Experimental Investigation into the Resistance Characteristics of Trimaran and Pentamaran Configurations

Research on the development of multihull vessels has investigated the breakdown of trimaran side hulls and produced a new type of vessel popularly known as a pentamaran. This study into the resistance characteristics of pentamarans was carried out using a towing tank belonging to the Institute Technology at Sepuluh Nopember in Surabaya, Indonesia. A test of trimaran resistance was included for comparison. The investigation focused on total resistance estimation and interference analysis for the two types of multihull vessels at separation–length ratios (S/Ls) of 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4. The dominant resistance value for the pentamaran was higher than that for the trimaran, with an average of 5.2%, due to the more complex interference between hulls. The average total resistance interference was 9.5% for the trimaran and 12.5% for the pentamaran.