Rapido sailboats for sale

Buying a used Rapido: a single-yard carbon trimaran market

A used Rapido is a small-production carbon trimaran, built entirely by one yard — Triac Composites in Vietnam — to an exclusive design partnership with Morrelli & Melvin. That single-yard, single-designer chain limits the build-quality variation buyers sometimes have to navigate in markets with subcontracted molds or multiple partner yards, but it also means every boat in the range reflects the same company's engineering choices rather than a competition between builders. The range itself spans two different buyer problems: folding-arm cruisers sized for a standard marina slip, and a larger flagship built around outright speed and, in the newest model, cabin volume closer to a catamaran's. Matching hull to intended use — dock access, passage speed, or interior space — matters more here than in most trimaran shopping.

Which era to target

Construction at Triac has changed enough over the years that it matters more to a used buyer than the model name alone. A boat reviewed by Sailing Magazine in October 2017 was still an E-glass-and-carbon-fiber build; newer hulls, including the 40 and the 53XS, are laid up entirely in carbon over a foam-sandwich core. Two boats sharing a model name may not share a laminate schedule or the same underlying weight and stiffness, so it's worth asking which construction era — not just which model — a given hull comes from before comparing it against another for sale.

Navigating the lineup

Within the lineup, folding arms on the 50 and 40 let those two models use a standard marina slip, something the 60 that preceded them was not built for. The newer 53XS, sized for cabin volume closer to a cruising catamaran than a typical trimaran, sits at the larger end of the range. Weighing dock access and cruising ambitions against that size-versus-flexibility trade-off is a better starting point than picking by model number alone; the full model directory on this page breaks out the range by size.