Giant Steps – was the first of the gigantic multihulls that continue to capture the public imagination, especially in FranceDubbed the “aluminum octopus†because of its radical appearance, Eric Tabarly’s 68-foot trimaran Pen Duick IV was the forerunner of today’s record-setting ocean-racing multihulls. The boat had to withdraw a few days into its first Observer Single-handed Transatlantic Race (OSTAR) in 1968, but it won the quadrennial event in 1972 in a record 20 days, 13 hours and 15 minutes, with Alain Colas at the helm. Colas went on to sail Pen Duick IV singlehanded around Cape Horn as well. Tragically, Colas and Pen Duick IV were both lost at sea in 1978 during the inaugural Route du Rhum singlehanded race from France to Guadeloupe.
An Innovator’s Innovator – Dick Newick’s multihull designs didn’t just break with convention, they left it standing still. In the late 1960s, Newick created the 40-foot proa Cheers, which finished third in the 1968 OSTAR. (Unlike other sailboats, proas are double-ended and “shunt†back and forth instead of tacking, basically reversing direction rather than turning through the eye of the wind.) Newick’s 51-foot Moxie, pictured … Pictures & More