We are thrilled to announce that the Corsair 880 Sport, our flagship, is making her Australian Debut at the 2022 Sydney International Boat Show!

Corsair 880 out of Wareham Massachusetts

“This is an exciting time for trimaran sailing,” says Brent Vaughan, Director at Multihull Central. “It’s been almost 40 years of trimaran innovation since Corsair’s F27 was inducted into the sailing Hall of Fame. Even back in 1986 the boat was recognised for being big enough to cruise with some essential comforts, light enough to be fast and generate its own apparent wind, yet small enough to trailer behind a regular 4WD. In 2022 we see these same features reimagined and much more.”

The Corsair 880 has revolutionised traditional trimaran designs and offers a new way for performance sailors to also enjoy longer distance cruising with some of the creature comforts offered by the popular catamarans. If you live in Australia and eager to see her in the flesh. It’s time! The show runs from 28 July to 1 August 2022 at the International Convention Centre (ICC) Sydney and Cockle Bay within the iconic Darling Harbour. The 880 will be staged at Marina Space 53-56.

To skip the queue, book an appointment with us in advance by registering your details below:

​​​​​​The show runs from 10AM – 7PM daily at the world-renowned Darling Harbour. Our team from Multihull Central will further coordinate our private test sails. Check out our event page or get your tickets on Sydney Boat Show Website.​​​​​

We look forwards to seeing you there!

READ MORE:

• Corsair 880 Trimaran 2021 Review by SAIL Magazine
• Corsair 880 To Be 2021 Best Sport Boat Of The Year By Cruising World
• 5 Reasons Why the Corsair 880 Won Cruising World’s Boat Of The Year 2021

This was written by one of our owners. He has a Corsair 24 Mk-II that he keeps in Newport, RI.

When Rob Wright, the owner of Wright Yacht Sales, asked me to fly up to Seattle to help commission and handover the all new Corsair 880 I jumped at the opportunity.

During the process of assembly every part easily fit together and build quality, especially for the first one out of the box, was solid. Not everything was perfect but I’ve learned from 40 years of commissioning boats to listen to what the boat is telling me and to find elegant ways to maintain the vision of her designers and builders and that was easy. That said we still had this handy little trimaran ready to splash in under 30 person hours with judicious use of the boatyard crane to help with ama attachment.

While commissioning I heard comments like “looks fast just sitting there” and “that’s one cool boat” while other comments ranged from “beautiful” to “sick.” I assume sick is a positive here.

We ramp launched late in the afternoon on a high tide, raised the mast in typically easy Corsair style and ferried her to her berth in Shilshole Marina for her first night in American waters. Bright and early the next morning we gave the 880 a bath to clean off accumulated boatyard dust and with the new owners we began to tidy things up, tightening nets and shrouds, stringing sheets and finally to bend on the Doyle Technora sails.

Typically there isn’t much summertime wind in the Pacific Northwest and doing this work in 70 degree temperatures with clear blue skys was a wonderful and calm way for us to become acquainted with the 880. As both partners came from I-14 dingy backgrounds they really appreciated this time to get acquainted with their first new “big boat.”

While we worked I was hopeful that the forecast was correct and that a Northerly would fill in the afternoon so after a quick lunch we pushed off from the dock to give it a go.

The 800 maneuvered easily in the marina, especially as the engine and tiller are linked and once we cleared the marina breakwater found that forecast breeze had arrived.

So much like our F-27 back home, the 880 retains that Corsair DNA and in minutes had our Main and Jib are hoisted, sailing full and by. Without doing much more than pulling the in the sheets we were doing close to 7 knots in 6 to 8 knots of wind.  We fiddled around with fairlead positions, outhaul, cunningham and sheet tensions, set rotation to an optimal position and right away we began to point well up to weather, light on the helm and well balanced. Like any multihull she liked weight far forward in these conditions and once we got our weight out of the back of the boat she responded with close to a half knot more of speed. It’s hard to know how well we were doing except that there was a 40 monohull going our way and we easily sailed through their lee slowly out pointing them once we cleared them.

Several miles up the sound the wind increased to 9-10kts as we all took turns at the helm, talking about feel and tried different settings and with every little change the 880 felt better and better culminating in fairly steady 7 to 7.1 knots of boat speed. With the water very flat we did encounter occasional powerboat wakes but the boat recovered quickly with barely a pitch and little tendency to hobbyhorse. Yes the waves would slow us a bit but in seconds she’d rebound and come right back up to speed.

Several tacks up the Puget Sound, most the seven miles to Edmonds, we bore away and set our Asymetric Kite and off we went. Alex, one of the boat’s partners at first said, this doesn’t feel all that fast and quite frankly I’d have to agree except that my little handheld GPS told a different story; in not more than 10 knots of wind we were sailing steady a 10.8 to 11.1 knots! Totally a Cadillac ride; smooth, comfortable, no drama. As we neared Shilshole the wind had risen to 12 knots so we executed a Mexican douse onto and lined up on the entrance unfurled the Screecher on what was close to a beam reach, just to give it a try, and rocked the sail right up to the breakwater. All at over 9 knots.

Huge thanks to Perius Design, Richard, Mike, Shane and the entire team in Vietnam for an awesome trimaran. And thanks to Wright Yachts for the opportunity to be the first American sailor to sail this wonderful new Corsair. If ever a boat were a worthy successor to the venerable F-27 the 880 makes a strong case.

Read More: The Inside Scoop on the All-New Corsair 880 >>

Read More: Corsair 880 Design News >>

We have our first hull!

While the COVID-19 pandemic has begun to hit shores worldwide, at Corsair Marine we continue to progress our 880 #1 relatively unimpacted by  the pandemic at large. You can read more on the status of the corsair Marine factory here:>>>

In recent weeks , we have made significant progress on 880#1 we have now joined the hull and deck of the main hull, we have all bulkheads fitted, the interior painted, windows and hatches are being installed and we continue to produce all smaller components such as rudders, daggerboard, beams, mast rudder case etc. We have been testing things like the daggerboard trunk, ensuring the board can be easily raised and lowered, we’ve tested the companionway hatch mechanism and we’re now running electrical and plumbing systems.

You will notice the 880 features a recess for escape hatch. Whilst we do not see this as essential nor desirable, this requirement has been enforced by recent CE regulations. We have overcome this requirement by designing a tempered glass smash panel with a safety hammer located inside a safe box. This will enable access through the boat from either side in the event of capsize.

Now that we have the hull and deck joined, we get a good feel for the space inside the 880 and to be candid with you all, we are quite impressed by the space this boat offers. It certainly feels bigger in real life than it looked on paper. As we continue our development we are in constant search of weight saving opportunities and we are optimizing the build through every step. We are after all developing a production line, not just a one off build.

We plan to beam up Hull#1 next week and have already started to laminate the hull and deck of hull number 2 in preparation for full swing production in the coming weeks.

#Corsair880 #880trimaran

Some more pictures of the new model Corsair 880 trimaran: the deck being fitout before assembly.