One more stray thought: The trisail has rather limited utility, especially compared to "winter sails" that might be about the area of your regular sails at their deepest reef and that reef down from there. This gives you a sail that will do some work in those awkward in between winds that a boat like my old Granuaile (an LFH Marco Polo) would work in - Strong Gale up to Violent Storm (Forces 9 - 11, winds mid forties knots to over sixty). Most boats are ill-equipped to do much except hang on in such winds and the trisail does little to advance the cause. The ability to carry on with "winter sails" gives you some range.
If I could not have both, I'd have winter sails and no trisail, relying in that extremis on series cone drogues if I could afford movement to leeward and a parachute type sea anchor if I had to hang on.
I should say that my only experience with a trisail was a fitting out experiment in a Strong Gale (Force 9) on a 35' ketch and it could be that the wind was not enough to really give the trisail a fair try. It was hard to handle off the wind and even up to a close reach it was actually more comfortable under bare poles than with tri and storm jib. She could not do anything to weather with the tri and was more comfortable balanced into a bare-pole heave-to which is a bit nicer than just lying ahull. That was that boat and every boat is different. But the extra gear of a trisail is pretty far down my wish list.
G'luck
|