Multihulls

Multihulls are vessels with more than one hull. The additional hulls provide stability, typically to hold the vessel upright against the sideways force of the wind on the sails. This is in contrast to monohulls? which typically use ballast? for this purpose.

Multihulls are typically either catamarans?, which have two similar hulls, or trimarans?, which have a larger hull in the center and two smaller ones on either side. In either case they are typically much wider than the equivalent monohull, which allows multihull sailboats to carry no ballast, so they are typically faster than monohulls under equivalent conditions (see Nathaniel Herreshoff's "Amarylis", also 1988 America's Cup). It also means that multihulls are less prone to sink than monohulls when their hulls are compromised. There are also multihull powerboats, both for racing and transportation.

Multihulls' width is often an issue, especially when docking. They are also more expensive to produce than a monohull of the same length.

Multihulls are quite popular for racing, especially in Europe and Australia, and are somewhat popular for cruising in the Caribbean. They're not seen very often in the United States, although they're gradually getting more popular. Until the 1980's most multihull sailboats (except for beach cats) were built either by their owners or by boatbuilders on a semi-custom basis. Since then several companies have been successful selling mass-produced (by boat industry standards) boats.

Brand names include Hobie (small catamarans), Corsair Marine (mid-sized trimarans), and Privilege (large, luxurious catamarans).