Barefoot Doctors Sailing — the adventurous YouTubers known for their fast, fun, and informative sailing content — recently paid a visit to Rapido Trimarans’ high-tech factory in Vietnam (Triac Composites).

In this exclusive video tour, they dive into the cutting-edge design of the Rapido 40 RACER. They also include a close-up look at the in-house production of performance components like prepreg carbon C-foils and the spreaderless mast (cured in the autoclave and machined by the Kuka 7 axis milling robot).

If you’re into speed, innovation, and next-level sailing tech, this is a must-watch (view from 12.53mins).

To watch the video, click below. For a transcript, see beneath the video.

(Person interviewed by Barefoot Doctors Sailing: Paul Koch, Co founder of Rapido Trimarans)

Carbon fiber, spreaderless mast

This is the mast for the 40ft, Rapido 40 RACER boat.

(The mast is) pretty unique because it’s tapered in two directions; like it’s tapered fore and aft and tapered from the sides. So, the idea is that you minimize the weight of the mast – and it’s spreaderless.

It was designed to be spreaderless from day one for our boats.

It just makes life easier when you’re sailing.

Carbon fiber C foils

They’re asymmetric.

You can see the shape of them. Yeah, they get incredible lift and performance.

But the process we use… we could not build them without a robot – or an autoclave.

So they (the foils) go in the autoclave three times and on the robot three times in the process of building them. You know, to buy that in Europe, it would be double the price of what we build them for.

John McIntosh: These go down through the amas (floats) and come out here?

Paul Koch: Yes, they come out here. (The foils) give you a lot more lift because it’s like an aeroplane wing; its asymmetrical. So you get a lot more lift because of the shape.

This race boat will probably do 30 knots – I’ve done 25 knots on a standard 40. This has got a bigger rig and is a ton lighter. It will be incredibly quick.

The (foils etc) come from America’s Cup stuff. Morrelli & Melvin designed it. You know, they’ve been doing America’s Cup stuff and were involved in the last campaign with American Magic. Two guys (at Morrelli & Melvin) were full time. So, the guys that are designing that stuff design our boats basically.

And yeah, the loads are incredible because the whole boat’s flying on that foil, you know. Not literally flying, but you get a massive amount of lift when you’re going fast. You see the floats rise up in the water.

If you’re pushing hard, doing 25 knots, the whole float is out of the water (whereas) normally, it’d be buried under the water. You know what I mean?

Can the Rapido 40 Racer fold?

Yeah, yeah, the whole thing folds up.

You can reduce the beam down to 5.5m so you can go into the smallest travel lift.

Basically, we have a winch that folds the floats into place under the centre hull.

Yeah, we put copper coat on most of the boats. Okay. And that has worked well for us.

Weight

The weight of this 40ft racer is about four and a half tons.

Carbon fiber struts and titanium pins

But, you know, even that (folding strut) is all carbon fiber.

We make all that in our autoclave with all the folding struts. And we use titanium pins on everything.

We use a lot of titanium parts to save weight and save corrosion.

(I’m) sick of stainless steel going rusty basically.

Thank you to Barefoot Sailing Doctors

Thank you to Dr. John McIntosh and Dr. Eli McIntosh from barefoot Doctors Sailing for visiting our factory and taking teh time to learn about what we do and how we do it.

Related links

• Original video, Brand new 53XS Factory tour
• Rapido 53XS wins 1st leg, ARC Europe 2025, by massive 200-mile lead, writes Vela Magazine
• Barefoot Doctors Sailing’s You Tube channel
• Rapido 40 Racer
• Triac Composites’ website
• Enquiries: email [email protected]