Flipped onto a concrete bridge by Hurricane Irma and rebuilt over six years of Sundays, this Kelsall-designed trimaran went back offshore for the Caribbean 600.
Some boats come with a spec sheet. S/V Triple Jack comes with a story, and her co-owner Richard Wooldridge tells it plainly in this video: a Kelsall-designed trimaran, owned with his friend of 40 years Steve Davis, that was “all but destroyed” by Hurricane Irma on 6 September 2017.
The account is remarkable. Tied up as carefully as the owners knew how, she went over in the first half of the storm with her mast broken, then, after the eye passed, was driven back across the marina basin and — somehow — catapelted out of the water to land upside down on a concrete bridge. What followed was six years of rebuilding at Nanny Cay Marina, which sponsored the project with a free hardstand spot. Wooldridge is candid that the recovery was less about money than about labour: “a lot of grinding, a lot of sweat equity in there… many, many Sundays.”
Back on the race course
The proof of the rebuild is the video’s main event: the RORC Caribbean 600. Wooldridge’s reasoning is disarmingly simple — it’s “an internationally recognised offshore race and it’s not for the faint-hearted.” The boat had raced offshore in 1981 and 1984, and after 40 years he felt it was time to get out there again.
The footage covers the full circuit: a clean start, the run around St. Martin and Tintamare in what the crew describe as a “fire hose reach” with a crazy wave train and 22 knots true, Guadeloupe, Îles des Saintes and Désirade with fish pots everywhere, a close pass by a rock, then the light-air final leg to Antigua, finishing at quarter past five just before sunset. The crew’s verdict on the boat: wet, “a tricky boat to stay on” — but everyone stayed aboard and everyone was still talking to each other at the finish.
Wooldridge is equally honest about pace. Against turbocharged Gunboats and MOD70s, with ratings that make no allowance for age, he reckons Triple Jack does well in the very light or the very heavy and gets the worst of it in between. Finishing last, in his telling, mattered far less than finishing at all.
Where she sits in the market
Kelsall multihulls are a rare sight on the brokerage market, so comparables are thin. The figures YachtSite currently holds:
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Kelsall sold, last 24 months | 1 |
| Median sold price | $69,000 |
| Median time to sell | ~469 days |
| Active Kelsall listings | 2 |
| Asking range | $110,000–$115,000 |
Thin volume and long marketing times are the norm here — this is a buyer’s segment driven by enthusiasm rather than liquidity.
Since the race, Wooldridge says the plan has been Tortola, a Spring Regatta, weekend use, and a tarp for hurricane season — because after six years on the boat, the house needs attention. For a buyer drawn to a genuinely campaigned 47ft Kelsall trimaran with a documented second life, this 1980 boat is listed by Ted Reshetiloff.