient displacement hulls that won't pound when the waves come up- and that can be propelled with a 40 to 70 hp outboard.

Plans for the Starwind 860 won't be available until the prototype has been launched. Don't hold your breath- as a personal project, this boat tends to end up at the bottom of the work pile, and I'd be very surprised if she hits the water before 2014.