TriFoiler

FASTEST PRODUCTION SAILBOAT, EVER…

MISSION BAY

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

Activity: Foiling Under Sail

Date: 6-25-21

I enjoyed a day of ripping across San Diego’s Mission Bay with my friend Dan Ketterman on Trifoiler. Trifoiler was part of a breakthrough technology back a couple decades or so ago, which is now quite popular at the highest levels of sailing such as the last several America’s Cups, and Sail GP with the big foiling cats, and the last Cup with the large foiling monohull.

The Moth sailboat is an competitive class of small monohulls that has been foiling for awhile and one of my friends, Matt Struble, is a champion on that boat. Matt has multiple sailing titles on each of the following: North American Championships on the Moth, as well as US Sailing Alter Cup Championships, and Ice Boat National Championships. As a matter of a fact, Matt has what I will call a hat trick. One year on the DN Iceboat winning not only the NAs, but the European Championship and the Worlds!

My friend Pete Melvin, (We won US Sailing’s Multihull National Championship the Alter Cup together), is not only a World Champion Sailor, an Olympian, has more championship titles than he can probably remember, but is a famous multihull designer for all sizes of multihull boats, designing some of the Hobie Cats, Nacras, A-Cats, the record breaking giant cat ‘Play Station’, and was part of the design team for New Zealand in one of the past America’s Cups for the large foiling cats, amongst other projects. Pete also wrote the design rule for the America’s Cup for that event. He designed the Nacra 17, which is used today in the Olympics.

I had a chance to sail the Nacra 17 with my friend Teri McKenna in the Virgin Islands before the boat was full foiling. Pete let me sail on the Carbon Nacra Full Foiling 20 when it first arrived in California. Pretty sure that was the fastest I have ever sailed, but now that I have been on Trifoiler I am not so sure…

Foiling sure is cool and it is catching on with kite boards and even surfboards. In the video of Trifoiler you will see a foiling kite board cutting across in the background.

This is Trifoiler. Just what is it you might ask? Is is a sailboard, is it a sailboat? It is a Rocket Ship and still holds a speed record.

Be sure to check out my video of Trifoiler on my PBTA YouTube Channel. It rips!!!

Here is my friend, multi titlest , Matt Struble sailing his Moth foiling sailboat with others.

I got to be one of the first in CA to sail this Foiling Carbon Nacra 20 designed by my friend Pete Melvin.

Here is a shot of one of my sailing friends, Riley Gibbs, who represented the USA in the resent Olympics on the Foiling Nacra 17.

“I wanted freedom, open air and adventure. I found it on the sea.” – Alaine Gerbault

Thanks for joining myself and my Hobie friend, Dan Ketterman, as we were “Pursuing Balance Through Adventure“. Zipping across Mission Bay under sail, naturally using the breeze and very little wetted surface is fast, really FAST! For more sailing adventures stayed tuned you can do this by following these simple tasks: LIKE, COMMENT, FOLLOW and SHARE. If you like Hiking, Back Packing and other experiences in nature than I invite you to checkout the menu above. Each listing is a separate website and thus needs to be FOLLOWED independently. If you sail on Trifoiler with a hat such as the one in the picture there is a good chance it will blow off. If it does go to SHOP APPAREL where I got you covered with top quality adventure wear with the logo and mantra proudly displayed. I will sign off with the first rule of sailing as taught to me by my dear family friend, the late great Rear Admiral Robert Quackenbush Jr. US Navy.

Never Spit to Windward,

Roger Jenkins

Pursuing Balance Through Adventure

Launching ‘Pursuing Balance Through Adventure’ Sailing

This is Roger Jenkins. You may know me best through my series of blogs about Adventure and how that can help Balance out the hectic, busy, overstressed lives that we all lead from everyday existence. I try to get across the message while this is just part of life full of deadlines, work expectations, bills to be paid, chores to be completed, appointments to be kept, getting the kids to soccer, to the doctor, to ballet, homework, home improvement projects, shopping, and on and on and on… It’s just life… But it can be stressful and at times almost overwhelming trying to fit it all in. We all need something to de-stress. It could be working out, heck it could be knitting, lol.

One thing I do know is that Nature can provide that Balance. Just looking at something beautiful like a mountain, the ocean, a red wood, a water-fall, listening to the breeze through the pines, the trickle of a stream, feeling the rising sun on your face, the wind at your back, the taste of salt on your lips at the shore, or the scent of pine in the woods these are some of the things that make you feel at ease and take a load off… Nature can do that.

When you add to this adventure, which I will define as an Profound Experience in Nature, then I feel that ramps things up further Balancing us.

Add in exercise, and the exertion and physicality of climbing, paddling, hiking, biking and so forth, this starts etching this Balance into our memory.

Then throw in the excitement and the daring of Adventure and all of your senses become heightened and the ensuing Balance becomes part of who we are and it is something that we can take with us for when we are back to the reality of a ho hum work a day existence because we are now more Balanced through Adventure.

The last part of this idea of ‘Pursuing Balance Through Adventure’ is that this is a Pursuit not a Destination. It is something to always be striving for there is always another mountain top in a sense. When you have summited that just means you need to find another mountain.

Most of my posts are regarding hiking and scrambling beautiful locals with a sprinkling of backpacking. I sometimes touch on other forms of adventure such as mountain biking, canoeing, kayaking, SUP, to name a few. The truth of the matter is that these all easily fit into ‘Pursing Balance Through Adventure’ and there certainly are a lot more.

I recently added PBTA OFF-ROAD. I purchased the Toyota 4 Runner TRD Pro to gain better access to my hiking and backpacking, but found through the enthusiasm of my 17 year old son, Alec, that is pumped about this new undertaking of adventuring of this nature, that this can it’s self be a means to an end as far as ‘Pursing Balance Through Adventure’ and not just a vessel.

So it only seems right that I am adding ‘Pursing Balance Through Adventure’ Sailing. Sailing is something that has been my life for all of my life. It is so natural manipulating the wind, waves, and current to propel yourself through nature by utilizing nature.

I love everything about sailing from the simplicity of a small dingy such as Sabot, to the physicality of sailing in surf on a short board sailboard, to the speed of an F18 flying a hull downwind under full spinnaker, the teamwork of a yacht, or the ocean going of a 45’ custom trimaran, the delight of reaching speeds never though probable on a 20’ foiling cat, or the record breaking Tri-Foiler.

It is always good to be out on the water be it a ski boat on a lake, a motor yacht cruising through Newport Bay, a houseboat on Lake Powell, or racing a jet ski snaking through a canyon. But the natural feeling of harnessing the wind in your sails it something that is always special. I love every aspect of nature and sailing from the lighter wind days of drifting slowly barely leaving a ripple, to under full sail in the Caribbean on a big cruising cat, to getting fully launched airborne on the steep short waves of Lake Michigan on a Hobie 20. It’s all good.

Add to this the excitement of competition, jockeying for position on the starting line, using right away rules, boat set up, tuning for conditions, playing wind shifts all to your advantage and you gain the full package. Sailboat racing is a moving chessboard using your mind, sails, and physicality to propel you past your competitors. I have been through many aspects of sailing competition from my meager beginnings on a Hobie 14 in Virginia Beach where we finally had enough competitors for me to get a trophy to sailing at the Olympic Trials.

So a hearty welcome to ‘Pursing Balance Through Adventure’ Sailing. It is all about profound experiences in nature under sail.

“It’s remarkable how quickly a good and favorable wind can sweep away the maddening frustrations of shore living.” – Ernest K. Gann

Roger Jenkins age 16 sailing my Hobie 14 in Virginia Beach, VA.

Have a Hobie Day!

Roger Jenkins

Pursuing Balance Through Adventure