Fast Multis Coming to California

After two winters of extremely successful racing in the Caribbean, San Franciscan Peter Aschenbrenner’s 63-ft Nigel Irens/Benoit Cabaret trimaran is, according to multihull guru and crewmember Cam Lewis, headed for San Francisco. It might have something to do with the America’s Cup being sailed in multihulls.

Paradox took four bullets in the just-completed St. Barth Bucket, and prior to that had missed setting a new Caribbean 600 record by just 11 minutes — after 40 hours of racing in typically challenging Caribbean conditions. Paradox screamed past us four times in the last week while we were aboard a Santa Cruz 70, and she looked magnificent doing it. Paradox is an unusual cruising boat.

Aschenbrenner wanted a very fast trimaran that he could cruise shorthanded and with non-professional crew, so Paradox is a tamed-down version of the wild ORMA 60 ocean racing trimarans. She has, for example, a much shorter mast, a beam of 48 feet rather than 60 feet and, because of a modest cruising interior, displaces more. Nonetheless, she flies. She’s also equipped with a hydrogenerator and fuel cells, so the only time she really needs to use her engine is getting off the hook. By the way, she always always lays stern to her anchor.

We also asked Cam Lewis about his association with Thomas Siebel’s Orion MOD 70 trimaran, which is being shipped from Lorient, France to Mexico. There, she’ll be tuned on Banderas Bay for three months before being brought to San Francisco Bay in July for the America’s Cup. We’re not sure how Oracle’s Larry Ellison is going to feel about a former employee showing up at the America’s Cup with a much less expensive trimaran that’s nearly as fast as an AC72, but we can guess.

A February press release said that Orion would be "under the hand" of Lewis and that he was eager to show Americans "how fast and fantastic these amazing machines are." Lewis was quoted as saying that "the conditions for racing a MOD 70 between California, Hawaii and Mexico are incredible." But on Saturday, Lewis told us that nothing had been finalized about his participation.

The other multihull coming from St. Barth to California is a catamaran now on her way to Panama. But she’s a catamaran, and she’s headed for Southern California, not San Francisco, for July’s start of the TransPac. More on her soon.