Venom is a 12.8m T42 Grainger custom design trimaran.
She was designed to be a performance blue water cruiser/racer and built to provide the highest possible stability and performance (allowing for her level of comfort) without consideration of rating rules.
Venom is one of the fastest offshore yachts in Australia and a line honours contender in most races she enters.
Venom was built by Australian Custom Multihull Yachts in the Gold Coast.
She was designed, engineered and built to the ISO 12215 Category A standard appropriate for ISAF/AS Category 0 transoceanic racing.
Venom was professionally built using the highest quality materials (ATL) and components (Wichard, Harken, Moonlight, Ronstan, B&G, Raymarine) with input from industry leading suppliers. Engineering was performed by Skip Miller from the Composites Consulting Group who has extensive experience in working on well-known and highly respected yachts of all types. Foil design was by Brett Ellis Engineering. Spars and fixed rigging were supplied by Lorima, the manufacturer of more than 85% of the worlds offshore multihull carbon masts. Running rigging was supplied by Allyacht spars, Australia’s most experienced multihull rigger. Sails have been built by Ben Kelly of North sails – Australia’s leading sailmaker for multihull yachts.
She is of all infused carbon construction over a divinycell core with a 19.4m carbon rotating wing mast, and has carbon sails K49 and PBO rigging.
Combined with her 200% buoyancy floats and wide beam, she can be pressed hard safely – and has proportions similar to an ORMA 60.
She is designed to be have C foils and T foiled rudders fitted if desired.
There are rudders in each float so can be sailed with the main hull lifting to reduce drag.
The wave piercing float bows reduce pitching and the main hull has a beam:length ratio of 11:1 with a flat under surface to encourage planing.
The main point of all these features is for the boat to sail as much as possible on the water, rather than through it.
The sail plan currently includes J1, Heavy weather Jib, storm jib, mainsail, masthead A3 kite and a Code Zero. An upwind screecher is still to be added to the sail plan.
Venom is able to be sailed short/single handed when cruising, although when racing fully crewed she ideally has 6-7 crew.
She is powered by a 25HP 4 stroke high thrust outboard that is fully retractable when under sail to reduce drag.
This provides plenty of thrust for motoring in rough conditions and excellent reverse thrust.
She has solar panels capable of electrical autonomy whilst in operation and lithium batteries to minimise weight.
She is called Venom because a high performance boat needs a name with a bit of bite – just enough to make your heart race and give you a bit of tingling, but not enough to kill you!
Under motor or sail she can cover 250-300 NM a day in most conditions.
The cockpit and raised area around the companionway provide reasonable protection from the elements for the crew.
Venom was launched in October 2019 and is now based at the CYCSA in Adelaide, Australia. After a period of getting to know the boat, the Venom Sailing team will compete in major regattas around Australia.