In my desert fantasy game my party has acquired a sand skiff, and I have a basic idea for how it functions, sails, cargo, shape and all that. However I cannot figure out how to steer it. The ship is a trimaran with a large central hull and to smaller stabilizing hulls. The keels are reinforced with an exotic metal (unobtainium) and resistant to the wear that would normally be associated with sledding across sand It has one large mast slightly aft of center with an old Polynesian take on the spinnaker sail. Brainstorming I came up a few possible steering mechanisms.
  • The most obvious is a rudder. However this vehicle travels on sand, and a rudder would just slow the ship not turn, being unable to overcome the effects of 3 long runners running parallel forward.
  • The second is to sails to adjust heading. But the ship is designed to sail perpendicular (reaching) to the wind. So I would need more sails off center of the primary to try and twist the ship around the center mast. Or have just two sails off center and furl and unfurl the sails to turn.
  • I could adjust the positions of the hulls. Either shifting the outer hulls from forming a square (tips and tails are directly across from each other) to a parallelogram (one hull further forward than the other hull, and both outer hulls pulled in a bit closer. But I am not sure that will change the direction of the ship, or just shift the furrows closer. Or I could angle the side hulls off of parallel to the center hull. But that would put shearing pressure on the lateral struts.
  • As a skier I can turn while keeping my skis parallel to each other by angling the skis and shifting my weight. In this I lift the long edge of the ski on the outside of the turn and dig in with the edge on the inside of the turn. This would be pretty easy to achieve on a trimaran, to turn this way I also have to shift my weight wen skiing, and I don't think the ship would be able to shift it's weight sufficiently.


Any thoughts on this? Anything I missed? Anything would be helpful. Thank you.