First Sail on the Explorer 44

The first of the Explorer 44' cruising trimarans was built by Lone Star Multihulls in Brownsville, Texas for Glenn and Linda Brodie of Massachusetts. Named "Shearwater" she was launched early in 2000 and Glenn made the long delivery to home waters in stages over the spring and early summer. I had only seen the boat during construction and I was most eager to sail her at the first opportunity. Yesterday, I got the call from Glenn that he was headed to the boat in Newport, Rhode Island so today was the day I got the chance to see what Lone Star, the Brodie's and I had created.

The hulls and decks are beautifully constructed of epoxy/glass with a foam core. The open wing configuration crossbeams are carbon fiber and bi-axial glass. The mast is a standard aluminum non-rotating section with inner and outer diamonds over a single spreader. This boat is a cruising design through and through. She has ample displacement for stores and gear, an inboard diesel, a full galley with refrigeration, hot pressure water, shower, comfortable berths for 5 and a private aft double cabin with its own head. To keep construction costs and maintenance to a minimum I chose to use a shoal draft fixed fin on the bottom of the main hull and a fixed balanced rudder rather than the conventional dagger board and retractable up rudder.

I had seen the boat on the mooring a few days before and noticed some really nasty barnacles around the waterline so I came to sail equipped with mask/ fins and a wide putty knife. In the water I could see that there were barnacles of a size to make a French chef happy scattered about the hull and particularly thick at the waterline. Bottom paint a'int what it used to be folks. There was also a light slime everywhere. I scraped for 45 minutes or so and got off most of the barnacles and some of the slime. The visibility was poor so I'm sure I missed a few but in the end the hull was clean enough to go for a sail although not anywhere near race clean.

Ready for sailing, the mainsail went up easily on the 2 part halyard. I was comfortable hauling the 640 sq/ft main by hand to about 3Ž4 or 7/8ths the way up and then had to use the winch. All these large fully battened mains get heavy and good ball bearing hardware and batten cars make a crucial difference in hoisting ease.

It was a light air Newport day, really the best type of day to try the boat. There is much more to learn about balance and handling in 8 knots wind than 20. Although 20+ is important to sail in too.

Under main alone she sailed well if a bit sluggishly. We were able to point fairly high and tack easily. Lots of fast tri's will not tack under full main alone, I think it is important for handling and safety that the boat will.

After a few minutes of this we unrolled the jib. She immediately sprang to life. Oh, this is nice! True wind was south about 8 knots with a strong flood tide against us at maybe 1.5 to 2 knots. We made a couple tacks southward toward Benton Cove. The shrouds were fairly loose so some time was spent snugging things up, looking over the sails and adjusting halyard and foot tension. After a few minutes of trimming Shearwater seemed to be sailing very well. There were lots of boats out, a typical Newport weekend, and all the sailboats going our direction were easilyin very easy reach of the helmsman and all sail and reefing controls lead to the cockpit so there is no need to leave it when sailing short handed. Another feature for easy cruising is the electric anchor windlass located on the foredeck which retrieves and stows the rode and anchor in a totally "hands off" manner.

For the race oriented the Explorer 44' design is available in a daggerboard configuration. And if the funds are available she could be equipped with a lighter, taller, carbon mast. Get the bottom squeaky clean and you'll have a mighty fast boat. If that is what you want. For me, I think she's darn close to perfect right now. In the universe of 40ish foot rugged, offshore capable boats with nice accommodations she's faster than 99.44% of all boats out there. That's enough for me.