Trident toughness

The Trident was one of the first production boats to be built in glass reinforced plastic (GRP). Alan Hill, her designer, recalls the impact the then novel GRP-hulled Trident had when it was first shown at the London Boat Show in 1960. "People were wondering what this new material was. 'It'll never catch on,' some said. It was like a bombshell hitting the traditional boat industry."

While other builders were turning to cold-moulded wooden designs, Eric White had the courage and tenacity to buck the trend with GRP, Alan says.

"The novelty of the material meant Tridents were very strongly built with richer resin ratios than used now. You can punch a hole in a Trident and it only requires a small repair. A newer boat is likely to split and require much more extensive repair. At that time, people were used to the heavier scantlings of wooden boats. So it needed to feel solid. Eric always had a sense of what was necessary and didn't cut corners."

Alan's aim with the Trident was to produce a hull that was buoyant and balanced. "As in all my designs, I aim to look after the owner. The Trident's 7/8th rig was of its time when foresails were always hanked on. Nobody wanted to struggle with a damned great genoa then."

And both builder and designer were well-pleased with the 1960 prototype: "On our first trial we won the Burnham to West Mersea race," Alan recalls. Although the centreboarder always had lee helm, its plate pivoting through the ballast keel up into a sealed GRP casing avoided the leaks that were then the bane of many wooden centreboarders.

As an experienced surveyor as well as the original designer, Alan believes there are no inherent faults in the Trident. "The bulkheads are prone to rot: like all GRP boats with ply bulkheads, water gets in the end grain. Nowadays they would be sealed first with epoxy." But he does not regard this as a serious weakness: "You could probably sail a Trident without bulkheads they are so strongly built. Eric and I trial-sailed the Sabre 27 prototype without bulkheads with a jack under the mast and sandbags aboard while we were still working out the layout."