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MULTIHULLS TODAY FALL 2019
SPECIAL REPORT: 27 NEW MULTIHULLS FOR 2020 SELLING YOUR BOAT
NEEL 47
CRUISING TRIMARAN
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MULTIHULLS TODAY Volume 11 Issue 3
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08
26 40
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FROM THE PUBLISHER
8
ON THE LEVEL
Beneteau’s Excess Challenge
20
MULTIHULL ENTHUSIAST
The Other Happiest Day
26
MULTIHULL DESIGN
Modern Multihulls: A Look at the New Fleet for 2020
40
MULTIHULL REVIEW
Neel 47
Cover shot: Leopard 40 enjoying sailing in the Bahamas Photograph-Leopard Catamarans
Letter from the Publisher
Innovation Rules the Multihull World
AS WE WERE ASSEMBLING THIS ISSUE’S HUGE 2020 ANNUAl Multihull Preview section, we kept having to stop to consider just how much innovation is going on in the world of multihulls. More and more we are seeing the common use of truly exotic building techniques in the search for ever lighter and ever stiffer hulls, decks and rigs. Building with infused all carbon and epoxy laminates with high-tech foam cores has evolved to the point that many boats are built this way, a technique that was reserved for only the highest tech racing boats only a few years ago. The steady adoption of daggerboards and centerboards in cruising cats has created a new generation of catamarans that sail much better to windward than designs without boards. Not only does this make sailing more fun it also is a safety factor since these designs are able to claw off a lee shore if need be when earlier design types might find that challenging. Following all the design work on the America’s Cup cats in the last two challenges, foiling is now on the horizon for performance cruising cats. In the current generation of boats, designers are using curved daggerboards instead of foils to help lift the leeward hull a bit to reduce drag. Foiling may be outside a cruiser’s range of safety parameters but reducing drag using the same technology certainly is not. The trends in designing rigs has long been based on what has worked so well in the high-performance multihulls like the MOD 70s. These have huge fully battened, square topped mainsails, a staysail, a genoa and a reaching sail all on permanent furlers forward, plus a bowsprit for flying spinnakers. Rigs like this are powerful but they require a lot of skill and strength to manage. If you have ever tried to hoist a fully battened, square-topped mainsail on a 50-foot cat, you know how hard it can be because the sail weighs a ton. Lagoon started thinking outside the box and came up with a different approach. They have moved their mainmasts aft to about amidships and reduced the size of the mainsail accordingly. The headsail has been made much larger and is a self-tacking 100-percent jib. The reaching sail or spinnaker can then be rigged and flown from the bowsprit. In this design, the mainsail is much easier to hoist, trim, jibe and furl. The jib is self-tacking. And the spinnaker can be flown on a top-down furling unit so it is easy and simple to use. And, the sailing performance of the boats is as good as ever, if not better. In the trimaran world, we’ve seen Eric and Barbara Bruneel create a whole new concept of performance cruising boats with their NEEL cruising tris. By designing the living spaces on top of the hulls instead of just inside them, they have given their tris the living spaces of catamarans but with the sailing performance of tris. Ingenious. The folks at Dragonfly continue to innovate with their folding trimarans and are introducing their 40-footer that will sail rings around most other 40-foot cruisers, yet it still can be folded up easily to fit into a normal marina slip. Again, ingenious. That’s what so much fun about the world of modern multihulls. Innovation is everywhere.
MULTIHULLS TODAY
Editor and Publisher George Day Ph: 401-847-7612 Fax: 401-845-8580 george@bwsailing.com Contributing Editors Bill Biewenga Rebecca Childress Patrick Childress John Neal Amanda Swan-Neal Art Director Sandy Parks Ph: 401-847-7612 Fax: 401-845-8580 sandy@bwsailing.com Advertising Sales & Tom Casey Marketing Consultant tomcat911@comcast.net Ad Director Scott Akerman Ph: 207-939-5802 scott@bwsailing.com Subscriber Questions Circulation Customer Service Ph: 866-529-2921 (hours 8:30 am - 7 pm EST)
MT-Multihulls Today is published by Blue Water Sailing LLC as a free supplement to the February, May, August and November issues of Blue Water Sailing magazine. Copyrighted 2019. All rights reserved. Reprinting, photocopying and excerpting passages is forbidden except by permission of the publisher. Blue Water Sailing ISSN: 1091-1979
SHOWING AT THE ANNAPOLIS BOAT SHOW OCTOBER, 2019 BALANCECATAMARANS.COM
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ragonfly Days has become a strong tradition amongst the worldwide family of Dragonfly trimaran owners. Last summer, 38 Dragonflys and more than 130 owners and enthusiasts showed up for three days of socializing, seminars, sailing and fun. Hosted by the Quorning family, founders, owners and designers
8 Multihulls Today • Volume 11, fall
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for the company, the event is like a family reunion since owners return year after year. During the long weekend, owners got a chance to hone their trimaran sailing and boat handling skills under the guidance of the company’s experts. There are a lot of tricks to getting the best from a trimaran
10 Multihulls Today • Volume 11, fall
and this was a great time for owners to improve their games. Plus there were informative seminars and always the social events in the evenings. For more information on Dragonfly trimarans click here https://dragonfly.dk/
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he 2019 Fall Salty Dawg Rally from Hampton, VA to Antigua or the Bahamas (two fleets) is in the books and all of the 68 boats arrived more or less on schedule despite challenging weather conditions, some stop-overs in Bermuda and fickle tradewinds. Multihulls have now become a significant portion of the Fall Rally with 23 cats in the fleet which makes up 33% for all the boats entered. The cats range from the smallest which was a Gemini 34 to the largest, a Privilege 495. Most of the cats were in the low 40-foot range. The most popular boats in the cat fleet were Fountaine
Pajot with eight boats (a third of the fleet) and Lagoon with six boats (a quarter of the fleet). That should not be a surprise since both FP and Lagoon are market leaders worldwide and both have very strong dealer networks in North America, where most of the rally boats come from. Seawind cats had three boats in the fleet while Catana, Dean, Gemini, Leopard and Privilege each had one. For more information on the Salty Dawg Rally click here: https://www.saltydawgsailing.org/
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Dream Yacht Charter on the Move
L
ast fall, Dream Yacht Charter announced that the company was on target to add 228 new boats to its worldwide fleet. Dream is now the largest recreational charter boat company in the world with well over 1,250 boats at 64 bases and growing rapidly. In 2020, Dream plans to add an additional 195 yachts with 112 being delivered in the first half of the year largely to bases throughout the Mediterranean.
Loic Bonnet, CEO and founder of Dream Yacht Charter, said, “The investment made in Dream Yacht Charter’s fleet in 2019 and 2020 is worth $165 million. The Caribbean and Mediterranean remain key areas to our growth and we have significantly increased our fleets in both regions. In the Mediterranean we will have an additional 35 catamarans and 48 monohulls for customers to choose from.”
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and we’ve added to our fleets in Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. We recognize the importance of our customers’ experience and a large proportion of our boats are equipped with watermakers, gensets and air conditioning to make their sailing vacations as comfortable as possible.”
Dream has made a big commitment to the Bahamas, as well, and is rapidy building their Nassau-based fleet. From Nassau, charterers will be able to explore the Exuma chain of islands and the Exuma Land and Sea Park. This is one of the best cruising grounds in the world. Bonnet added, “Exotic locations are also important
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About Dream Yacht Charter Loic Bonnet founded DYC in 2000 with six boats in the Seychelle Islands of the Indian Ocean, one of the world’s most exotic cruising grounds. Over the next 10 years, exhibiting amazing energy and innovation Bonnet expanded the business to Asia, The Mediterranean, the Pacific and the Caribbean. Three years later, DYC was in Antigua, the Bahamas, Annapolis and the Grenadines. As the company comes up on its 20th year, it has continued to expand and add bases and fleets. With 1250 boats in the fleet at the end of 2019, Bonnet predicts that the fleet will be nearing 1,500 boats by the end of 2020. One of the more significant innovations has been the charter-by-cabin offer for sailors and cruisers who want to charter without the hassle of putting together a charter crew and chartering the boat. Instead, you join like-minded sailors and make new friends. This concept appeals to a younger generation who want a sailing vacation without all the planning and preparation. For more information: https://www.dreamyachtcharter.com/
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60th Anniversary of Wharram’s Historic Transatlantic Passage in a Catamaran
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n 30th September 1959, 60 years ago, the 40 foot catamaran Rongo sailed into the Conway River in North Wales after crossing the North Atlantic from New York. Rongo was the first catamaran to have made this difficult voyage, sailed by the now world famous catamaran designer James Wharram
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18 Multihulls Today • Volume 11, fall
James Wharram with one of his designs
and his two German women companions, Ruth Merseburger and Jutta Schultze-Rohnhoff. Rongo was designed and built by Wharram in Trinidad in 1957-58 after the three sailors had already crossed the Southern Atlantic in 1956 along the trade wind route from the Canaries to Trinidad in their small 23-foot, 6-inch catamaran Tangaroa, also designed and built by Wharram in England in 1954. In the 1950s, catamarans had not yet been acknowledged as viable seagoing sailing vessels and James Wharram pioneered their concept and proved their inherent seaworthiness with his Atlantic voyages. In 1965 James Wharram started designing catamarans for other people and this soon blossomed into a thriving business of designs for self-builders. Hundreds, and over time thousands, were built and many have made incredible ocean voyages, including the smallest catamaran to sail round the world in the 1990s, the Tiki 21 Cooking Fat sailed by Rory McDougall. Wharram Designs are nowadays a very distinct type of catamaran with very traditional looking lines reminiscent of Polynesian double canoes, and are seen in many harbors all over the world. They have a worldwide following of builders/sailors who follow the philosophy of Wharram of how people can become Sea People by living a simple life on the sea. With the expanding development of luxury catamarans for the charter market in the last 20 years, Wharram catamarans stand out by being different; they resonate with nature and traditional boat design. www.MultihullsToday.com 19
multihullenthusiast
The Other Happiest Day 14 things you should do to sell your boat at the best possible price by Phillip Berman & Andrew Holland
E
very sailor who calls a brokerage company to list their yacht for sale has the same agenda – sell my boat for the highest possible price in the shortest possible time with the least amount of hassle. With that common theme comes a common range of mistakes that work against the seller’s best interests. Here are 14 things you should do to sell your boat quickly and still fetch the best price. 1. HIRE AN EXPERT BROKER Years in yacht sales have taught me that good brokers sell boats, weak ones do not. As I have managed many brokers over the years at my own company, it is evident to me that yacht brokering is a profession that requires a wide range of skill sets to perform with success. Those skill sets are normally obtained over years of apprenticeship, but often through the aegis of professional organizations such as The Yacht Brokers Association of America, the Florida Yacht Brokers Association or 20 Multihulls Today • Volume 11, fall
the California Yacht Brokers Association. Any truly successful North American yacht broker will be licensed and bonded in either Florida or California, and likely carry the Certified Professional Yacht Broker credential from the Yacht Brokers Association of America. There certainly is no question that you really should be taking advice from a broker who is in the market on a daily basis selling boats just like the one you are trying to sell. Familiarity matters because a broker who can’t confidently advise you on pricing, or a potential buyer’s sailing requirements, is crippled when it comes to the final moments of a deal as most hinge on a buyer’s and seller’s belief they are entering into a fair deal. As yacht sales are now a totally global business, you also want a broker who is working at a company that employs a wide range of marketing messages globally – boat show presentations, print, online, and social media, etc. Check the broker’s web presence and MLS listings. You can also check their website traffic rankings
boat needs to be painful and you might as well make sure your broker is someone you like and enjoy. 2. PRICE YOUR BOAT TO SELL If you price your boat too high, she will not sell and, in fact, over time, as she sits on the market, will get harder and harder to sell at any price. A professional yacht broker should provide you with a reasoned and very careful report of recent sales figures for boats such as yours, how they differed, and why they sold for what they sold for. He should offer you his advice on what is a proper retail price for your boat in the current market based on her condition, equipment, year, configuration, and location. Many sellers wrongly assume that every upgrade they have made to their yacht adds value to it but, sadly, this is generally not the case. While there are many items that do in fact add value to your boat for resale they seldom fetch back what they cost to purchase or install. In the end, the very most important factor in the sale of any yacht is her price, overall cosmetic condition inside and out, her interior configuration, location, and mechanical condition.
through www.alexa.com to make sure your yacht has the best exposure to clients. If the brokerage you are working with comes up consistently at the top pages of the major search engines without having to pay for it you can be assured they are selling a lot of yachts annually. Make sure your listing agent has a highly professional assistant and a strong back shop that can reach him or field calls on his or her behalf. Also confirm that your broker is a part of a skilled brokerage team that can assist him when he or she is out of the office. Successful brokers are traveling often to attend surveys and sea trials so they need an expert team to support when they are away from the office. Of course, ideally, you will have good chemistry with your yacht broker; enjoy him or her, as you will be spending a considerable amount of time together on the phone, in emails, and during showings or sea trials. There is no reason at all that the process of selling your
3. LOCATE YOUR BOAT WHERE SHE IS EASY TO SHOW AND SELL How fast your boat sells is most certainly tied largely to her price and condition. But her location can also play a major role in how fast she sells and for how much. In the United States, the hot spots for selling are the major yacht cities of Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Annapolis, Newport, RI, San Francisco, Seattle, and San Diego. These cities are easy to get to and a buyer can often see several different yachts on the same visit. In the Caribbean we find that the Virgin Islands, St. Martin, and Grenada are the best locations to place our yachts for sale. In Europe the South of France and Turkey are the best locations to sell as they are easy to get to, warm enough year round to complete a sale and have a wide range of large shipyards where a survey can be conducted. That said, a yacht can be sold almost anywhere. I am often amazed at the locations where we have sold catamarans over the years – a mud flat in Costa Rica, Tonga, Fiji, Singapore, Seychelles, Langakwi, North Africa, you name it. It is simply the case that whenever we have a yacht for sale where there are few other boats for a buyer to inspect on the same trip we tend only to get showings to buyers who already know the boat brand, know they want that brand, and are flying in because they want that boat and are simply confirming her condition or coming to do a proper survey. While some sellers may balk at this, we always suggest that they allow us to produce a Catamaran Condition Index on their boat. With this report we rate her overall condition in advance of a survey. Many buyers half a world away may be very interested in your boat, www.MultihullsQuarterly.com 21
multihullenthusiast but they have one lingering question: “What condition is she really in?” Often the only thing that keeps a buyer from investing the time and money to fly to see a boat is this very simple question. Any brokerage firm that can honestly and accurately assist a buyer to answer it is miles ahead when it comes to crafting a sale. No buyer wants to take a long flight to learn that the boat he thought was a cream puff is really a very worn out charter boat. One issue that really does present problems is when boats are located where it is not only hard to visit them, but hard to survey them if a buyer gets serious. Have you ever tried to haul a 30-foot catamaran in Tahiti? Cannot be done. Unless there are facilities to haul and survey your cat easily near her listing location selling her will be doubly complicated. Finally, make sure your broker has a few sets of keys to your boat, or keys that are stored in a lockbox with a code your broker can share with others. Many buyers just pop up at the last minute wanting to see your boat without much notice to the broker – if we cannot get the keys, or have a problem getting the buyer onboard, it is always unfortunate. You want every showing of your boat you can possibly get. So make it as easy to organize as you possibly can. 4. DESCRIBE YOUR BOAT IN CAREFUL DETAIL Whether you list your boat for sale in a popular location
22 Multihulls Today • Volume 11, fall
for showings or an isolated one it is vital that you work with your broker to provide him with every scrap of information you have on her history, good and bad. Buyers want to know everything they can – engine hours, gen hours, brand of electronics, recent refit history, damage history, where you sailed her, who has owned her, charter history if any, etc, etc. Buyers are sitting on the internet at 3 am looking at boats all over the world and they want it all – so why not give it to them? Getting very detailed information is even more vital if you are selling a lesser known brand or a custom or semi-custom boat. Who built it? Who designed it? How was it built? Can I stand up in the salon if I am over six feet tall? Etc. I often joke with my brokers about what I call the “Chinese Water Torture Treatment of Yacht Sales.” The emails that come in to us on a daily basis from buyers demanding the most arcane information are mind boggling at times. And often, of course, these buyers have no budget for this boat or will not be buying for many years, etc. They expect the answers, however, regardless of their seriousness or readiness to buy. At our company we go to great pains to try and dig everything we can from our sellers, but often we find they do not take this process nearly as seriously as they should. We list all of our yachts to the public on our websites without asking visitors to register, to make it as easy for them to see if they like a boat or not, and to answer as many questions as we can in our presentations.
Many yacht brokerage companies force people to register for deeper information, in a sort of bait and switch effort to secure leads, but we believe this is not consumer friendly and aggravating. Frankly, if a buyer is self-shopping on the net and not working with a buyer broker, we prefer he only contact us if he is serious about a boat – has very specific questions he must have answered to know if it is something he wants to take more seriously. 5. PHOTOGRAPH AND VIDEO YOUR BOAT PROPERLY There is no question that we always want to have as many pictures as we can get of any yacht we have for sale, and whenever a boat is close to us, we take them ourselves, and also do a video walk-through. Hopefully these are pictures that do not show a boat that is cluttered with junk all over the place. While I personally believe that pictures are seldom a very good way to determine a boat’s condition, many people on the internet tend to think so. The requests we get for “more pictures please” is rather constant, so my advice at the start to any seller working with us is the more the merrier. Videos are even better as they give a very good idea of the flow of the yacht, her spaces, inside and out. 6. DISCLOSE HER DAMAGE HISTORY, IF ANY, UP FRONT WITH YOUR BROKER AND POTENTIAL BUYERS It boggles my mind how often yacht sellers fail to disclose to us their accident history or sugarcoat them. I was recently involved in a sale where a few moments before I planned to send the seller an offer from a buyer I asked him very pointedly, “Before we go into a survey, is there anything you wish to disclose to me?” After a long pause he admitted he had had a serious collision with a barge and his entire port hull had to be rebuilt. What was he thinking not to have shared this with me and our buyer long before is hard to fathom. Such “failure to disclose” is problematic for several reasons. The first is that any serious damage history is
almost surely going to be revealed in a survey, and the moment this occurs the buyer is rightfully going to be very upset and question the integrity of the seller and the broker(s). Secondly, in North America, failing to disclose any damage that might impact the sea worthiness of a yacht, or her resale value, is a violation of the law. I believe this is why so many sellers who are selling damaged boats, or hurricane repair jobs, do it in the Southern islands of the Caribbean where the standards are lax and consumer protection laws quite limited. (Not to mention brokers who do not have licenses, or bonds, or dedicated escrow accounts.) In short, honesty really is in the best policy when selling anything. 7. BE CERTAIN YOUR BROKER IS MARKETING YOUR BOAT PROPERLY ON A WIDE RANGE OF FRONTS The current market for catamarans is a truly global market. Most of the yachts we sell, for example, can easily be delivered anywhere in the world on their own bottoms. As such, the marketing of yachts today has to be global, both in terms of print advertising and web advertising, as well as boat show presence. Many buyers have as long as a four-year buying cycle, coming to boat shows to see boats, meet brokers, decide which company or broker they are going to work with when buying a new or used catamaran. Of course, all the marketing in the world is of little good if your broker does not respond to emails on a daily basis, respond to calls and emails on the weekends, etc. Buyers are now shopping 24/7 and they expect and demand immediate attention. When they want to see a boat, they want it organized. When they want information, they want it fast. Whether a call comes in from France or Australia, your broker must be fluent in discussing the issues associated with buying the boat, flagging her, surveying her, getting her delivered, insured, etc. In the end most sales hinge primarily on the person who takes the calls for you, responds to inquiries, and attends to the www.MultihullsQuarterly.com 23
multihullenthusiast
9. LOWER YOUR PRICE WHEN YOU ARE NOT GETTING SHOWINGS OR OFFERS Boats go market dead pretty fast. If you price your boat too high to start, or in a location that makes her hard to get showings, and your broker is not contacting you to discuss recent inquiries, she is either priced too high or you need to move her, very fast, to a location where she can sell more easily. Often when I am representing buyers I look very specifically for just such yachts for sale. Is she lying in a location that is hard to see her, or survey her? Has she been on the market a long time for this reason? If so, and the seller hasn’t gotten any offers, this is often a boat to offer on. The long and the short is, if your boat isn’t selling, and it is not due to location, you need to lower her price until you start to get a lot of interest and some offers. It is always better to turn down offers that are too low than to get none at all. I have always said, and say it still, “Every boat has a value, whether she is on top of a reef with a few winches to pull off or brand new off the shipyard floor. As long as she is priced properly for the current demand, she will sell.”
questions and needs of the potential buyers in the most professional manner possible. 8. SHOW YOUR BOAT PROPERLY The cheapest and best thing you can do to sell your boat is to have her professionally buffed, waxed and detailed, and to have her cleaned once a week until she sells. It continues to amaze me how few of our sellers do this, despite our protestations. The next most important thing to do is have your engine rooms detailed so that they are spotless, to have all rust removed from any parts and painted, and to repaint any bow or stern lockers that are dirty or mildewed. Finally, remove all the clutter you can from your boat, store only what you must on her, and have her looking spotless inside, with all beds made up nicely and with good ventilation running at all times. Cosmetics continue to matter more than anything else – frankly, a lot of buyers are simply not experienced enough to see past a boat that needs a good buff and wax and detail. Leave nothing to their imaginations – show her as well as she can show. Make sure the heads are spotless, smell good and have no mildew or mold. Remove all clutter, clean out lockers. Cover up any holes in the bulkheads remaining after pictures were removed. Clean the bilges and ensure that they are dry, clean and odor-free. We have seen time and time again a deal fall apart because a piece of equipment did not work and the seller knew in advance and did not tell his broker. If your watermaker does not work, do not put the watermaker on your equipment list. This means that the surveyor does not need to test it and the buyer cannot complain that it does not work when it was never included in the sale in the first place. 24 Multihulls Today • Volume 11, fall
10. NEGOTIATE LIKE A GENTLEMAN WHEN YOU GET AN OFFER People getting involved with yacht sales often get a bit too personal over it all, and sometimes sellers get upset and behave badly, assuming all sorts of ill intent from a given buyer when there is none. And vice versa. Whenever I get into a sale, I often have no idea how a buyer or seller will behave in the heat of negotiations. But, if there is one thing I have learned it is this: anger is never helpful or profitable in business. If you get an offer, you accept it, reject it, or counter it with the terms and price you can live with. If you find an offer upsetting then simply refuse to counter it. If you are selling the boat for far less than you had hoped that is not the buyer’s fault. You may have paid too much for her. You may have added on options that are not bringing you back the money they cost to install and purchase. The market conditions may have deteriorated since you bought, etc. The only advice I can give to sellers who are upset about the price they are getting for their boats is to ask them to recall all the months and or years they spent on her, what it would have cost them to charter her for this time, and to see and place a significant value on that. We buy boats for life enhancement, not as investments. Our boats are an investment of faith in many respects; they are tied to spiritual gifts not financial returns. 11. PREPARE FOR THE SURVEY PROPERLY Never allow your boat go into a survey unless you have had her props cleaned, her bottom recently cleaned, and all of her engine and generator fluids topped off, etc. If something is broken prior to a survey, and it needs to get fixed, fix it for goodness sakes or it will only show up as a negative in the survey. There is simply
nothing more important than getting your boat as prepared as possible for a good survey. Many deals fall apart because a piece of equipment did not work and the seller knew in advance but did not tell his broker Finally, change your oil. Replace all of your oil and fuel filters. Top off all of your fluids. Top up your batteries. Fix all leaks and repair all broken items on the inventory. Now is not the time to be cheap. 12. ATTEND THE SURVEY WITH YOUR BROKER AND THE BUYER Problems always arise in a survey, you can count on it. But some problems arise in a survey because the brokers or the surveyor are not fully apprised of how to operate your boat. To my mind it is always a very good idea for the seller or his skipper to be present at a survey, to answer questions, explain operations, and to examine any potential defects the surveyor points out to the buyer. Should negotiations on a problem need to take place after the survey there is nothing more helpful than knowing exactly what the problem was and what the surveyor believes is the best way to correct it, 13. RESPOND TO EMAILS AND REQUESTS FOR INFORMATION FROM YOUR BROKER, DOCUMENTATION
AGENT AND LAWYER WHEN YOU PREPARE TO CLOSE After you finally have an acceptance of yacht it is vital that you focus on the many details of transferring title with your broker. It is important that you remain in easy reach by phone, email, and courier express services, and often also in close range of notarial offices. I am often surprised at how many sellers we have take off to far-flung places after the survey where it is nearly impossible for them to work closely with us in expediting the closing process. 14. MAKE THE PROCESS AS PLEASANT AS POSSIBLE FOR YOURSELF AND THE NEW OWNER OF YOUR BOAT There is no reason at all why the process of a yacht sale should not be pleasant for both the buyer and seller and everyone involved. While there may be issues that arise that require serious negotiations, they should always be carried out in good faith and with a pleasant attitude. Yacht sales are very often emotionally charged events for both buyers and sellers. Keep it positive and a positive result is far more likely to occur. Phil Berman is the founder and president of The Multihull Company. Andrew Holland is a broker and chief ad marketing for the company.
www.MultihullsQuarterly.com 25
Modern Multihulls:
A Look at the New Fleet for 2020 by George Day
T
antares 44gs
here is a lot going on in the world of modern multihulls. Having gone from a fringe of the sailing universe 20 years ago, multihulls are now as mainstream as they could be. The charter fleets are full of catamarans and increasingly the great cruising harbors of the world are becoming dominated by cruising cats. Multihulls just make sense if you are looking for great living and deck spaces, large and commodious cabins, a level platform when sailing and boats that can motor extremely efficiently. Speed is another issue, too. Modern trimarans are super-fast sailing boats and will sail upwind with the monohulls. But, it is the catamaran fleet that has shown the way to superior cruising and sailing performance. Production cats from the world’s largest builders, Lagoon, Fountaine Pajot and Leopard, will out sail most monohulls of the same length but are not considered performance sailing yachts. But, the fleet of hightech high-performance cats, led by companies like Gunboat, Outremer and HH Catamarans, have sailing speeds that can exceed 20 knots and the capability, if you so desire it, to make daily runs at sea of 300 miles or more. Power cats are the next big thing. The charter fleets are adding them as fast as they can and cruisers who have always thought of themselves as sailors are discovering the pleasure of motoring upwind at 15 knots or making an easy 50-mile coastal run in four hours or less. The world of modern multihulls is now dominated by two countries, France and South Africa, with a scattering of multihull builders in other countries around the world. Here’s our annual look ahead at the new multihulls that will be making waves in 2020. Antares 44GS The Antares 44GS is a boat that has evolved year after year as the builders, in Argentina, and their owners compare notes and
innovate new solutions to the real-world issues that blue water sailors deal with. The 44GS is a pure liveaboard, blue water cat that takes an extremely practical approach to just about every aspect of the boat’s design, build and systems. The cored hulls and deck are engineered to be as strong and as light as possible to avoid any delamination after a sudden impact. The tall, double headsail sloop rig, with lines and sheets running back to the raised helm in the cockpit, are easy for a single watch keeper to manage without leaving the cockpit. The cockpit is very secure and comfortable and even in a large seaway you do not feel exposed to the elements. With the hardtop and side curtains, this is a four-season cockpit for most sailors. The master stateroom takes up the starboard hull and has a large double berth aft, a wardrobe and storage area amidship and a huge head and shower forward. The galley is amidships in the starboard hull in what is a called a “galley down” configuration. The guests’ cabins are forward and aft of the galley. The saloon, with its dinette and large chart table, has great visibility. The interior is finished in traditional varnished teak with teak and holly soles or floorboards and high-quality hardware and fixtures. You feel like you are aboard a proper yacht built with old-school values when you climb aboard the Antares 44GS and you know that
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bali 5.4 this is a couple’s cruising boat that will take them anywhere. https://liveantares.com/ Aspen C107 Aspen may be one of the most innovative powerboat
aspen c107 companies in North America and their new C107 with twin outboards advances that assertion by a mile. Founded by Larry Graf, a veteran builder of power catamarans, the company’s mission is to build midrange cruising cats that are fuel efficient, comfortable in a seaway, safe in all conditions and fast enough to expand your cruising grounds. Starting with a proa hull design, with the port hull being 35 percent narrower than the starboard hull, Graf reduced hull drag and increased fuel efficiency. In the new C107, at 34 feet, the company now offers the boat with outboards, a 200-hp. Yanmar on the starboard hull and an 80-hp. Yanmar on the port hull. By using outboards instead of inboard diesels, the 107 is the quietest Aspen ever built and a large area inside excess 12 28 Multihulls Today • Volume 11, summer
the hull has been freed up for storage. The C107’s performance numbers are impressive. With a wide open throttle and flat water it can hit 29 knots and burn 24 gallons of fuel an hour. In cruising mode at 16 knots it will burn 6.9 gallons an hour with a cruising range of 275 miles. The accommodations aboard are great for a 34-footer with a large cockpit aft, the dinette and galley in the saloon, the helm forward with a second seat next to it and the steps down to the cabin on the starboard side. The cabin has a king-size double berth and a settee that can double as a single berth. The head is outboard of the companionway steps. A couple could cruise aboard for weeks at a time and truly make miles, have adventures and do so as economically as possible. https://aspenpowercatamarans.com/ Balance 482 The new Balance 482, designed by Phil Berman of The Multihull Company and Anton du Toit, a South African yacht designer, is the little sister to the Balance 526 that was launched three years ago. The 48 is a true couple’s performance cruiser that was intended from the start to be easy to sail, easy to maintain, fast and comfortable under sail. The new boat uses many innovations introduced in the 526, including the trademarked Versahelm. This inspired design innovation allows the helm wheel to pivot from a vertical
position at the helmsman’s seat to a horizontal position under the protection of the hard Bimini top. With the three-cabin layout, the master suite offers a spacious home for the owners while guests or children can bunk down in the large cabins in the opposite hull. The saloon is set up for indoor-outdoor living with a dining area in the front of the saloon that can seat six or be folded down to convert into a double berth. Berman is all about maintaining as perfect a balance as possible between sailing performance and comfortable living and the
catana 53 482 promises to do this nearly perfectly. Balancecatamarans.com Bali 5.4 Bali catamarans are built by Catana in France and have been created to serve primarily in the charter fleets of the world and mainly in the fleets run by Dream Yacht Charter. The Bali 5.4 is all about sunshine, sailing and enjoying vacation time on the water. With lounges on the flybridge, foredeck, in the cockpit and in the saloon, there are multiple areas for you and your guests or charter party to relax and enjoy the scenery.
excess 15 The 5.4 has six different layouts to choose from ranging from the owner’s four-cabin version to the ultra-charter version with six double cabins. Each version has a small cabin in the two bows for professional crew. The Bali line is many things but certainly it offers unusually good value for your money. When you buy a Bali 5.4, you not only will be pleased with the price but you know that you can earn from the boat if you put it into a charter fleet. Balicatamarans.hr Catana 53 The French builder Catana has long had the reputation for building large, performance cruising catamarans that are suited to blue water sailing. Many have crossed oceans and circumnavigated. The new 53 embodies all that make a Catana a Catana. It has voluminous hulls that
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fountaine-pajot 59
is a folding boat. The two amas can easily fold up against the main hull reducing the boat’s beam from 22-feet, seven inches to eightfeet, four-inches. Folded up, the 970 will fit into a normal marina slip or can be trailered behind a family SUV. With a kick-up rudder and retractable centerboard, the 970 can explore or be launched in very shallow water. The 970 has a larger cockpit than the F31 and the mainsheet has been moved aft where it is out of the way. The deck has been raised
provide a lot of interior volume, daggerboards that enhance windward sailing performance and a tall and powerful rig with a big fully battened mainsail, a self-tacking jib, a reacher on a sprit forward and a set up for an asymmetrical spinnaker. A trademark of Catanas is the twin helms placed aft and well outboard so you can see forward and see the sails while steering. The new 53 is a massive cruising boat. The cockpit has a table that will seat eight and there is another large table in the saloon. The galley is to port has a galley island that adds counter space with refrigeration and a freezer beneath it. The owner’s version of the 53 has the master cabin in the starboard hull with a double berth aft, a vanity or desk amidships and the large head and shower forward. The two guest cabins and the en suite heads are in the port hull. If you are looking for a world cruiser that sails well and has all the comforts of home, the new Catana 53 fits the bill. https://www.catana. com/en/catamarans/catana-53/ Corsair Cruise 970 Corsair Marine has a long history of building high performance trimarans and the F31 racing and cruising tri has been a favorite among trimaran sailors for decades with more than 300 built. The new Cruiser 970 replaces the 31 in the Corsair line and offers more space below decks, more modern hull and ama design and a new look at the performance rig. Like all Corsair tris, the 970
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corsair cruz 970 15 inches, so there is standing headroom throughout the interior and a greater sense of space and light. Under the cockpit aft, there is a comfortable double berth. The V-berth forward is snug but will be fine for two children or a larger adult. The saloon has a raised
table and a small efficient galley. Dedicated sailors and a family with children will have a great time racing and cruising on the new Cruiser 970. http://corsairmarine.com/trimarans/cruze-970/ Dragonfly 40 Dragonfly trimarans are built in Denmark by the Quorning family. Jens Quorning now runs the family-owned company that his father started 53 years ago. They have always built trimarans and are responsible for introducing tris to the European market. They have sold over 1,000 tris and now annually build 50 to 60 of them. The new Dragonfly 40 was designed to be a true blue water cruising boat yet it still has the ability to be
dragonfly 40 The head is at the foot of the companionway with the compact galley across from it. A performance cruiser that will sail in the mid to high teens and provide fast passages and thrilling days under sail, the new Dragonfly 40 will be introduced to the European market in January and the U.S. in February. https:// dragonfly.dk/dragonfly-40
kinetic 62 folded up for mooring in a slip. But, when folded, the 40 is too wide to be trailed over public roads. The new 40 comes in two versions, Touring and Ultimate. The boats are the same but the Ultimate has a seven-foot taller carbon fiber mast, 15 percent more working sail area and much larger Code 0s and spinnakers. Both versions have large, comfortable dual cockpit that have twin wheels and all the lines and sheets running to winches and stoppers at the two helms. The lounging area of the cockpit with the folding centerline table can be free of the line spaghetti that comes with a real sailing machine. The living accommodation below shows a V-berth forward, a drop-leaf table between two long bench settee and a double cabin aft under the cockpit.
Excess 12 & 15 The Beneteau Group owns Lagoon catamarans which is one of the top three cat builders in the world. But, seeing that there are more sales opportunities in the cat market, particularly among younger sailors and cruisers who tend to be more active and adventurous than the older crews, the company decided to launch the Excess line of cruising cats with the 12 and 15 models. For both boats, the design team has taken a fairly conventional hull design and smartened it up with twin helms at each side of the cockpit, a large retractable sunshade down the middle to the hard top and a tall rig. Like the latest generation of Lagoons, the mast has been moved fairly far aft so the mainsail is not too large and thus easy to handle. The self-tacking jib is easy to control on its roller furling so this is the sail to reef early. Both boats can be had in three and four-cabin versions. There is a large dining table in the cockpit and another in the saloon. The boats are spacious, fairly simple and will make great platforms for sailing and watersports adventures. Exces-catamarans.com
gemini legacy 35
Fountaine Pajot Elba 45 The Elba 45 is a sistership to the Saona 47, only slightly smaller. It has a raised lounge www.MultihullsToday.com 31
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lagoon sixty 7 on top of the cockpit’s hardtop, a large sunning area forward of the saloon and a commodious cockpit with a large al fresco dining table to port, a bench settee to starboard, more seating aft over the transom and a large built-in barbecuing grill also on the transom. The hulls have the signature reverse curved sheerlines that make FP cats immediately recognizable. The cabin top flows gracefully into the line of the cockpit hardtop with the raised helm station neatly tucked in to starboard. The layout offers an indoor-outdoor saloon with large dining tables in both the cockpit and the saloon. The galley on the saloon’s port side is huge. In the owner’s version the port hull has the double berth aft and the large head all the way forward. The starboard hull has two cabins and two heads. In the charter version, the port hull has two cabins and two heads. The Elba is a lovely looking cat and embodies all that FP has learned over the years as they build better and better boats year after year. www.catamarans-foutainepajot.com/en Gemini Legacy 35 It is hard to believe that the 34-foot Gemini Legacy 35 has been in constant build in North America since 1980, that’s 39 years. It certainly is the most popular cruising
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cat ever built and in the Legacy 35 styling we can see that it has been upgraded and modernized every year along the way. With only a 14-foot beam, the 35 can fit into most marina slips and it can be trucked over America’s highways. With only 34-inches of draft, you can tuck into tight coves where most boats can’t go and even bring her right up to a beach. Plus, the 35 comes at a price equivalent to monohulls of the same length with twice the living space, level sailing and better speeds. The Legacy 35 is still an innovative design. The latest version has a larger, well protected cockpit with curvaceous benches and a useful raised helm station. The saloon has a U-shaped dinette in the middle with the galley down to starboard and the master suite in the port hull. You can have three sleeping cabins and one head, or two sleeping cabins and two heads. As a comfortable retirement boat or a family cruiser, the Gemini Legacy 35 has a great legacy and a bright future. https://www.geminicatamarans.com/Gemini-Models/GeminiLegacy35Overview.html Gunboat 68 The new Gunboat 68 being built by Gunboat of France, which is a subsidiary of Grande Large Yachting, the builder of Outremers among other brands, is an entirely new take on the original Gunboat concept. The new performance cat was designed by VPLP with styling by Patrick Le Quement. The all carbon hull, deck and rig are as high tech as you can get and the giant sail plan over this light stiff cat provides her owners with Ferrarilike performance. The 68 are semi-custom yachts so owners can work out with the builder the deck and layout configurations that suit them, within the confines of existing molds and the placement of bulkheads. The new generation of Gunboats are built in a highly modern and deeply engineered process. The built is more like the assembly of a Lear jet than a traditional boat yard. Lots of major parts are built by specialist vendors, some from the aircraft industry, and then shipped to France for assembly. The result is a truly sophisticated, high-tech cruising cat that embodies all the luxury you could want with sailing performance qualities that are second to none. www.gunboat.com HH 50 The HH brand of luxury, high performance cats designed by Morelli & Melvin have been making waves everywhere they sail and drawing huge crowds at boat shows. In an effort to broaden the brand’s base, M & M design an all new HH 50 that is an owner-operator cruising boat that can be sailed without crew. The HH 50 is an all carbon and epoxy infused vessel with C-shaped daggerboards and an all carbon double headsail rig. Stiff and powerful, the 50 is going to be a true speedster. Six boats have
been sold right off the plans and hull number one is scheduled to be debuted at the 2020 Miami boat show. The 50 has many interesting details including the twin helms on both sides of the cockpit, indoor-outdoor cockpit and saloon that has the three-panel glass sliding door that when open creates a huge living, lounging and dining space. The galley along the starboard side is huge and has an acre of counterspace. Across from it is a table that seats six and the full nav station that faces forward and offers great hh 50 visibility. The owner’s suite is in the port hull while the two guest cabins and the en suite heads are in the starboard hull. HH is launching an OC50 in 2020 that will be built with a fiberglass laminated hull and deck and a Selden aluminum rig. The idea is to provide a lower tech version that is also less expensive. http://www.hhcatamarans. com/hh50 Kinetic 62 The latest entry in the luxury, high performance catamaran market is another South African-built stunner. Introduced to America last fall at the Annapolis sailboat show, the Kinetic 62 was a real crowd pleaser and was overrun with curious cat enthusiasts during the whole show. The boat is being built in the Western Cape town of Knysna which has a long yacht building history. The company is owned by Bob Hayward, who founded Summit Entertainment, and his partner and boat builder Leon Sheepers. They set out from the start to build a true, luxury performance cruiser. The hulls and decks are all carbon composite as is the rig to make the boat and rig light and very stiff. Yet, the rig is set up for a couple to manage by themselves without the need for a full-time crew. The 62 is incredibly spacious and that quality is enhanced by the vast headroom in the cockpit and saloon and by the huge saloon windows. You actually feel like you are on a 75 foot cat. The saloon has a huge galley, a large dinette, the nav station forward and the helm at the front of the saloon. The forward cockpit is accessed through two doors and is a very peasant place to sit and to work all of the sheets, halyards and control lines. The 62, and the new 54 that will be introduced in 2021, are semi-custom yachts so owners can tailor the layout plan tot their liking. www.kineticcatamarans.com. Knysna 550 Kevin and Rika Fourche have been building semi-custom cruising cats in the lovely South African port city of Knysna (silent
K) for 15 years. They build five or six boats a year and each one is a work of art created specifically for a new owner. Their current boat is the 500 SE which is a classic couples cruising cat that has a great pedigree and blue water capabilities. They show the 500SE at the Annapolis and Miami boat shows so customers can get a feel for what a hand-made, highly finished semicustom cat really looks like. This year they introduced a new design called the Knysna 550. The boat was designed by Antoine De Toit, a South African, and is a very modern flybridge cruiser with a full dinette and lounge on the flybridge and a hardtop over it. The cockpit and the saloon flow together in one very large space with another dinette, bench settee, the huge galley and interior lounge. The boat has attractive modern lines with a plumb bow, and straight sheer and a stylish cabin design. This will be the Knysna of the future. https://www.knysnayachtco.com/ Lagoon Sixty 5 Ever since introducing the Lagoon Seventy 7, the French catamaran builder has seen a lot of success with their flagships. Although a small niche of the catamaran market, there is steady demand for these huge boats both as private yachts for the “multi-millionaire class” and as charter boats. With 32 feet of beam, the Sixty 5 has around 1,500 square feet of living, deck and
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leopard 50 bridge space. The cockpit is huge, the saloon amazingly spacious, the galley fit for a gourmet chef and the flying bridge large enough for a cocktail or dinner party. Plus, there is yet another lounging area forward of the saloon. The Sixty 5 can have either a five-cabin or six-cabin layout. The five-cabin layout would be the owner’s version and has three double cabins with en suite heads in the port hull and a fourth double in the bow of the starboard hull; the owner’s master suite is aft to starboard and completely separate from the other cabins. The six-cabin version replaces the owner’s suite with two double cabins in the port hull. The designer of the Sixty 5, Marc Van Peteghem of VPLP design, is in love with his own creation. “The Sixty 5 is a yacht on a human scale. I am a sailor at heart and there was no way the Sixty 5 wasn’t going to be a really easy-to-use yacht that you could cruise far and wide under sail in comfort and with seakeeping qualities inherited from her big sister. I dream of going long term cruising on this boat. Her long legs let you eat up the miles and then you can enjoy her comfort at stopovers.” www.cata-lagoon.com /en/sixty-5. Leopard 50 One of the most popular cruising and charter cats ever built is the Leopard 48. So, when Leopard and their
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clients and customers embarked on the process of designing and building a boat to replace the 48 in their line, they knew they had a large task on their hands. The boat had to be a comfortable, safe and easy-to-handle 50-footer that a couple could manage on their own. The boat had to make the best use of its large volume while also offering reasonable sailing performance in a wide range of winds. The boat needed to able to carry the gear, equipment, water toys and stuff that cruisers bring onboard without sinking too far into the water. And, the new 50 had to “Leopard” but be modern and different. Well, that task was met in spades, and the new Leopard 50 is a head turner, a thoroughly modern design with sculpted hulls, a slanted hard top over the cockpit that merges smoothly with the line of the cabintop, an elevated lounge on the hardtop and a lounge area forward. The 50 has a powerful rig and plenty of sail area. During sail trials off Ft. Lauderdale, we saw 10 knots of boat speed in 15 to 18 knots of trade winds so the boat provides a very stable platform and enough speed to make great daily runs. The 50 has several available layouts from the threecabin owner’s version to a five-cabin charter version. The interior spaces are huge and a party of eight will feel very comfortable cruising together. We have chartered the Leopard 48 in the BVI with three other couples and there were times when you wondered where everyone had gone. A great family cruising boat as well as a charter boat, the new 50 will take you around the world in comfort, safety and style. https://www. leopardcatamarans.com/ MarineMax Aquila 44 Power Cat Power cats are making a charge in the boating market and MarineMax’s Aquila line is one of the brands that is leading the way. The boats are futuristic looking with dramatic angles and graphics on the outside, high bows and wide sterns. The new 44, introduced in 2019, has a spacious flybridge where you run the boat in good weather and can have all of your meals or entertain a few guests. The saloon is huge and luxurious with the galley aft and the huge dinette forward to port. There is an outside dinette in the cockpit so the 44 has three places for meals. Plus, there are two bar stools in the cockpit that face into the galley via a large sliding window. The inside steering station has all instruments and controls so you can operate safely and securely in wet and windy weather. Visibility from the inside helm is excellent and there is a good place right next to it where you can spread out paper charts as a back up to the chartplotter. The standard boat comes with three cabins, an owner’s suite in the port hull and twin double cabins in the starboard hull. Each cabin has 550 its own head with a separate shower stall. The
44 can also be customized to a limited degree so an owner can get the exact boat she wants. The 44 has tons of storage space in built-in cabinets and under the floors. The fit and finish of the 44, like other Aquilas, is traditional and elegant with lots of varnished teak, warm fabircs and thoughtfully placed lighting. For a week or two of chartering or for family cruising the new Aquila 44 is a power cat to be reckoned with. https://www. marinemax.com/brands/aquila-catamarans McConaghy 60 The McConaghy brand is gradually getting to be better known in North America and that will all change when the company introduces their new (2018) McConaghy 60 performance cruising cat at the Miami boat in February 2020. The new boat is a stunner with aggressively modern lines, black carbon spar and boom, huge windows and an all carbon, infused, cored hull and deck structure. The 60 is a high performance flybridge catamaran that is designed to sail at wind speed. In other words, if it is blowing 15 knots, the 60 will sail at 15 knots. Obviously, this parity tapers off as wind speeds increase but you get the point. The boat is a Ferrari. And like a Ferrari, it is also elegant, stylish and eye catching. The McConaghy 60 is a speedster but it is also an amazingly elegant and comfortable floating home that has been designed to be easy to sail, comfortable, safe and requiring a minimum of maintenance. A semi-custom yacht, the 60’s accommodation plan can be adapted to an owner’s needs. https://www.aeroyacht.com/ mcconaghy-multihulls-2/mcconaghy_60_catamaran/ Nautitech 47 Power Cat Built in France, the new Nautitech 47 power cat is an interesting addition to the already successful line of Nautitech sailing cats. The design, by Marc Lombard, is high-tech Euro modern with chines in the hulls, huge back hull windows, reverse angled bows, sexy sloping main windows in the saloon and a high flybridge with a stylish hardtop over it. The slight reverse curve of the sheer line is an added touch that makes boat look fast and sleek. Lounging and dining are the main themes in the 47’s layout. There is a large dinette in the cockpit, another dinette in the saloon and a third on the flybridge.
marinemax aquila 44
mcconaghy 60 Theoretically you could seat 18 people for a large dinner party. But in reality, you will use whichever dinette is right for the meal, time of day and weather. The whole foredeck has been designed as a sunning, lounging mosh pit with room for eight to 10 people to idle away a sunny afternoon in some lovely anchorage. There are three and four cabin layouts in the hulls, with the owner’s version having a massive suite in the port hull and twin double cabins to starboard. In the saloon, the galley is suitable for a gourmet cook, with twin drawer fridges, acres of counter space and tons of storage. The inside steering station looks like something from the starship Enterprise and has great visibility forward. Powered by twin Volvo 230s, the 476 will cruise at 15 knots and top out at 22 knots. At 8.5 knots the Nautiech 47 has 1,000 miles of range. https:// www.nautitechcatamarans.com/en/47-power.html NEEL 47 The new NEEL 47 was introduced at the Salon de Multicoques in France in April 2019 to rave reviews from the press and from multihull enthusiasts. The new 47 is a unique cruising boat that does many things very well. The design concept, according to the builder Eric Bruneel, was very personal to him; this is the boat he wanted for himself and his wife Barbara to cruise by themselves and with family and friends. As it turned out, the design concept fits many like-minded couples. With three hulls to work with, Bruneel decided to make the cabins in the amas autonomous, so each has its own companionway, double berth and head. The bows of the amas have single berths that you access via the deck hatches. The main hull has an inside nav station and galley forward where you have great visibility and plenty of natural light. The owner’s cabin occupies the starboard side of the saloon and has big windows that give great www.MultihullsToday.com 35
multihulldesign with lots of natural light and ventilation. If you haven’t the La Vagabonde videos you find them on You Tube under Sailing La Vagabonde. For more on the 45, click here. http://catamaran-outremer.com/en/outremer-45/
nautech 47 views and plenty of ventilation. The dinette is aft to port and links naturally with the cockpit table through the sliding cockpit door; NEEL calls this cockpit-saloon area the “cockloon”. You can seat eight in this dual table set up. Most trimarans have the living spaces confined to the inside of the main hull, which is fairly narrow and thus cramped. With the saloon in the NEEL at deck level, the living space is expanded enormously. Plus, the area of the main hull below the saloon becomes the “garage” or storage area and a place to mount onboard systems. As a rule, trimarans sail better than most cruising catamarans; they sail upwind like a monohull and then can break away on a plane when power reaching. The 47 is capable of speeds in the high teens in the right conditions and will also be fast and fun to sail in light airs, which means you will sail more and motor less. With all lines, halyards and sheets running to the raised helm station, a single watchkeeper can manage the boat without having to leave the cockpit. The boat will be at US boat shows in 2020 so check it out. You’ll be impressed. https://www.neel-trimarans.com/
Privilege 510 Privilege Catamarans of France, which was recently purchased by Hanse Yachts of Germany, builds very high-end sail and power cruising cats from 50 to 74 feet. They occupy the luxury end of the market and offer owners a truly boutique yacht building experience. This year the company is launching three new designs, the 510, 580 and the Euphorie 5 power cat. The 510 will be the first to come to North America and is a great example of the direction Privilege is going under the new German ownership. The 510 is one of the smaller cats they have built in many years and can be considered both an entry level Privilege and also a cruising cat that a couple can manage without a captain or crew. The renderings of the new 50 footer show it to be a modern Euro-style cat with an arching shape to the saloon’s cabintop that merges into the hardtop aft. The steering station is raised in the cockpit to port and has a small wind screen. The cockpit and saloon are joined via a sliding glass door, so the whole space can flow together as one. Outside there is a table that will seat six and in the saloon there is another, also for six. The galley to port is a proper ocean-going kitchen. A signature design element of the modern Privilege line is the master cabin suite that is forward of the saloon and down a level. It spans the boat and is the best cabin of this type you will find on a 50-foot cat. The new Privilege 510 is a family cruiser that offer elegance, luxury and long range cruising capabilities. https:// www.hanseyachtsag.com/us/privilege/modelrange/ privilege-signature510.html
Outremer 45 We chose to present the Outremer 45 in this 2020 preview because it may be the most seen cruising cat in the world. The La Vagabonde couple, Riley and Elyna, with their new baby son Lenny, are a YouTube phenomRoyal Cape Majestic 530 enon with 1.2 million subscribers. They post new videos Built in Durban, South Africa, the Royal Cape Majestic just about every week and have done so for the last 530 is built in a boutique yard by a team of very talfive years. They got aboard an Outremer 45 a couple ented and dedicated craftsmen. They only build a few of years ago, so their subscribers are totally aware of 530s every year and focus instead on building boats to the boat, the brand and the many benefits of living and cruising aboard a performance catamaran. La Vagabonde ferried climate activist Greta Thunberg across the North Atlantic last November so they and Outremer benefitted from the media circus that follows the 16-year old Swede. The 45 is a handsome, fast, light and speedy cruising cat that is easy for a couple to handle, even with a small child in tow. It has a huge cockpit, large saloon with a dinette that seats six, a good galley and a large nav station. The cabins below are spacious and comfortable outremer 45 36 Multihulls Today • Volume 11, summer
an owner’s specifications. A wide range of options are available for the interior and because the living spaces merge with the hulls in a novel way, you get the feeling you are on a much larger boat The 530 has high volume seagoing hulls with a moderate bridgedeck height. The helm on the starboard side of the cockpit is raised for good visibility and there is a second raised cockpit seat to port. The cockpit is secure and you feel protected from the elements. The builder likes to consider the cockpit as the outdoor activity center and can build in custom cabinets and storage lockers for SCUBA enthusiasts, fishermen, outdoor grilling specialists and more. The standard layout has a master cabin suite with a study in the port hull and three double guest cabins in the starboard hull but as noted an owner can have any layout he wants. The finish work is superb. http:// www.royalcapecatamarans.com/index.html Seawind 1260 The Seawind 1260 is a handsome 41-foot cruising cat that epitomizes indoor-outdoor living. Designed in Australia and built in Vietnam, the 1260 has a huge cockpit with twin helms, large benches, plenty of storage and great protection from the elements. Between the cockpit and the saloon there is a tri-fold door, that folds together into one panel that then can be folded up into a cavity in the hard top where it is totally out of the way. Removing the door joins the cockpit and saloon into one huge living space. There is a small table in the cockpit and a large dinette in the saloon. The galley is in the starboard hull with guest cabins forward and aft of it. The master cabin takes over the port hull. Seawinds are sold all over the world and make great coastal or offshore cruising boats. They are fast, sea kindly and easy for a couple to manage on their own. For more information click here.
neel 47
privilege 510 https://www.seawindcats.com/seawind-1260/ St. Francis 50 Mk II The St. Francis 50 was designed by famed South African naval architect Angelo Lavranos and is built in the charming seaside town of St. Francis Bay by a band of craftsmen who have been building the cats for two decades or more. The 50 in its Mark II version is an evo-
majestic 530
lutionary cruising cat that has seen advances in building styles and materials improve the boats year after year. Intended as a couple’s cruising cat, the 50 is a capable blue water cruiser that can average 200 miles a day on passage and often will knock off more. The fairly narrow hulls and large sail plan make the 50 quicker than you might think. Yet, she is easy to handle and a lone watchkeeper can reef or change sails from the safety of the raised steering station. The accommodation plan has an owner’s suite and two guest cabins in the hulls. The saloon is spacious with a raised dinette, a complete chart table and nav station and a handy U-shaped galley that connects with the cockpit through a sliding window. The fit and finish of the 50 shows the thousands of man hours that have gone into matching wood grains, shaping doors and cabinets and applying many coats of varnish. Many 50s has crossed oceans and quite a few have completed circumnavigations in comfort and style. https://www.stfranciscatamarans.com/ Sunreef 50 Sunreef Yachts, which is based in Poland, has been building large, luxurious catamarans, both power and www.MultihullsToday.com 37
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sunreef 50 Xquisite X5 One of the most distinctive and futuristic cruising cats on the market, the Xquiste X5 has a style that is uniquely seawind 1260 its own. With a soaring Targa-type arch over the cocksail, largely for the international crewed charter marpit, the distinctive vertical windows in the hull, and the ket. But, of the 100 boats they have built, they do have huge cat’s eye windows in the saloon, once you see private owners; tennis great Rafael Nadal recently an X5 you will never mistake it for another brand. ordered an 80-footer to be based at his home in And, when you climb aboard and poke around Palma, Majorca, Spain. The new 50 is the smallest boat you will discover that the builders have gone to great lengths to deliver a cruising cat that is as sophisticated technically as any boat on the market. All systems, whether it be the basic electrics or the highest end electronics, has been thought through and designed to be the best money can buy. There are dozens of little details in the boat that will surprise you and make life aboard more convenient, more comfortable and safer at sea. The X5 can be built with either a threecabin, three-head layout or a four-cabin, four-head plan. The three-cabin layout has a huge owner’s suite in the starboard hull that has a small desk or vanity and a huge head and separate shower stall. The builders behind the Xquisite X5, Tamas and Sara, owned a sistership and cruised it extensively before buying the and launching the X5. Their st. francis 50 company experiences of ownership and living on the boats show in every detail. https:// in the Sunreef fleet and one of the few that can be xquisiteyachts.com/ cruised by a couple or family without the need of crew. The flybridge design provides a full living and dining space high above the water. The cockpit and saloon merge and there are several layout variations to choose from. The large galley is to port and the inside dining arrangement to starboard. The inside steering station is a full nav station like one you would find on a luxury 100-footer. In fact, the Sunreef 50 is really a mini-version of the company’s super luxurious custom yachts. The level of detail, the interior design, the creative use of light, fabrics and wood to create something very special and unique amongst owner-operated cruising boats. For those are looking for the highest of high-end cruising cats, take a look at the Sunreef 50. https:// www.sunreef-yachts.com/en/sunreef-50
xquisite x5
38 Multihulls Today • Volume 11, summer
multihullreview
The NEEL 47 Makes Her Own Rules
T
he new NEEL 47 is the fourth design created by this Innovative French company in the last 10 years and like its sisterships, it breaks with all trimaran traditions. The first boat Eric and Barbara Bruneel built was the NEEL 45. It was a breakthrough multihull design because they designed the living spaces to be on top of the main hull and the outriggers or amas instead of just inside the hulls. This expanded the accommodations to the full width of the boat, 23 feet. This meant the cockpit and saloon were as large as you would find on a 45-foot catamaran and the cabins were as spacious. Plus, under the saloon, 40 Multihulls Today • Volume 11, fall
Trimarans are in general faster than cruising cats of a comparable size and able to sail closer to the wind with tacking angles similar to modern monohulls there was a garage or utility and storage space where all of the weight in the boat could be centralized. This is a key element of the design. Weight distribution has a dramatic effect on performance. By putting the engine, batteries, fuel and water tanks, and other systems such as a genset, watermaker, and the marine electronics centrally right over the center of buoyance, you make the boat much more stable, stiffer and more weatherly. And, you give the boat a softer, smoother ride in offshore sailing conditions. This expanded living area, which the modern cruising market demands, made the other benefits of sailing trimarans available to sailors who would otherwise choose a catamaran. Those benefits are several. Trimarans are in general faster than cruising cats of a comparable size and able to sail closer to the wind with tacking angles similar to modern monohulls. It was no surprise when a few years ago a NEEL 45 won line honors in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) and beat the next catamaran in its class by two days. But trimarans are also more comfortable at sea since the boat’s motion as it moves through the waves is dampened by the amas so pitching is reduced significantly. If you have sailed a cruising cat in an oceanic 970 that the seaway,Corsair you’ll know
motion can be jerky and sudden. So, the NEEL innovation married the sailing performance of a trimaran with the living accommodations of a cruising catamaran. Brilliant. NEEL 47 The brand new NEEL 47 was introduced to the world at the Salon de Multicoques in La Grande Motte, France in April 2019. The new design was met with rave reviews from the marine press and by the cruising community. As Eric Bruneel explained at the press conference for the launch, the 47 is a little different from the 45, 51 and 65. It does not have the full-width saloon and cockpit you find on the earlier boats but instead has the saloon stop just before reaching the amas. Then, the sleeping cabins in the amas are accessed via their own companionways. This was a design Bruneel wanted specifically for himself and his wife for cruising with family and friends. The master cabin is part of the saloon while the guest cabins
www.MultihullsToday.com 41
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are autonomous allowing everyone to have their spaces and privacy. But while the design is highly personal, it appears by the immediate success of the 47 that this is a concept that appeals to a lot of sailors. The 47 has a traditional double-headsail sloop rig with a large, square-topped mainsail, a self-tacking staysail and a 110-percent genoa on the headstay. The spinnaker or Code 0 can by flown from the bowsprit, which doubles as the anchor roller. The foredeck is fairly narrow but joined to the amas by nets so you have the full width of the boat for handling sails and docking. Access fore and aft along the side decks is via walkways right next to the main cabin so you are always within reach of a handhold and a place to brace yourself in bouncy conditions. You really only have to go to the foredeck to deploy a downwind sail since all lines, sheets and halyards, except the spinnaker sheets, lead directly to the raised helm on the starboard side of the cockpit. The cockpit is spacious and very wide. There are bench seats aft and an L-shaped dinette on the port side. The sliding glass doors to the saloon slide right out of the way opening a passageway that is 10 feet across, essentially joining the cockpit and the saloon into one large living space that the Bruneels have labeled the “cockloon.” There is a second L-shaped dinette right inside the saloon the will seat four so with the sliding doors open, you can have up to 8 people dining together at the two tables. As 44 Multihulls Today • Volume 11, fall
you enter the saloon, the dinette is to port and there’s a bulkhead down the middle of the space to starboard. Behind this is the master stateroom which is entered via door at the forward end of the cabin. The huge galley is in the forward port side of the saloon and has ample counter space, plenty of storage and fridge space and an amazing view of the world around you through the wrap around saloon windows. Across from the galley is the nav station with plenty of space to install instruments and radios and enough desk area to fold out a paper chart. The master stateroom has a large sliding door that when open includes the stateroom into the open flowing space of the saloon. When closed it becomes a private cabin. There is a huge window in the hull above the berth and another interior window at the forward end that allows you to lie in bed and look at the scenery
ahead of you. Or this can be closed off with a curtain. The overall ambience in the saloon, the galley, the chart table and in the master stateroom is of a close connection with the outside through huge windows and of light and ventilation. The primary head on the boat is in the bow of the main hull forward and down three steps from the saloon. It has an enclosed shower stall, an enclosed head and a modern Euro-style sink. The guest cabins in the amas are simple and functional with double berths and storage areas beneath them. The companionways are four steps down and an optional head can be placed behind them. The forepeaks of the amas are large enough to squeeze in two more single berths that are accessed through deck hatches, which means the 47 offers up to eight berths in total. The NEEL 47 carries 80 gallons of diesel fuel and 158 gallons
of water. There is plenty of room in the garage for a genset, watermaker, water heater, a large battery bank and other systems, so, it is set up for extended self-sufficient cruising. If you are looking for a boat that does everything well and provides the sailing performance that you need with great accommodations, the new NEEL 47 trimaran deserves a much closer look. www.neel-trimarans.com
www.MultihullsToday.com 45
Lagoon 42 - February 2016 - Photo Credit: Nicolas Claris
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