Spotlight: Dragonfly 28 Swing Wing Trimaran

Swinging IT

When it comes to multihull sailing craft you either love 'em or loathe them. Traditional monohull sailers will tell you that multihulls don't work to windward well and if one flips it is going to stay inverted. Despite the ambivalence, there is no doubt that multihulls have carved their own niche for those who enjoy the extra speed, stability and shallow draft that comes from having two ore more hulls.

This isn't news, Islanders have been sailing tris for centuries and, in more recent times, adventurers have created massive high-tech trimarans that achieve speeds well above 40kts for circumnavigating the globe in record times. But now there is a new type of trimaran available for the hoi polloi that is no less exciting.

The 8.7m Dragonfly 28 Swing Wing is in prototype phase, but it's based on the 9.2m Dragonfly 920, the 10.68m Dragonfly 35 - the European yacht of the year 2008 in the multihull category - and the 11.96m flagship Dragonfly 1200m centre cockpit ocean cruiser. All these tris are manufactured by Danish boatbuilder Quorning Boats. And they all feature the company's Swing Wing technology where the floats fold in for single-berth mooring.

What's so special about the baby Dragonfly 28? With fold-in floats that require no disassembly and a tare weight of 2200kg, it is trailerable on all Australian roads, has accommodation for five, separate full-beam head, and high-speed performance for racing or touring.

Sydneysider David Styles in association with Sydney dealership Windcraft, the Australian agents for celebrated marques Moody, Fjord and Hanse, imported a Dragonfly 920 to Australia early last year in time for the Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show. They now plan to import the Dragonfly 28 when it becomes available on 2010.

"The factory hasn't finished the (Dragonfly 28) prototype yet but expect it to be in the water early this year," Styles told Trade-a-Boat.

"The 920 has been in Australia for less than a year but there has been a lot of interest in it around the boat shows. It's a high-end product made by Quorning, which is a very well known and respected brand in Europe. It is a family company that hand make their boats with high-quality engineering, build and fitout.

"Actually, I've had a lot of interest from people in Adelaide, where you have to take out a double berth for trimarans, but with the Swing Wing this means only one berth for a boat like the 920 and therefore a big saving on berthing.

"To give you an example of the beam of  trimaran; a 30ft Dragonfly is wider than my old 48ft catamaran," Styles explains.

The Swing Wing system reduces the Dragonfly 28's 6.5m beam by more than 50 per cent to 2.54m in just a couple of minutes. Thus, it fits comfortably into a conventional yacht berth and won't be banished to swing moorings, the outer arms of marinas and double pens.

Quorning's Swing Wing design has the float struts hinged near the hull and a centre pin pivoting arrangement on top of the floats. Styles said that a wire in the netting between the hull and the floats locks the floats in place via a block and tackle, and tensioned by a winch. Rear braces and forward strops are added to the float struts as failsafe systems.

While the Dragonfly 920 is also trailerable, it requires some disassembly, a process said to take four hours. So Quorning Boats designed the Dragonfly 28 as a simpler trailerable version that requires just 30 to 40 minutes demounting time.

Performance wise, it should go almost as well as the Dragonfly 920, which can zip along at 25kts and comfortably cruises in the mid-teens. Quorning expects similar results from the Dragonfly 28 since it is only a couple of feet shorter.

"The 920 is a very well balanced and well behaved boat. It doesn't misbehave like rounding up, and is a nice compromise of out-and-out speed and easy handling.

"A lot of people get the impression that catamarans don't point well, probably because cruising cats don't. They lack a centreboard and are designed mainly for room and entertaining. A good racing cat will point well, and a trimaran can tack and point a well as any monohull," Styles says.

The Dragonfly 28 will be available in either a Touring or Racing version. The former features a 12.1m aluminium mast while the latter has a 13.6m carbon rig and high-tech sails. The accommodation for the 28 will be similar to the 920, with five berths, all two metres in length, a full galley, large companionway, big cockpit, and only differs with the separate head being full beam with access to the forward berths.

Pricing for the Dragonfly 28 is still to be worked out by Quorning, said Styles, but it will be cheaper than the (approximately) $400,000 for the Dragonfly 920.

For more info, visit www.windcraft.com.au; www.dragonfly.dk