- Founded
- —
- Headquarters
- Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong (registered office)
- Shipyard location
- Triac Composites, Nha Be District, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
- Official website
- https://rapidotrimarans.com/
Brand Overview
Carbon performance trimarans designed by Morrelli & Melvin and built in Vietnam by Triac Composites, the yard co-founder Paul Koch set up in 2014 — the folding Rapido 40 and 50, the 53XS, the Rapido 60 and 63, a 40 Racer and the R500 ECO Power Cat.
YachtCodex Analysis
AI-generatedAn independent reading of this builder written by AI. Unlike the specifications and descriptions elsewhere on this page, it is interpretation rather than a sourced fact — treat it as a starting point, not a citation.
What this builder is
Rapido Trimarans was started by Paul Koch, who by the company's account began with OSTAC Yachts (Ocean Sailing Trimarans and Catamarans) in 1986 and led Corsair Marine from 1994 to 2010, and his business partner Richard Eyre, with a stated mission 'to build the world's best ocean-cruising trimarans' — a genuine ocean-going trimaran fast, safe, comfortable and simple enough for a couple. They engaged Morrelli & Melvin, the California naval architects behind two multihull America's Cup winners, and in 2014 co-founded Triac Composites near Ho Chi Minh City, which builds every Rapido exclusively in a plant with CNC and robotic machinery and an 8.5-metre autoclave; the registered office, Rapido Trimarans Limited, is in Hong Kong. The range is the all-carbon folding Rapido 40 (12.03 m, C-foils, a SAIL Top 10 Best Boats 2024 nominee) and its lighter 40 Racer, the folding Rapido 50 (15.24 m, Multihulls World's Multihull of the Year 2022 in its class), the non-folding three-cabin 53XS (16.1 m), the 18.1-metre Rapido 60 the yard calls the Queen of the Oceans, the new 19.2-metre Rapido 63 with a saloon 1.5 m wider, and the 15.2-metre R500 ECO Power Cat with electric or diesel engines. Each page prints a short specification block — length, waterline, beam (and folded beam), board-up and board-down draft, light displacement, mast height and sail areas — and the 40, 50 and 60 link fuller general specifications.
Who sails them
Rapido owners are blue-water sailors, often couples or short-handed crews, who want to cross oceans quickly on a stable, level platform with a raised saloon and 360-degree views instead of a heavy cruising catamaran or monohull; the 40 Racer is for coastal and offshore multihull racing, and the R500 is for owners who want a light, economical power catamaran.
Signature models
The Rapido 60 is the boat that founded the line and the one the yard calls the Queen of the Oceans; the folding all-carbon Rapido 40 brought that design to 12 metres, and the 53XS Picomole is, the builder says, believed to be the first pleasure cruising trimaran to cross the Drake Passage, reaching Antarctica in February 2026.
Strengths
Rapido is known for Morrelli & Melvin design, carbon foam-sandwich hulls with autoclave-cured prepreg carbon beams, foils and rudders built in its own Vietnamese composites plant, folding floats on the 40 and 50 for ordinary marina berths, asymmetric C-foils, watertight bulkheads and CE category A certification, raised saloons with all-round views, and a builder-to-designer link it describes as direct from first drawing to finished boat.
Considerations
The builder notes that all specifications are subject to change and final options, and displacement is an average light figure; the general-specification PDFs date from 2021–2023 and differ in places from the pages (the page figures are stored); the Rapido 60 page prints a 1.0 m draft against 2.5 ft, so the PDF's 0.75/3.3 m is used, and the 53XS's board-down draft (3.94 m printed as 11.5 ft) is left blank; the Racer, 53XS and 63 pages give no tankage; the 63 is shown in renderings; and the R500 lists electric, diesel and petrol engine options.
Analysis generated 10/17/2026
Part of
Fleet at a Glance
7 models in total
Calculated from the models in the YachtCodex catalog, not from the builder's claims.
Sailing range
- Models in catalog
- 6
- Length range
- 12–19.2 m
- Hull forms
- Sailing Trimaran 6
- Cabins
- 2–3
Motor range
- Models in catalog
- 1
- Length range
- 15.22 m
- Hull forms
- Motor Catamaran 1
- Cabins
- 2
Models by this brand
7 models
History
Rapido, in the company's telling, began with a simple idea: there should be a better way to cross an ocean under sail. Co-founder Paul Koch had spent his life designing, building and sailing multihulls — he started in 1986 with OSTAC Yachts (Ocean Sailing Trimarans and Catamarans) and from 1994 to 2010 led Corsair Marine, helping turn the trimaran from a specialist craft into a respected form of performance cruising. With his business partner Richard Eyre he set out to build a genuine ocean-going trimaran that combined performance, safety, comfort and simplicity and could be run by a couple — not a racer adapted for cruising, nor a cruiser with performance added afterwards. Its stated mission is to build the world's best ocean-cruising trimarans. For the design they engaged Morrelli & Melvin, the California naval architects founded by Gino Morrelli and Pete Melvin, whose credits include two multihull America's Cup winners, Stars and Stripes in 1988 and BMW Oracle Racing's trimaran in 2010. To build the boats, Koch and Eyre co-founded Triac Composites in Vietnam in 2014; its facility about 45 minutes from the centre of Ho Chi Minh City, with large CNC and robotic machinery and an 8.5-metre autoclave, builds every Rapido exclusively.
History written fromrapidotrimarans.com/about-rapido-trimarans· About usread 10/17/2026