Re: What ever happened to trihulls?
I won't argue that they are a harsh ride, but for rivers and lakes, and even a few trips into the bay, they are a huge step up from a flat bottom boat, with lots of fishing stability.
I've seen the newer hulls that have a more pronounced center V hull, and even my '77 Starcraft has a more pronounced center V than does my older Duo.
I don't agree that they tend to be heavy, my '77 17' Starcraft bow rider is listed at only 1450 lbs dry, that's over 400 pounds less than my 18' V hull Renken, which is also an open boat with no cabin, but has a closed bow. the difference can really be felt when towing them. The V hull is faster and better on fuel which I attribute to the added drag of the outer hulls on the trihull.
The best part is that the trihulls tend to be cheap to buy even in nice shape. I have two of them now, both are in really nice shape as found. The Duo was under $400 and was turn key minus a battery.
They seem to be pretty tough as well, I don't recall ever seeing any major hull failures from pounding the waves with them. I had an old Evinrude with a stern drive that I ran pretty hard when I was younger and never hurt that boat. The worst I ever did to that was shatter a few aluminum pedestals hopping wakes and getting out through the breakers in the ocean with it. That one did sit a lot higher in the water than do either of these I have now, but the outboard Starcraft sits the highest in the bow with at least 30' above the water line. The Duo sits pretty low all around, but the hull isn't nearly as deep overall. I wouldn't even think about rough water in that boat.
In my eyes, the trihulls are for my river fishing, I have an aluminum boat for lakes and freshwater, and I use my V hull in the bay and once in a while in the ocean. Until I found these two trihulls, I was running my aluminum boat out into the bay, and that could get a little scary if the weather turned bad.
The trihull makes it a lot nicer when there are three people fishing too, in the aluminum boat, three was too crowded. At least in the trihull, it's stable enough that you don't have to worry about capsizing if everyone is on one side of the boat. I also like the bowrider set up when it comes to fishing, the Duo has a forward loading step that allows me to pull up to the dock foward and let the passengers off at the end of the day, it saves time since I don't have to wait for side access to a crowded dock. I can pull right up to an end slip, unload, have a buddy go get the truck and trailer while I wait back a ways not blocking up the dock, once he pulls in the water I drive on up, load and leave. It works like a charm. If I had to wait for room to get up farther on the dock to let the other guys off the boat, I'd could be there for an hour or more, especially if there's a few newbies loading.
I usually have a buddy back the trailer down the far side of the ramp, away from the dock, that way I am away from the crazyness that goes on along the dock side of the ramp. I have loading down to about 5 minutes on average. If there are three of us, one guy drives the truck in, the other snaps on the bow hook and give the winch a few tightening cranks, and I ride the boat out of the water. I secure the seats and any loose items, hand over the coolers and tackle boxes to a buddy in the bed of the truck and hop over the bow and secure the rear tie downs and off we go. With the shape of the trihull, it sits right down nice on the bunks, always self centers, and getting down from a boat on the trailer is easy with that front step, I can step over the bow, down onto the winch plate and onto the step bumper of the truck with ease, with the close bow V hull, climbing down once on the trailer is a bit tricky since there's no bow access.
I also seem to have better directional control with the trihull when docking or loading with a cross current than I do with the V hull, I sort of figured that it has something to do with the two outer hulls? It's just not as affected by the current as much. The V hull can be a real chore loading with the current running hard, it seems to push the bow around too easily.
