November / December 2020

In the Wake of Nomads

A classic trimaran restoration revives the 1970s vibe

Randall Peffer

Brandon Walters found his 26’ trimaran in San Diego in 2012. She was designed by Norman Cross and launched in 1972 at the height of a surge in multihull construction among the surfers and counter-cultural boatbuilders of Southern California. Walters has just completed a multi-year restoration of the boat.

"It’s crazy how I got hooked,” says Brandon Walters, looking back on how he came to own and restore POCO LOCO, a Cross 26 trimaran launched in 1972. “I didn’t know anything about sailing or boatbuilding.”

He’s a 34-year-old agricultural specialist who travels around Southern California avocado ranches in his pickup truck advising on the best time to harvest the crops. But “farmer” is probably not the first thing to pop into most people’s heads when they meet him. They are more likely to be thinking “surfer dude.”

They would be right. Walters grew up on the coast of Ventura County in a family of well-known local surfers. “I heard from my dad and my brother, Cole, about guys who used multihull sailboats to get out there and surf the really big stuff all over the Pacific back in the day.” He had also heard his uncle Chuck’s stories of epic surfing safaris to the big waves of Central America, and he “just had to find a way to get out there.”