New Dragonfly 40 Trimaran
All images & video by Dragonfly – After publishing the Grainger R42 I exchanged some comments with a local Naval Architect specialized in monohulls, on the Trimarans for the local Arg market. He pointed me out on the Dragonfly Trimaran series, which I knew beforehand, but yesterday visited their site again and saw new updated designs being offered.
Specially the 40′ looks pretty good, more when you compared the Dragon legacy line and their older square amas.
Reviewing the media available for the 40 its video caught my attention. Such a smooth and fast sailing. Showed the clip to my friend asking him what size/kind of mono one would need to achieve such performance and he pointed out a +60 standard monohull or a foil assisted was needed to replicate that ride. Many options today for a fast mono that can have a fast reach no doubt but the point was clear now on why there is a market for this kind of trimarans.
One does need to be an expert Multihull sailor to handle a Dragonfly 40 or any other fast cruiser/daysailer Trimaran. Easy of handling, stability and a hell of a ride are the key assets offered. To achieve that kind of performance on a Catamaran you would need a light performance cat with a powerful rig, a platform which is not as easy as a Trimaran and would require some previous multihull experience.
There lies the appeal of the Trimaran, adding the folding amas to fit current monohull marina’s docking its another plus a Catamaran of same length cannot offer.
In Northern Europe , Australia and many other places considerations above are pretty known but remember here in Arg we have the beachcat scene covered by now but are still a long way to reach a wider spread in terms of cruising / daysailer multihulls.
The Dragonfly 40 Trimaran does not has a full racing pedigree as the Grainger R42 but it fills the niche for a more relaxed and comfortable ride. More info on the new Dragonfly Trimarans at dragonfly.dk/dragonfly-40
