Only about 12 or 13 boats were completed before the builder stopped in the early 1990s. That makes the design a scarce footnote in Newick’s prolific trimaran legacy rather than a volume-production boat.
Design and Construction
The Somersault 26 is 26 feet long, with a 25-foot waterline and a 21-foot beam. Displacement is just 1,500 pounds. Both the hull and deck are solid fiberglass, with no coring in either.
Instead of folding, the boat comes apart for transport. It goes together like a Tinkertoy: Mastodon-tusk-shaped akas fit into sockets in the amas and main hull. Assembly or breakdown takes four hours.
The connection deserves careful consideration. The amas and main hull are held together only by the shrouds and trampoline. One co-owner cites this lack of redundancy in the cross-structure as the reason he treats the boat strictly as a coastal cruiser. If a fitting lets go, there’s no backup restraint system.
Rig, Draft, and Handling
The boat carries a fractional sloop rig with 365 square feet of sail. Its daggerboard keel gives a minimum draft of just over a foot—listed more precisely as 1.08 feet—and a maximum draft of 4.5 feet.
On the water, the Somersault is graceful and very fast. The amas flex with every wave, creating a living, organic quality to the ride that owners find distinctive.
Raising the mast isn’t a solo operation. It takes three people, using a cut-down Hobie 16 mast and a special tool that slides into the mast track.
A 1989 Small Boat Journal comparison placed the Somersault alongside the F-27, Dragonfly, and Firefly. That company situates it among the performance-minded small trimarans of the period rather than the cruising crowd.
Accommodations and Owner Refits
With its 1,500-pound displacement and 25-foot waterline, the Somersault is a light coastal platform rather than a liveaboard.
Owner refits illustrate the sort of personalization a rare boat tends to attract. On Hull #5, the tiller was moved above and behind the traveller to free up cockpit space. A complete paint job covering the amas, main hull, and deck took three springs of work.
The prototype, identified as sail number 1??, was in northern California and undergoing restoration—evidence that dedicated owners continue to keep even the earliest hulls alive.
Structural Caveat
The central concern is the single-point nature of the cross-arm connection. Because only the shrouds and trampoline hold the amas to the main hull, a failure anywhere in that chain leaves no backup. The condition is inherent in the design and is why owners self-limit the boat to coastal waters.
There is no second restraint system, and each time the boat is assembled, the tusk-shaped akas must seat correctly in their sockets.
The Verdict
The Somersault 26 is a rare, quick, and characterful Newick trimaran for a coastal sailor who values lightness and lively motion over redundancy and interior volume. Few were built, and each surviving example carries a story of careful ownership. It rewards the hands-on multihuller but demands respect for its single-mode ama attachment.
Pros
- Very fast and graceful on the water, with a distinctive flexing-ama feel
- Light 1,500 lb displacement and shallow 1.08 ft minimum draft for easy shore access
- Goes together like a Tinkertoy, with no folding mechanism to maintain
Cons
- Amas are held only by the shrouds and trampoline, with no redundancy; strictly coastal
- Four-hour assembly and three-person mast raising limit spontaneity
- Only about 12–13 were built, so spares and comparable hulls are scarce
