Today multihulls can be found in every port and every anchorage around the world. The multihull concept is used in passenger ferries and motorboats and the catamaran dominates charter fleets. Over half yacht production in France is now multihulls. The fastest ocean-going racers are the Ultim class trimarans, but it was not always like this. 

Yachtsmen it seems are inherently conservative. Even though multihulls as a concept date back millions of years and are more traditional than the deep keeled monohulls that are considered traditional and preferred by most yachtsmen. Traditional ships and fishing vessels like smacks, and pilot cutters had full keels and ballast but fin keeled yachts that are self righting  were a 19th century invention. The concept of a self-righting keel yacht that can turn 360 degrees and be righted by the weight of its keel is a relatively modern one.

For many years the yachting establishment of yacht clubs and racing associations considered multihulls as dangerous and unseaworthy. In the 1970's as the resurgence of multihulled yachts continued, the establishment in the form of some journalists decided to bite back highlighting the capsizes and breakups that had accompanied the growth in numbers of often home built trimarans and catamarans throughout the 1960's and branding them "unsafe on any sea".

Multihulls started with canoes in the South Seas which were found by Western explorers as they "discovered" the Pacific Ocean. French, Spanish, Dutch and English sailors observed the natives of the islands of Polynesia coming out to greet them in small canoes usually with a single outrigger. These little canoes were transport for one or two people but then thy also saw larger canoes many of which were very large ocean-going vessels. It is possible to distinguish between single outrigger canoes, double canoes and double outrigger canoes. In terms of 20th century modern multihull development we talk in terms of Proas (which are basically a single outrigger vessel of the original Pacific configuration that flies the outrigger to windward; or Atlantic configuration that has the single outrigger to leeward and resembles a trimaran without the windward float); trimarans that are a canoe hull with smaller outriggers on both sides; and catamarans that are the big voyaging double canoe configuration.

It is now well known that the populating of the Pacific Ocean and its Islands took place by sea starting it is believed with migrating voyages out from Taiwan and the Polynesian peoples settled in the Polynesian Triangle of New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter island about 3000 BCE. The Western approach to the anthropology of the peoples of the Pacific was based on a premise that the people of those Islands must have come from the American continent and populated the Islands by drifting on the currents. This was the view of influential writers like Andrew Sharp and Thor Heyerdahl. The reason is that Pacific trade winds blow from the northeast above the equator and from the south east below it.  The Pacific trade winds drive surface waters toward the west to form the North and South Equatorial currents, the axes of which coincide with latitude 15° N and the Equator, respectively. Squeezed between the equatorial currents is a well-defined counter current, the axis of which is always north of the Equator, and which extends from the Philippines to the shores of Ecuador.

Western thinking assumed that the islands were populated from the east by drifting because they reasoned that the native vessels could not sail to windward against the trade winds from the southeast. Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl had a theory that the islands were populated by people from South America drifted to Polynesia and he built a Kon Tiki raft to prove the theory in 1957. His theory was that Easter Island and other Polynesian islands were originally inhabited by white bearded men from Peru. Suffice to say the theory was not accepted by scientists before the Kon Tiki voyage and is now largely disproved. Modern research has proved that without the tow it had out to sea into the westward current the Kon Tiki voyage was statistically impossible. It would not have been able to get across the inshore currents and meet the currents that carried it across to Polynesia under sail. The idea that the voyage had proved that the rafts of Peru could sail to Polynesia was nothing of the kind. 

Unlike traditional Western sailing ships multihulls do not generally have ballast -other than their passengers and their stores. Their stability depends on the buoyancy in their hulls. Traditional ships from the Roman Galleys, Spanish Galleons, Tudor Ships and Napoleonic Ships of the Line through to the China Clippers and the big square-rigged ships of the 19th and early 20th century depended on the form  of their hulls and the weight of their cargo (unless they were light when they had to take on board extra ballast) for their stability. many traditional yachts and the working boats were the same. All had in common that they can be laid over "on their beam ends" by a squall and swamped resulting in their sinking. This happened famously to the Mary Rose and still today traditional sailing ships are lost at sea for this reason. 

There had been several attempts to build modern craft that were multihulled and a much unsung pioneer was Frenchman Eric De Bisschop whose double canoe Kaimiloa voyage from Tahiti to France in 1939 was forgotten by most yachtsmen as was the fact that he then built a twin outrigger craft which was lost in a collision.

There were other voyages by French sailor’s voyages in a trimaran Ananda which crossed the Atlantic in 17 days in 1939 and then a steel catamaran Copula also sailed to the West Indies from Europe in the 1940's but World attention was caught by the resurgence in interest in Polynesia and the arrival of Woody Brown and his catamarans there after WW2. 

However, others were experimenting with multihulls and hydrofoils in Europe, America and the Pacific in the 1940's, 50's and 60's. The journals of the eccentric British Amateur Yacht Research Society have created a unique record of this. Bob Harris was designing catamarans from 1948, and Victor Tchetchet had started designing trimarans in the 1930's. Before leaving his native Ukraine to settle in America Victor built an 18-foot catamaran and entered it in a yacht race. He won but was disqualified. In New York after 1923 he continued to experiment and built a 20-foot trimaran, and he is believed to be the first man to use that name. He built other trimarans that he sailed successfully inshore in the 1940's and 50's particularly Egg Nog and Egg Nog II (1955).

In 1946 Woody Brown designed a 40-foot catamaran which became well known for its speed. In other parts of the USA others designed and built catamarans. The Lear Cat was a plywood catamaran 16 feet long and 7.5 feet wide with box section hulls.  Her designer also produced an 18-foot version called Sabre Cat. Creger the designer then built a series of 32-foot cruising catamarans and a 35-footer that carried water ballast to add to stability. With narrow 12 foot beam this was not enough and one capsized on the Great Lakes. In 1950 there was a "One of a Kind Rally" in Miami and catamarans came from the USA and the UK. Bob Harris a young Naval Architect was inspired by Manu Kai and built his first catamaran in 1948. He designed several successful catamarans from 1948 to 1959 in his spare time while he worked for Sparkman and Stephens

In 1959 Bob Harris set up a Naval Architecture practice in New York in 1959 with Frank McLear. The firm of McLear and Harris specialised in multihulls from 1959 to 1967 when Bob Harris left and re-joined Sparkman and Stephens.  He wrote two seminal books on cruising catamarans and trimarans. In 1970 he crewed for Phil Weld on his Kelsall trimaran Trumpeter in the round Britain Race finishing second.

An almost "evangelical" advocate of trimarans was an American called Arthur Piver. He sailed his trimaran Nimble across the Atlantic in 1960 and in 1962 sailed to New Zealand from San Francisco. Piver had a massive impact and in the 60's and 70's hundreds of his trimarans were built by amateurs and professionals. He may have his critics but Piver's genius for creating publicity and his advocacy of trimarans was a massive factor in the rising popularity they had. 

But conservative journalists and pundits that all voiced their condemnation of multihulls took support from Piver's disappearance the  in 1967 and the similar loss of Australian pioneer Hedley Nichol in his trimaran too. 

American Woodbridge Parker Brown (aka Woody Brown) was born in 1912 to a wealthy American family.  Rejecting his family wall Street business, he became an original “surfer dude” but first started flying gliders with considerable success. In 1936 he stared surfing in California. In 1940 triggered by his wife’s death in childbirth Woody had a breakdown and walked out on his new-born son and his stepdaughter not seeing them again for many years. He headed for Tahiti but was held in Hawaii due to WWII. A conscientious objector and vegetarian he became one of Hawaii’s big wave surfers and designer of surf boards. 
Fascinated by native outrigger canoes he designed a catamaran that was named Manu Kai (“Sea Bird”) and built by Alfred Kumalae and Rudy Choy. Built in wood on a beach at a cost of $4000 in 1947 she started the fashion for fast day sailing beach catamarans based at Waikiki Beach that continues today.

Manu Kai set a whole new style Brown was an experienced pilot and brought the aircraft technology he knew well into the project. Kumalae was an experienced boat builder and the construction of a monocoque was very well engineered. At 40 foot long her weight of only 1.5 tons was remarkable. She was 13 feet in beam and had hulls of a rounded V section with a flat outside, the theory being to gain lateral resistance by the shape of the hulls. Operating off Hawaii she was very fast indeed although even at the time it was noted by Bob Harris that she was slow in stays. 

As well as Brown and Kumalae, Rudy Choy gained a lot of sailing experience with Manu Kai and second version called Alii Kai This lead them to design and build another version called Waikiki Surf in 1955 40 feet long and 13 foot beam. Cutter rigged with a bowsprit she was given accommodation and equipped for longer ocean racing and cruising. Brown and Choy sailed her to Los Angeles but were refused entry to the Transpacific race from Los Angeles to Honolulu so the boat’s owner with another crew (Brown and Choy had to leave the boat) shadowed the race instead and finished fifth despite a stress crack in one of the hulls.

Choy was asked to design and build a larger ocean racer, and he came up with Aikane launched in April 1957. They took her in the Trans Pac race unofficially again as entry was refused and this time beating the fleet by 26 hours.

In Hawaii others followed Choy in the 50's building similar big Tourist beach cats like the 63 foot Ale Ale Kai III.

Rudy Choy, Alfred Kumalae and Warren Seaman formed CSK and became a hugely successful design team between 1957 and his son Barry Choy  carried on Choy Design in Honolulu. In the 50's and 60's CSK were designing yachts for millionaire businessmen and movie stars that took up ocean racing in their spectacular catamarans which established many records. The 43-foot World Cat circumnavigated 1966 to 68. 

The Golden Cockerel to a similar design as World Cat  was sponsored by Watney Mann Brewery for Australian Dental Surgeon Bill Howell to enter the 1968 OSTAR. Entering the 1967 Crystal trophy race against Kelsall's Trifle and many others the catamaran spectacularly capsized. The wind was about force 6 and they were changing down headsails at the time. The weather hull was flying out of the water, and she was desperately over canvassed. The capsize was caused largely by crew inexperience causing poor seamanship because they did not know the yacht could capsize and failed to realise that flying a hull was the point of no return. 

Today racing multihulls are designed to fly the weather hull like giant beach cats and racing trimarans are now given massive outriggers with their own rudders so they can fly two out of three hulls. The Ultim class and similar are designed to fly all three hulls as they race on hydrofoils. 

In 1967 Great Britain the Golden Cockerel capsize sparked outcry from traditionalists and multihull sailors alike. James Wharram pointed out in a letter to Yachting Monthly, that his designs never flew a hull and were safe from capsize due to his design principles. Wharram was an early British Pioneer who built his  first multihull design, the 24-foot Tangaroa  in 1954.  On her the three adventurers Jim, Ruth and Jutta sailed to the West Indies. Flat bottomed with a tiny rig and cabins like rabbit hutches and their voyage must rank as one of the bravest in the history of modern boating. The catamaran had voyaged around the North Sea to Germany after launching in Essex and then down to Spain and thence to the Canaries and across to Trinidad. There they designed and built the 40 foot Rongo and Wharram sailed her over 12000 miles between 1959 and 1962. In 1967 he was selling designs and slowly emerging as a designer of home built multihulls just as Piver and others like Jim Brown were doing in America encouraging people to build their own multihull and sail the oceans. 

Bill Howell recovered his boat and raced her solo to fifth place in the 1968 OSTAR.  He enthused about how he had ridden out a hurricane in safety and went on to sail the yacht transatlantic many times and competed in several OSTAR's and Round Britain Races renamed Tahiti Bill. In the Pacific CSK catamarans raced and cruised.  Records were broken. There were also capsizes which Rudy Choy explained as being mainly caused by inexperienced crews or pushing the vessels too hard. The 58-foot Seasmoke was one of Choy's greatest designs and owned by Jim Arness a Cowboy film star she won numerous races. There were production boats made in grp to a 25-foot design Polynesian Concept. 

Rudy Choy is another man that is revered as the inventor of modern catamarans, and it is certainly true that most catamarans today are closer to his monocoque hulls with bridge deck accommodation but there were many others following that path both in America and Europe. Never shy about his achievements Choy like Piver was a great self-publicist. His book 'Catamarans Offshore' was a great tale of his development of a very distinctive set of designs. His approach to multihull seamanship and the need to learn it was also ahead of his time because now capsizes are accepted as a regular occurrence in racing when boats are pushed too hard and mistakes made but that does not prevent most cruising catamarans and trimarans being built and sailed safely. In the 70's these occurrences which were largely the result of the need to develop and improve designs and seamanship.

The development of multihulls in America and in the Pacific bloomed in the 60's and 70's as many designers worked on these craft. Maclear and Harris were designing very professional looking craft with a strong hint of Sparkman and Stephens about their style! Given Bob Harris' early development of smaller catamarans in the 1940's and 50's he and McLear remain rather unsung heroes too. In the Caribbean Richard C Newick was experimenting and designed a 40-foot day charter catamaran called Ay Ay that he set out to use in his day charter business.   In Europe the multihull scene was less prominent until 1966 when Kelsall's Toria signalled the arrival of the racing trimaran to the establishment yachting scene.

There were big and small catamarans being designed and built in America throughout the 1940's,50's and 60's that were often very experimental and often unsuccessful in terms of their sailing abilities and construction. This can be traced back to Nat Herreshoff and his design Amaryllis a 24-footer launched in 1876 she beat 33 yachts in the New York Yacht Club Centennial Regatta. In 1877 Anson Stokes in New York launched a 60-foot schooner catamaran. Racing was closed off to catamarans as they were banned by the Yacht clubs, and they fell out of favour but still many were built experimentally and the concept used commercial applications. But it is true that after WWII the mood for developing multihulls was again awoken.

In the UK and Europe development continued to with not only James Wharram but the Prout Brothers commercially building day sailing catamarans and cruising catamarans that achieved  great commercial success through the 1960's, 70's and 80's. 

Derek Kelsall not only made headlines with his Piver Trimaran in 1964's OSTAR but stunned the establishment with  the 42 foot grp foam sandwich Toria in the 1966 Round Britain Race and then with Trifle, Trumpeter in 1970, FT and the Three Legs of Man series of distinctive race winning trimarans. His cruising and charter catamarans were also being built in the 70's and he emerged as the leading British multihull designer. 

Roderick McAlpine Downie and Reg White set up Sailcraft in Essex and produced stunning grp catamarans selling hundreds of 30 foot Iroquois catamarans. 

Bill O'Brian another early pioneer produced his caravan like Bobcats which Tom Lack successfully sold as family cruisers. A 30 foot Bill O'Brian Oceanic sailed around the World via Cape Horn. Many Bill O'Brian catamarans made long voyages across Oceans and around the World. They remain in use particularly the grp boats and are still regarded as safe cruising yachts. 

Pat Patterson's 26 foot Heavenly Twins catamaran that went into production in 1969 sold in hundreds and they two were used for Ocean voyages and circumnavigations. Pat's 33 foot Ocean Twins was his own vehicle to sail around the World via the Magellan Straits. He also sailed her to the Amazon. Others emulated the designer too earning his designs their deserved reputation as solid cruising boats. His later designs were lighter and used flared topside to good advantage moving away from the canoe sterned model of the older boats. 

Tom Lack the super salesman of Bobcats set up his own company and sold the 8 metre Catalac which was styled like a motor boat and then larger versions. Again these were very commodious comfortable cruising yachts exhibiting raft like seaworthiness and won deserved popularity cruising all over the World. 

The Prout Brothers Snowgoose series evolved from the 34 of 1971 to a 35,and 37 and then the enlarged Elite Version. A 39 foot Escale followed with it's little sister the Sirocco 26 and the Quest 31 were the quintessential "English Catamaran" in the 70's and 80's and were big sellers. The Ocean Ranger developed through different permutations to the magnificent Quasar 52. Later the 34 foot Event was similar to the Snowgoose  and the new Prout 45/46 and 38 were developments of the originals brought up to date.  The Ocean voyages made by these boats are too many to list and they are seen all over the World.

In the UK Tony Smith developed his folding 26 foot Telstar trimaran for mass production and this spawned a mark 2 and an 8 meter version. Later having acquired the moulds of the Aristocat another popular 30 foot cruiser that rather resembled a modernised grp Bobcat, Tony moved his business to the USA. The Telstar moulds were destroyed and he developed the Aristocrat into the Gemini series of designs which became the best selling catamaran in the World in the 80's and 90's. Tony also revitalised the Telstar in a new version that is a rare but accomplished design. 

The little Hirondelle 22 catamaran also sold well in the UK. 

John Shuttleworth's catamarans followed his racing success in the 80's with plans sold and professionally built advanced wide beam catamarans with a distinct knuckle to give wider hull beam.  

However the history of the modern multihull really evolves further from the 1990's and that evolution is based in particular in France and also in Australia and New Zealand. 

A turning point was the design of a catamaran by Australian Lock Crowther for the French brand Catana. In their early years, they became the world leader in fast-performance cruising catamarans helped by legendary Australian multihull designer Lock Crowther. Following the Crowther era, Christophe Barreau and Frédéric Neuman continued the success with a series of designs that remain popular to this day.

As with the story of the pioneers I will devote separate pages to the modern multihull developments according to designers and manufacturers.