Mike Leneman has designed, built, and test sailed a revolutionary coastal day-sailor trimaran called the L7. It is a pocket-cruiser that can kick butt on many of the much more costly, coastal racing trimarans.
Until now, the biggest difference between a catamaran and trimaran has been the way that the trimarans were designed to primarily sail upon their center hull while leaning on one of their two outrigger style amas. Leneman has made a timely step forward in developing a trimaran that more closely resembles a catamaran.
For so many years, Mike Leneman has been representing a very famous multihull manufacturer who has had the greatest and best trailerable multihull trimaran on the market. That design, brand has been extremely popular and partly thanks to Leneman, has enjoyed tremendous success on the West Coast. Leneman’s association with Corsair was severed and then he began to think about his own design that would act more like a catamaran. Mike had about six, proof of concept design boats sitting around at his shop. The mix included a lightweight power cat, and a 20-foot catamaran that used a wishbone rig and had a pedal drive propeller in each hull. He’s taken what he has learned and built the L7, a 23-foot, 7-meter trimaran.
The L7 is a new kind of trailerable coastal cruiser multi-hull vessel. The amas are nearly just as long as the main hull and are buoyant enough to carry the sailing loads. With the large amas, the L7 will behave less like a conventional trimaran and more like a catamaran with a center cabin.
This little day sailor and pocket cruiser is quickly and easily assembled for sailing. The cross bars for the port and starboard amas overlap where they pass though special tunnels in the main hull. They slide out, away from their trailering position next to the main hull. The mast is raised using the trailer winch and the raised dagger board as a leverage point. There is a special perch on the stern push-pit railing that cradles the mast for trailering and is also used to assist in mast stepping.
Leneman sailed his L7 in a regatta of approximately 35-40 multihulls in this year’s Indian Summer Splash race. In a 36 nautical mile race to the Catalina Island’s west end, from Marina Del Rey, CA, the L7 absolutely astounded most everyone. Leneman was 5th to finish. He beat F24’s, F25’s, F27’s, and even some F-31’s. Apparently there were only a few F-31’s and a Reynolds 33 catamaran that covered the distance faster than the L7.
The L7 did this on her first regatta, second or third time on the water, and was outfitted with an old-fashion “pin top” mainsail made of Dacron. On the way home she did even better, third best on elapsed time. Leneman is proud to say that this boat “has less control lines than a Hobie 18!”
Leneman has sailors asking him for a copy of the new boat. He has not accepted any offers by builders and has taken it upon himself to make it happen on his own. He is presently sourcing build contracts for all the parts and pieces and expects to run a local assembly shop once he’s sourced all the components. His goal is to deliver a 7-meter, trailerable, easy to use trimaran that costs $30,000.
More information on Mike Leneman’s L7 can be found at his Multi Marine web site:
Multi Marine Leneman L7
Copyright 2004 Gary Friesen
All Rights Reserved