Trimaran in the context of "Eastern Indonesia"

Austronesian vessels are the traditional seafaring vessels of the Austronesian peoples of Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar. They also include indigenous ethnic minorities in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Hainan, the Comoros, and the Torres Strait Islands.

They range from small dugout canoes to large lashed-lug plank-built vessels. Their hull configurations include monohulls as well as catamarans and outrigger boats (single-outrigger boats and trimarans). Traditional sail types include a variety of distinctively Austronesian crab-claw and tanja configurations, though modern vessels are typically motorized. These vessels allowed the migrations of the Austronesian peoples during the Austronesian expansion (starting at around 3000 to 1500 BC from Taiwan and Island Southeast Asia) throughout the islands of the Indo-Pacific, reaching as far as Madagascar, New Zealand, and Easter Island. They were also used to establish trading routes, including the Austronesian maritime trade network which formed the maritime leg of the spice trade and later, the maritime silk road.

Outrigger boats are various watercraft featuring one or more lateral support floats known as outriggers, which are fastened to one or both sides of the main hull. They can range from small dugout canoes to large plank-built vessels. Outrigger boats can also vary in their configuration, from the ancestral double-hull configuration (catamarans), to single-outrigger vessels prevalent in the Pacific Islands and Madagascar, to the double-outrigger vessels (trimarans) prevalent in Island Southeast Asia. They are traditionally fitted with Austronesian sails, like the crab claw sails and tanja sails, but in modern times are often fitted with petrol engines.

Unlike a single-hulled vessel, an outrigger or double-hull vessel generates stability as a result of the distance between its hulls rather than due to the shape of each individual hull. As such, the hulls of outrigger or double-hull boats are typically longer, narrower and more hydrodynamically efficient than those of single-hull vessels. Compared to other types of canoes, smaller outrigger canoes can be quite fast, yet are also capable of being paddled and sailed in rougher water. This paddling technique, however, differs greatly from kayaking or rowing. The paddle, or blade, used by the paddler is single sided, with either a straight or a double-bend shaft.

A balangay, or barangay, is a type of lashed-lug boat built by joining planks edge-to-edge using pins, dowels, and fiber lashings. They are found throughout the Philippines and were used largely as trading ships up until the colonial era. The oldest known balangay are the eleven Butuan boats, which have been carbon-dated individually from 689 to 988 CE and were recovered from several sites in Butuan, Agusan del Norte. The Butuan boats are the single largest concentration of lashed-lug boat remains of the Austronesian boatbuilding traditions. They are found in association with large amounts of trade goods from East Asia, Southeast Asia, and as far as Persia, indicating they traded as far as the Middle East.

Balangay were the first wooden watercraft excavated in Southeast Asia. Balangay are celebrated annually in the Balanghai Festival of Butuan.

A multihull is a boat or ship with more than one hull, whereas a vessel with a single hull is a monohull. The most common multihulls are catamarans (with two hulls), and trimarans (with three hulls). There are other types, with four or more hulls, but such examples are very rare and tend to be specialised for particular functions.

A sailing hydrofoil, hydrofoil sailboat, or hydrosail is a sailboat with wing-like foils mounted under the hull. As the craft increases its speed the hydrofoils lift the hull up and out of the water, greatly reducing wetted area, resulting in decreased drag and increased speed. A sailing hydrofoil can achieve speeds exceeding double and in some cases triple the wind speed.

Both monohull and multihull sailboats can be retrofitted with hydrofoils, although greater stability can be achieved by using the wider planform of a catamaran or trimaran.

A littoral combat ship (LCS) is a relatively small surface vessel designed for littoral warfare in near-shore operations. There are two LCS ship classes deployed by the United States Navy. The LCS was "envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant capable of defeating anti-access and asymmetric threats in the littorals", although their ability to perform these missions in practice has been called into question.

Littoral combat ships are comparable to corvettes found in other navies. The Freedom class and the Independence class are the two LCS variants. Each is slightly smaller than the U.S. Navy's earlier Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate but larger than Cyclone-class patrol ships. Each has the capabilities of a small assault transport, including a flight deck and hangar for housing two SH-60 or MH-60 Seahawk helicopters, a stern ramp for operating small boats, and the cargo volume and payload to deliver a small assault force with fighting vehicles to a roll-on/roll-off port facility. Standard armaments include Mk 110 57 mm guns and RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles. They are also equipped with autonomous air, surface, and underwater vehicles. Possessing lower air defense and surface warfare capabilities than destroyers, the LCS emphasizes speed, flexible mission modules, and a shallow draft.

USS Independence (LCS-2) is the lead ship of the Independence-class of littoral combat ships. It is the sixth ship of the United States Navy to be named for the concept of independence. The design was produced by the General Dynamics consortium for the Navy's LCS program, and competes with the Lockheed Martin–designed Freedom variant.

Independence, delivered to the Navy at the end of 2009, was a high-speed, small-crew corvette, although the U.S. Navy does not use the term, intended to operate in littoral waters. It can swap out various systems to take on various missions, including finding and destroying mines, hunting submarines in and near shallow water, and fighting small boats (it is not intended to fight warships). The ship is a trimaran design with a wide beam above the waterline that supports a larger flight deck than those of the Navy's much larger destroyers and cruisers, as well as a large hangar and a similarly large mission bay below. The trimaran hull also exhibits low hydrodynamic drag, allowing efficient operation on two diesel-powered water jets at speeds up to 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph), and high-speed operation on two gas turbine–powered water jets at a sustainable 44 knots (81 km/h; 51 mph) and even faster for short periods.