The Dragonfly 36 Performance Cruiser marks a bold evolution in multihull design, blending blistering performance, thoughtful comfort, and ingenious versatility. This new 36-foot trimaran from Quorning Boats makes its North American debut after a successful world premiere at boot Düsseldorf 2025, where 19 boats sold before hull number one even hit the water. Designed by Jens Quorning and Steen Olsen, the Dragonfly 36 features a unique signature Swing Wing system that reduces the 26.5-foot beam to 12 feet for docking, while wave-piercing floats and dual rudders ensure speed, stability, and safety in nearly any conditions. Whether you’re chasing offshore thrills or family-friendly coastal cruising, the Dragonfly 36 delivers on all fronts.

Design & Layout

Exterior

The Dragonfly 36 features a dual-zone cockpit designed for both relaxation and high-performance sailing. Forward cockpit seating provides ample comfort, while all sail controls are led aft to four electric winches near the twin helm wheels. Each helm pedestal accommodates up to a 12-inch GPS chartplotter, plus dedicated panels for windlass and bow thruster control. The streamlined deck layout keeps lines out of the way while maintaining complete operational efficiency.

Swing Wing System

Dragonfly’s revolutionary Swing Wing system folds the amas from 26.5 feet to 12 feet in seconds, without tools. The fully composite construction reduces weight, increases strength, and simplifies maintenance. This innovation allows convenient marina docking and trailer transport while maintaining the performance advantages of a wide multihull.

Interior

Step below the companionway into a spacious main cabin offering full standing headroom (6’6”) and panoramic natural light. The interior combines light ash wood or optional elm with hand-sprayed varnish for durability and elegance. Two private cabins accommodate family or crew, while the port sofa converts into a double berth. The galley includes a 2-burner stove with combined oven, an 85-liter fridge, large drawers, and a built-in garbage system. A separate forward head adds privacy, with an optional shower system.

Construction & Systems

The Dragonfly 36 is engineered in Denmark using high-tech composite construction with vacuum infusion, complex tooling, and rigorous strength testing. Core composite parts are optimized for weight, strength, longevity, and maintenance. Electric winches, a kick-up rudder, centerboard system, and a fixed bowsprit simplify sail handling and anchoring. Strategic placement of the sail drive and dual-blade propeller further protects the boat when grounding or drying out. Each float offers generous storage accessible via forward or optional aft hatches.

Sailing & Performance

The Dragonfly 36 is built for speed, stability, and effortless handling. Wave-piercing floats minimize drag, while twin rudders and a broad stern keep the boat balanced at all points of sail. A fixed bowsprit accommodates optional downwind sails like a Code-0, enhancing cruising and performance potential. With its shallow 65 cm draft and innovative hull design, the 36 can safely beach or explore shallow anchorages. Dual electric winches make shorthanded sailing intuitive, while the spacious cockpit allows full crew engagement without clutter.

VIDEO

Watch this quick highlight reel to see the Dragonfly 36 in action on the water:

Options & Configurations

• Versions: Dragonfly 36 Touring (standard) / Dragonfly 36 Performance (taller mast for increased sail area).
• Wood Options: Light ash standard, optional elm.
• Galley Upgrades: Additional storage, drawer systems, refrigerator placement.
• Sail Handling: Optional Code-0, twin tail sheets, racing-specific winch configurations.
• Technology: GPS/chartplotter integration, navigation displays, SEANAPPS monitoring system.

Highlights

The Swing Wing Advantage

Dragonfly’s Swing Wing system is a game-changer for multihull ownership. With a simple folding mechanism, the trimaran transforms from a 26.5-foot-wide performance cruiser into a 12-foot marina-ready vessel in seconds. This allows for easy docking, storage, and even transport on a trailer. Unlike traditional folding amas, the Dragonfly’s all-composite Swing Wing design is lighter, stronger, and easier to maintain. For sailors used to the challenges of wide multihulls, this system represents unparalleled convenience without sacrificing offshore stability or sailing performance.

Trimaran Living at 36 Feet

Despite its racing-inspired performance, the Dragonfly 36 offers a comfortable cruising lifestyle. Two private cabins, a convertible port sofa, and full standing headroom make life aboard surprisingly roomy for a 36-foot trimaran. The galley includes a double fridge, stove, and ample storage, while the main cabin is bathed in natural light through flush-mounted skylights and hull ports. At anchor, the expansive trampolines provide additional deck space for sunbathing, socializing, or kids at play. Smart interior design choices ensure that comfort doesn’t come at the expense of performance or functionality.

Safety & Ease of Handling

Safety is a cornerstone of the Dragonfly 36. The twin rudder setup, wave-piercing floats, and broad stern provide predictable stability across a range of conditions. A shallow draft, kick-up rudder, and centerboard system allow safe grounding or beaching. Electric winches, thoughtfully placed control lines, and a clean dual-helm cockpit make shorthanded sailing effortless. Optional Code-0 and other downwind sails enhance versatility while keeping handling manageable. These features make the Dragonfly 36 ideal for families, small crews, or adventurous sailors who want a high-performance trimaran without compromising safety or comfort.

About the Builder: Quorning Boats

Founded by Børge Quorning in Denmark, Quorning Boats has been a family-driven innovator in trimaran design for decades. The yard builds approximately 40 custom trimarans annually, combining traditional craftsmanship with advanced composite technology. Today, Quorning employs roughly 50 people and maintains a global reputation for stability, performance, and innovation. The Dragonfly line has been central to the company’s success, with each new model pushing boundaries in speed, safety, and living comfort. Quorning’s philosophy balances engineering excellence with hands-on sailing experience, making its trimarans both thrilling to sail and remarkably practical for coastal or offshore adventures.

Editor’s First Take

The Dragonfly 36 is the kind of boat that instantly makes you rethink what a multihull can do. The Swing Wing system alone is a revelation, bringing big-boat stability and speed into a package you can dock or trailer with ease. On the water, the trimaran feels light and responsive but remarkably solid, thanks to the wave-piercing floats and twin rudders. Below decks, there’s more space than you’d expect, with a cozy, modern cabin that makes weekend cruising truly enjoyable. This is a boat that balances adrenaline, family-friendly usability, and cutting-edge innovation, a rare combination in a high-performance cruiser. —CW

Dragonfly 36 Specifications

The post New Boat Preview: Dragonfly 36 appeared first on Cruising World.

When the Caribbean Multihull Challenge (CMC) launched in 2019, it quickly became a winter highlight for sailors who love speed, style, and the unique handling of high-performance catamarans and trimarans. For its eighth edition, set for February 2026 in Sint Maarten, the event is upping the stakes with a brand-new prize — a Line Honors Trophy for the outright fastest yacht in the fleet.

Traditionally, CMC winners have been determined using the CSA handicap rule, rewarding skill, tactics, and boat speed in balance. That system will still be in play, but the new award strips it down to pure pace: first to finish over the regatta’s four race days takes the honors.

“This is about giving skippers and shipyards a platform to show off their stuff,” say organizers. “We want to celebrate flat-out performance on some of the Caribbean’s most exciting race courses.”

The 2026 program includes a 60-mile sprint around St. Barth’s, a 52-mile dash to Saba and back, and a 27-mile navigational challenge weaving through the rocks and cays off Sint Maarten, plus a day of racing along the island’s south shore. Conditions promise a mix of robust tradewinds and manageable seas — ideal for the large-production HHs, Gunboats, ORCs, and Catanas that dominate the multihull performance scene, as well as custom builds.

While the sponsor for the Line Honors Trophy will be announced later, entries are already open. Registration is available at YachtScoring.com and CaribbeanMultihullChallenge.com.

For multihull sailors craving Caribbean breeze, competitive camaraderie, and a chance to push the throttles forward without looking back, the 2026 CMC just raised the bar.

The post Caribbean Multihull Challenge Adds New Line Honors Trophy for 2026 appeared first on Cruising World.

Most of us monohull sailors don’t let on that we ponder alternatives to deep-draft keels and the lead or iron we lug around. We do watch with some envy as multihulls slip blithely over the shoaling parts of the Great Bahama Bank and meander about the skinny waters of Chesapeake Bay. Curiosity often leads to serious conversation, and before long, there’s a new interest in the next boat show. 

At the moment, there’s no ­for-sale sign taped to the mast of my own cruising monohull, Wind Shadow. But I’m nautically curious and always on the lookout for worthy sailboats. I also realize that cruising conditions vary, as does the sailing ­interest and skillset of each crew. So, when I go boat-looking, I like to recall the seafaring wisdom of an old shipwright: “Be sure the tool you choose is the right one for the job at hand.” 

The same can be said about sailboats. When the job is coastal cruising and the setting is an abundance of estuaries, bays, rivers and sounds, plus some short-hop ocean passagemaking, the right tool may very well be a light, agile, folding-­ama trailerable trimaran. Its generous sail-area-to-displacement ratio means that even light winds will become a viable sailing breeze. Weight is the enemy, and payload limits must be viewed as sacrosanct numbers, not to be exceeded. 

 Sailing this kind of trimaran is akin to taking a street-legal sports car onto the track. Set a little less than full sail, don’t crowd the corners, and the encounter will be a free and easy romp. Push too hard in either case, and the ride gets more challenging. 

In both cases, well-practiced contingency plans pay off. These include keeping track of true-wind speed and sail-combo setups. Treat increases in sea state the way a driver handles a wet track. Factor in variables such as crew size and competence, along with how willing you are to push the limit, and contend with the consequences.

Trimaran advocates Charlie and Nona Pucciarello are good examples of hardcore multihull sailors who have transitioned into performance cruising. They savor the time spent sailing from anchorage to anchorage as much as they enjoy the harbors they visit. Charlie’s years of dinghy racing at the US Naval Academy and his aircraft carrier flight ops as an F-14 pilot left certain performance expectations in play, but today, he’s a more sedate airline pilot. Years of racing and cruising a Farrier-31 led to the Pucciarellos’ current Corsair 37, an appropriate blend of ­adventure and relaxation.

As a couple, they demonstrate that sailhandling and safety go hand in hand. Their routine is anything but a dialed-­back reefed-down slog. Hot Chocolate is set up to expedite sail trimming and reefing efficiency. Hardware upgrades vary from optimized winches to lead-block locations selected to maintain a fairlead. Charlie and Nona doublehand the Corsair 37, and they used the underway experiences garnered aboard their F-31 to help fine-tune the bigger Corsair. Their “been there, done that” database is equivalent to that of the veteran sports-car driver who has spun out a time or two and knows what’s necessary.

They like the idea of the latest headsail-handling hardware used on small to midsize trimarans, to minimize crew time on the foredeck. Either a reacher or an asymmetric spinnaker can be tacked to the retractable sprit pole. The roller-furling ­operation is initiated via an endless-line roller furler. It relies on a single large-diameter sheave that replaces the ­more-familiar roller-furling drum. The control rope is an end-to-end spliced loop with only one turn around the grooved and caged furling sheave. The double line is fed back to the cockpit using a series of twin-block fairleads. 

These foilless furlers substitute a stiff torsion-resistant line as the connection between the tack and the top ­swivel. Sails with narrower head girth (drifters and reachers) use a bottom-up furler. These units are designed to initiate the luff twist at deck level and then ­allow the torsion cable to project the furling rotation aloft to the head swivel. Because of the asymmetric spinnaker’s much-fuller head, it’s advantageous to have the furling ­process begin aloft and ­progress in a downward fashion. 

Top-down furling tends to be a bit more of a challenge. Sailors who are new to endless-line sprit-pole sailhandling are better off starting out with a ­moderately sized drifter/reacher (aka screacher) and handling it with a bottom-up endless-line furler.

The mainsail on the most ­efficient sailing multihulls is ­indeed a force to reckon with. And at the heart of good seamanship is knowing how to reef efficiently, along with recognizing when it’s time to do so. The process has been helped immensely thanks to lighter, stronger, much-less-stretch-prone cordage, and more-efficient turning blocks and rope clutches that lock line into place with the jaw hold of a gator. The absence of a backstay means there’s room for a square-top full-batten main, with lots of sail area aloft. It warrants a dedicated reefing winch, lazy jacks and a hammock, or a stack pack-style mainsail containment system.   

Every multihull sailor needs to develop a keen awareness of form stability and how it relates to angle of heel. The monohull sailor has a safety valve in the form of secondary righting moment derived from ballast. It ­delivers capsize resistance at deeper angles of heel. This secondary source of stability is missing in multihulls. 

However, widespread high-volume amas provide buoyancy that acts in opposition to the heeling moment. When the angle of heel is less than 20 degrees, a multihull’s resistance to capsize is far greater than that of a monohull. Still, in heavy weather offshore, large swells affect wave-face geometry, and the water plane on which a vessel floats can become steeply inclined. This can significantly decrease the influence of buoyancy derived from stability. Heavy-weather storm tactics for multihulls take this into consideration.

The post Rigged to Rip: How Trimarans Maximize Speed and Simplicity appeared first on Cruising World.

Way back when, several decades ago, I scored my first ride aboard a cruising ­trimaran: a sweet, cold-molded beauty called Juniper. Today, naval architect Chris White is well-known for his long line of Atlantic catamarans, all of which are laid out with his ­signature feature: a forward cockpit for the helm and sail controls (something that several notable designers and brands, including Gunboat, have copied). White has always been a multihull man, and it’s interesting that for his own first boat, he chose a tri, on which he completed several offshore voyages from New England to the Bahamas.

Personally, I loved Juniper, an elegant creation that sailed like a witch. And it had a ­beautiful, handcrafted wood ­interior. But to me, the yacht’s basic ­configuration also seemed like a major drawback, something that would prohibit trimarans from becoming mainstream cruisers. 

The accommodations were confined to its central hull, with a relatively narrow beam that limited options. As time went by—and the multihull world became dominated by cats—I felt quite smug about my ­early observation: If you want a true, cruising multihull, you’ve got to go with a cat. Trimarans weren’t on the radar. 

In recent times, thanks to my role as a judge for Cruising World’s annual Boat of the Year contest, I’ve been persuaded to rework my original stance. In 2024, our panel was collectively blown away by a Danish import, the Dragonfly 40, which easily won the prize for Best Performance Trimaran. As sweet as that Dragonfly was, with accommodations that were well-executed, they remained confined in the same way as those on Juniper. 

For 2025, though, we stepped aboard a trimaran that was a much different beast. The Neel 52 greatly expanded the interior options and layout by spreading them out over much of the boat’s nearly 30-foot beam. It was a groundbreaking boat, and we recognized it as such, awarding it top honors in the Best Full-Size Multihulls Over 50 Feet category versus a pair of big, stellar catamarans (the Windelo 54 Yachting and the Xquisite 60 Solar Sail). At least for 2025, in our humble opinions, three hulls were ­better than two.

For the 52’s lines, the company commissioned the Lombard Design Office, which is still knocking out good boats ­following the death of its founding naval architect, Marc Lombard. Here’s their summation of the design brief: “To create multipurpose arrangements with up to six ­double cabins with direct access from the central main cabin. Aesthetic lines with moderate freeboard. A strong and stiff platform. Less hull drag, more dynamic trim at high speeds. Improved hull shapes for better efficiency and safety in waves, an important requirement for an ocean-crossing trimaran.”

Generally speaking, I’ve ­always considered the lines of a trimaran—that relatively prominent middle hull sandwiched by a pair of graceful amas, like a set of wings—to be more aesthetically pleasing than those of many cruising cats, which can sometimes appear boxy. And to my eye, the 52 is a good-looking vessel with a host of features. The raised helm station to starboard, minimalist coachroof with expansive windows, upper-deck lounge with settees and a sunbed, dedicated sprit forward for off-wind sails and ground tackle, and pair of swim platforms aft all blend together to make a pleasing whole. There are robust stainless-steel grab rails everywhere, and synthetic teak accentuates the wide side decks.

The boat’s signature ­feature, however, lies within the ­interior framework, in what the ­company had dubbed the “cockloon.” It’s an open floor plan that combines the beam-width cockpit (an outdoor ­galley is an option) with the central saloon. The bridge deck also houses the owner’s stateroom, a professional-grade ­galley, and a nicely rendered ­navigation station fitted out with a suite of B&G instrumentation. The delightful views from the ­panoramic array of windows is all-encompassing.

Down below, there are ­several layouts with ­multiple ­double cabins, including a V-berth forward in the bow (on our test boat, one of those bedrooms was swapped for a generous technical room with a workbench, workspace and tool stowage).

Fellow Boat of the Year judge Mark Pillsbury was quite ­enamored of the cockloon arrangement: “Owners don’t just get their own stateroom aboard the Neel 52 trimaran. They get a two-story suite with a head, shower and private ­office ­located aft in the starboard ama. There’s a stunning view from the walk-around double berth, with picture windows affixed with venetian blinds, which is located on the bridge deck. The living space on this boat is tremendous.”

Indeed, this is a voluminous yacht, and the relatively deep draft (for a multihull) of almost 6 feet in its fixed keel provides lots of space for the creative Neel team. The US importer for the boat is Miami-based broker Alex Sastre, who played a major role in developing the quite incredible engine room nestled deep in the boat’s innards. It houses a 48-volt system that’s charged with an integral set of twin alternators and a solar array (our test boat was also equipped with a hefty Cummins Onan genset and a lithium-ion battery bank, both of which are optional). All of it is clearly labeled and totally ­accessible, as are all the ­hoses and plumbing manifolds. There is also quick and ready access to the steering quadrant. 

All of this also caught Pillsbury’s attention: “I could have spent the better part of a day going through the Neel’s engine room. There was even a bank of chargers for all your onboard power-tool batteries.” 

Construction is solid and employs vinylester resin with an infused foam core. The handsome furniture and joiner work in the interior is solid oak. The standard double-spreader rig is aluminum, but a carbon mast, including the one on our test ride, is optional. Auxiliary power is provided by a 150 hp Volvo Penta diesel with a saildrive configuration, and docking is assisted with a Max Power bow thruster.

At the end of the day, though, every sailboat will ultimately be judged by the simplest of criteria: how well it performs under sail. In our sea trials this past fall on Chesapeake Bay in a 14- to 16-knot ­northwesterly breeze, the 52 just smoked it. It’s hard to describe the sensation of steering the boat from the raised helm station. It’s something akin to taking a tennis court for a spin. It’s otherworldly. 

The powerful, square-topped full-battened mainsail provided plenty of punch (a company rep said that it does not require reefing in less than 25 knots of breeze). The test boat had a full set of excellent Incidence sails from the popular French sail loft, including a jib, genoa, code zero and gennaker, all of which are controlled with a full suite of Harken winches and hardware. 

The Neel reps said that the 52 will easily average better than 200 nautical miles on passage, and clearly they were not ­exaggerating. Jibing downwind with the big asymmetric kite, the boat easily topped 9 knots. Closehauled under genoa, the boat averaged 8.5 knots to windward with a maximum speed of 9.2 knots. Steering from that elevated wheel was a delight, with best-in-show 360-degree visibility at all times, something that can’t be said on most catamarans. Our judging group was unanimous: It was easily one of the contest’s best sea trials. 

Back in the day, after sailing Juniper, it was difficult for me to envision a path forward for cruising tris to gain wide acceptance. And, truth be told, it’s still a steep, uphill road. But the Neel 52 makes the case that trimarans are not only viable, but they offer real advantages as well. If you want to start a revolution, that’s a good place to begin. 

Take the Next Step

PRICE: $1.65 million (as tested)
CONTACT: pyachtsales.com

A Legacy Realized 

There’s no question that the Neel brand of trimarans would not exist if not for the vision and drive of the company’s namesake and founder, Eric Bruneel. A talented shorthanded offshore racing sailor, his career took a winding path. For many years, he was the director of Fountaine-Pajot catamarans, one of France’s oldest and most popular builders. As a racer, however, for his own boats, he preferred the speed and stability of a trimaran, and he eventually launched his own firm with the goal of introducing cruising tris to the masses. He has since moved on, but his original concept appears to be in safe hands.

Full Speed Ahead

The Neel 52, the builder’s new flagship, replaces a 51-footer in the lineup, which also currently offers a 43- and a 47-footer (a 37 and a 44 have been discontinued). Among the 10 hulls of the 52 delivered thus far, all have had slightly different layouts, a testament to the company’s willingness to adapt to owners’ requirements. Neel produces about a dozen boats a year, with the goal of ramping up to 24 yachts annually.

CW editor-at-large Herb McCormick was a 2025 Boat of the Year judge.

The post Neel 52 Trimaran Review: A Game-Changer for Performance Cruisers appeared first on Cruising World.

The breeze was pumping off the tidy anchorage of Anse Marcel on the French side of the Caribbean island of Saint-Martin, where a dozen multihulls were hoisting their sails and prepping for a fast reach across the roiling Anguilla Channel. It was the second day of the ­inaugural rally component of the annual Caribbean Multihull Challenge.

With a singular exception, the fleet was composed of performance catamarans from builders such as Balance and Lagoon, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the slick graphics and sleek lines of the lone trimaran in the fray, a Neel 45 called Panda Rosso. The boat was one thing, but I was actually more interested in the young couple sailing it, Darren and Amanda Seltzer. We’d met the previous summer when chance, and a mutual friend, had brought us all together for a fairly wild day of sailing on a race boat off blustery Newport, Rhode Island. I’d mentioned the rally to them back then, and now, lo and behold, here they were. 

Amanda and Darren sail a pretty cool trimaran, but their unlikely high-seas journey to get to the islands—while launching a business offering prospective cruisers, as they once were, opportunities for learning and adventure—was even cooler. 

They met in Orlando, Florida, each pushing pencils at corporate gigs; both came from active, outdoorsy backgrounds, none of which involved sailing. Accomplished scuba divers, they were ­actually streaming YouTube diving videos (“Don’t cringe!” Darren said) when they came across the Sailing SV Delos channel and a light went off. 

Wait, what? You could dive from your own sailboat? 

“We instantly went down this YouTube rabbit hole of sailing videos,” Darren said, with Amanda adding: “Addicted. That’s what we were.” 

They swapped their jobs and possessions for a 39-foot Amel Sharki they named Panda (Amanda’s nickname), with the idea of a cruising-diving safari through the South Pacific.

When the pandemic hit and the isles they’d dreamed of exploring shut down, they pivoted to what was open and available. “Greenland,” Darren said. “It was like sailing through the Yosemite or Yellowstone but with ice.”

From there, it was on to the United Kingdom and a long winter spent on the River Hamble, where they came up with the idea of making their new avocation their vocation with their own YouTube videos, and by offering training trips and passages on their own boat. Sure, there were plenty of other folks with the same idea, but on a multihull?

“We were looking for something different, something that would stand out,” Darren said, explaining their choice for a new trimaran, this one called Panda Rosso. “It had to perform well. Where are folks buying a multihull going to get experience sailing one? That’s the opportunity we saw.” And the one they seized upon.

Their second trans-Atlantic passage, a 16-day blast back to the islands, was decidedly quicker than their first one on the Sharki. When I caught up with them again in Saint-Martin, they had a couple of clients aboard, and a two-year itinerary and business plan that would take them back up the US East Coast with a return to the Caribbean. For 2024, they’re planning an ambitious Atlantic circle with stops in the Azores, Scotland and the Canaries before another trip across the pond to the tropics. 

“From the time we got into sailing to now making it our business, we’ve had the same approach,” Darren said. “We’re all in, with 100 percent effort.”

And that’s where they were, at least figuratively speaking, when I saw them disappear over the horizon, bound for Anguilla. With the spinnaker set and the spray flying off a trio of hulls, Panda Rosso was in control and tracking like a freight train. Precisely like the couple sailing her.  

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large. 

The post Young Couple Creates Sail Training Business Onboard a Performance Trimaran appeared first on Cruising World.

Once the Boat of the Year team was aboard the Neel 43 trimaran and we had the sails set, it didn’t take me long to find my sweet spot. You know, the place you want to sit and watch the miles fly by as the hulls slice through the waves. Nearly every boat I’ve sailed has one, though sometimes it’s hard to find.

But not on the Neel.

With my fellow judges at work at the raised helm station, I stepped from the wheel onto the wide starboard side deck, took a couple of steps down into the ­cockpit, and wandered into the brightly lit salon where the door to the owner’s cabin was open, as though beckoning in a visitor. Inside, I sat on the edge of the fore-and-aft double berth, set a hand on the bunk, and leaned over to gaze out the long horizontal window, imagining coming off watch and lying there to drift off to sleep. Or waking up in some exotic anchorage, with morning sunlight streaking in. Even dockside, during our preliminary inspection of the boat and a briefing with Neel founder Eric Bruneel, that was the space that caught my eye.

On the inboard side of the stateroom, a long horizontal glass panel covered by an ­adjustable shade looks in toward the center of the boat and over the inline galley ­located on the salon’s starboard side. Forward, there are more windows that let you look ahead at where you’re ­going. Aft, a light-colored wood bulkhead separates the cabin from the head compartment at the rear of the salon. With storage outboard of the berth, it’s a well-laid-out space for living aboard.

Described by Bruneel as a “fast cruiser,” the Neel 43 is designed to sail comfortably at 9 to 10 knots and knock off 250-mile trade-wind days. That description wasn’t far off, from what we saw the day we went sailing on Chesapeake Bay, right after the close of the United States Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland. The wind was light when set out, only about 8 knots, but we hustled right along upwind at 6 to 7 knots with the twin-headsail rig’s smaller inner jib set. Later, with the reaching sail rolled out in just a bit more breeze, we added a knot or more. During my trick on the wheel, I spotted 8.2 knots on the speedo for a spell.

And the sailing was easy, thanks to the buoyancy of the leeward hull that minimizes heel, and the fact that all the weight—engine, tanks, pumps and filters—is located low in the center hull. That, combined with the interior space made possible by spreading accommodations over three hulls, is what makes these trimarans comfortable at sea, Bruneel says.

Neel builds its trimarans at its yard in La Rochelle, France. The 43 is the smallest model in a five-boat range that goes up to 65 feet. The 43 is a Marc Lombard design.

Hulls and deck are made of resin-infused fiberglass with foam coring to save weight. Where practical in nonstructural areas, the yard uses natural fibers such as linen and cork rather than fiberglass, in a push toward greener boatbuilding. 

The fit-and-finish of the boat we looked at in Annapolis was noteworthy. The cockpit has a table to port with an L-shaped seating area outboard and aft, located under the Bimini top. To starboard is a grill built into the transom, as well as a cushioned lounging area beneath the helm station.

A wall of glass, with a large opening door and window, spans the aft side of the wide cabin, whose other three sides are lined with ports so that from the interior, one has nearly 360-degree visibility.

A second table is located just inside the salon, to port, also with L-shaped seating. Outboard of it, there’s a guest cabin, separated from the salon by another glass partition. 

An additional seating area and nav station equipped with a B&G chart plotter, displays, autopilot control and radio are far forward on the port side of the salon, with the well-appointed galley opposite. A third crew cabin is four steps down, in the forepeak of the center hull. 

Beneath the main hull’s sole is an equipment room providing excellent access to the motor (a 50 hp Volvo with saildrive), steering ­quadrant, systems and electrical ­boxes—a true engine room, which is hard to find on a boat in this size range. 

“It had absolutely the best service access to systems of all the boats we looked at this year,” Boat of the Year judge Ed Sherman noted. 

Topside, broad side decks make it easy to move about. There is a wide seat at the helm, with room for three. All sail-control lines run across the cabin top to a bank of line clutches and a pair of winches, all from Antal, that are easily reached while steering. Singlehanding the Neel would not be a problem. 

The boat in Annapolis sported an Intracoastal Waterway-friendly 62-foot aluminum spar; a carbon-fiber rig is an option. The boat also came equipped with three 170-watt solar panels and a bow thruster. Loaded with gear, it carried a price tag of $575,000.

Overall, I thought that the Neel’s open-living layout would be just fine for a couple who might have occasional guests aboard for a passage, or a small family with children out for an extended cruise. But I’ll give Boat of the Year judge Herb McCormick the last word here: “It was a remarkably fun and exciting boat to sail, a light and lovely helm. Eric Bruneel has amply demonstrated that if you’re looking to go the multihull route, a trimaran is a viable alternative to a cat.” 

Neel 43 Trimaran Specifications

Mark Pillsbury, Boat of the Year judge and CW editor-­at-large, is a die-hard sailor who has owned a number of sailboats, including a Sabre 34, on which he lived for 15 years.

The post Sailboat Review: Neel 43 Trimaran appeared first on Cruising World.

In the sport of sailing in 2021, foiling is all the rage and has completely revolutionized our game. Catamarans have been foiling in the America’s Cup for nearly a decade and have since spawned an entirely new breed of foiling monohull. Partially as a result of these unprecedented investments in foiling technology, the trickle-down has been rapid, widespread and eminently consequential. From the explosion of the foiling Moth dinghy and foiling beach cats and monohulls to the adaptation of hydrofoils on everything from surfboards and SUPs to Vendée Globe solo offshore rockets, kiteboards, and one-design racers—and even some cruising yachts—foiling has touched every aspect of yacht design. However, long before foiling went mainstream, there was one famous French foiling trimaran blazing its own bold path well above the ocean’s surface: l’Hydroptère.

The History

When the 60-foot l’Hydroptère was originally conceived in the 1970s, she more closely resembled a far-fetched futuristic concept of what a racing sailboat might one day look like than an actual boat. Compared with the heavy-displacement keelboats of the day, l’Hydroptère appeared to be something off the TV show The Jetsons. Conceived by the godfather of French offshore racing, Eric Tabarly, the initial concept of l’Hydroptère was simple. With wings riding under the water, the boat could achieve lift and then rise above its surface, thus greatly reducing the boat’s hydrodynamic drag while exponentially increasing its speed potential. Simply put, the idea was to marry sailing and flight; appropriately, l’Hydroptère’s name is a combination of the Greek word hydros, for water, and the French term, ptère, for wing.

To pioneer the concept of a flying boat isn’t easy, and the many failures—and hard-earned victories—of l’Hydroptère are a testament to this fact. Working in conjunction with the now-dominant design firm VPLP and some of France’s top boatbuilders, project manager Alain Thébault, Tabarly and their collaborators worked through several evolutions of the basic l’Hydroptère concept before building the boat that would eventually crush world sailing speed records, inspire legions of sailors, and become the subject of sailing folklore.

After beginning with a simple wooden version of the concept in 1976 using a Tornado catamaran hull as the main central hull, by the mid-1980s, the team moved on to small, remote-controlled prototypes, followed by a one-man, one-third-scale flying boat by the early 1990s. In 1994, the dream literally took flight when a full-scale prototype was hovering well above the water off the coast of France. But in 1995, while sailing at close to 30 knots of boatspeed, l’Hydroptère suffered the structural failure of a port crossbeam and quickly crashed down to the water’s surface. Fortunately, the boat was salvaged and brought back to port.

Half a dozen years later, in 2001, the fourth and final iteration of l’Hydroptère was launched. Almost immediately after hitting the water, its increased speed potential was evident. In 2005, l’Hydroptère sailed across the English Channel at a sustained average speed of nearly 40 knots, eclipsing Louis Blériot’s first record for flying across the English Channel in an airplane in 1909. Two years later, in April 2007, l’Hydroptère sailed into the record books as the fastest sailboat over both 500 meters and 1 nautical mile, earning its first (but not last) World Sailing Speed Record.

In December 2008, Thébault and his men peaked at more than 56 knots, ­briefly, before breaching l’Hydroptère’s foils and then immediately pitchpoling into a capsize. Undaunted, the team came back in 2009 stronger than ever and set another World Sailing Speed Record, this time covering 500 meters at an average speed of more than 51.3 knots of boatspeed with a peak of nearly 59 knots; it was an incredible achievement, and marked the first time a boat officially crossed the near-mythical 50-knot barrier for a sustained period of time. Coincidentally, this 50-knot barrier represents the current speed limit for the America’s Cup and Sail GP catamarans. Any faster, and foil ventilation and cavitation begins to rear its ugly head.

Highs and Lows

Entering a new decade in 2010, Thébault and his men secured another injection of funding for an entirely new adventure. With one World Sailing Speed Record firmly in hand, tri now aimed toward an infinitely larger racetrack: the Pacific Ocean. In May 2012, the boat arrived in the port of Long Beach, California, on a container ship to undergo further optimization before embarking on an ambitious record attempt to sail some 2,215 miles to Honolulu, Hawaii. With consistent trade winds and the long, groomed swells of the Pacific, the Transpac Race course was identified as the best potential venue to prove the concept of flying across an ocean—a goal that l’Hydroptère’s visionary, Tabarly, who had since passed away, had been pursuing since before the early 1980s when he sailed one of the world’s first ocean foilers, Paul Ricard, across the Atlantic and into the record books.

With a crew that included Vendée Globe legends Yves Parlier and Jean le Cam, as well as round-the-world multihull ace Jacques Vincent, l’Hydroptère was well-primed to fly to Hawaii in record time. Unfortunately, the 2012 record attempt was scrapped, and l’Hydroptère was instead moved to the San Francisco Bay area. On the hunt for sponsorship dollars there and in nearby Silicon Valley, l’Hydroptère began preparing for another assault on the Transpac course record the following year in 2013. The record, held by Frenchman Olivier de Kersauson and his crew on board the maxi-trimaran Geronimo, was set at just 4 days, 19 hours, 31 minutes, 37 seconds—certainly a very quick time to cover over 2,000 nautical miles, but it was well within the scope of a big, modern foiling trimaran.

However, the 2013 record attempt was also aborted. Perpetually strapped for cash and seemingly swimming against the tide in many respects, l’Hydroptère wouldn’t set sail for Hawaii until 2015. That year, with meager funds and their high-profile, rock-star sailors back in France, l’Hydroptère crossed the starting line with a crew of lesser-known, less-­experienced sailors. Both the team and the weather window proved suboptimal. Attempting to run downwind in light air, this hydrofoiling reaching monster was relegated to drifting toward the islands at a relative snail’s pace, firmly stuck to the surface of the water. No foiling equals no fun. And certainly no speed record.

After an unsuccessful and embarrassingly slow Transpacific record attempt that took nearly 11 days—well over twice their goal—l’Hydroptère was left unceremoniously tied alongside a dock in Honolulu’s Kewalo Basin. The French program, already severely underfunded, eventually abandoned the tri in Hawaii. After a prolonged spell at Kewalo Basin, she was eventually moved to a state mooring ball in Keehi Lagoon. For most boats, this is akin to receiving a slowly implemented death sentence featuring no shortage of cruel and unusual punishment along the way.

Of all the seedy harbors in the state, perhaps no place is worse than the Keehi Lagoon mooring field. Located right ­beneath the flight path to the ­international airport, Keehi is loud, dusty, smelly and incessantly windy. Notorious for its derelict boats, floating meth labs and gross mismanagement, it’s a place where once-great boats go to die. Way in the back, just astern of the two submerged rigs of a sunken ketch, lay one of the fastest sailboats the world had ever seen, on its own downward spiral toward an ignominious death. To a passionate racing and cruising sailor like me, this was about as sad as it gets

No doubt about it, l’Hydroptère had hit rock bottom. Which meant there was only one way to go: up.

The Dream Renewed

For l’Hydroptère to be rescued and resurrected at this juncture, a savior was required. Luckily for the ­down-and-out vessel, not one but two such souls ­miraculously appeared.

“I had first seen l’Hydroptère several years earlier in Southern California while preparing for a Transpac race, and she certainly piqued my curiosity,” says Chris Welsh of Point Richmond, California. In June 2019, the abandoned l’Hydroptère went up for public auction, and Welsh was on an airplane to Honolulu to look her over more closely and place a bid on the boat. Owner of the Spencer 65 Ragtime—a veteran of more Transpacs than any other boat in history, and not coincidentally purchased from a police auction—Welsh had some history with massive multihulls as well. He owned Steve Fossett’s old maxi-catamaran Playstation, which had been converted to a powerboat named Cheyenne. Welsh clearly wasn’t afraid to take on an ambitious project with a famous and historic old boat. A prominent West Coast yachtsman who also owns Point Richmond’s commercial Sugar Dock ­marina, Welsh had both the resources and the vision to bring a boat like ­l’Hydroptère back to life.

But he wasn’t the only one.

“It was always in my heart to follow this boat,” Frenchman Gabriel Terrasse says. “I had discovered l’Hydroptère at the Paris Boat Show in 1998, and then I went on the internet to learn more and I could not find anything, so I built a website about the boat. A few months later, the l’Hydroptère team had me build their official web page.” Fast-forward nearly two decades, and Gabriel’s interest in the boat had not dwindled. “In 2016, when the boat was first abandoned and for sale in Honolulu, I thought to buy her, but I was not quick enough. I knew l’Hydroptère had more inside her, more to accomplish, so when I heard that the boat was up for auction in 2019, I flew to Honolulu to buy her.”

The two competing bidders met the night before the auction. “That is when I first met Gabriel,” Welsh says. “We were both there to buy l’Hydroptère. After talking, we shook hands and decided to team up.” This would prove to be the beginning of a very special, if unlikely, friendship. Welsh says, “With my yard in the Bay Area, it would just be so much easier and cheaper to refit the boat there, so we figured out what she needed to make the trip, hired a delivery captain, and then spent most of the summer getting the boat ready to sail back to San Francisco.”

A professional racing sailor on the West Coast, Hawaii and Asia, Mike Price was the delivery skipper tasked with getting l’Hydroptère back across the Pacific. “At its worst, l’Hydroptère was in very poor shape,” he recalls. “The coffee grinders had been stripped, the clutches and winches were removed, and the steering system, which was hydraulic, was ripped apart on one side but left intact on the other. Someone had bashed in the entry hatch and stolen the chart plotter, GPS and electronics. They left in place most of the hydraulics for the flight-control systems, but the sails and everything else were gone.”

A lesser sailor might’ve walked away, but even in her dilapidated condition, for Price, the sheer brilliance of l’Hydroptère shone through. “Structurally, the boat was very well-intact,” he says. “The hull was built a long time ago, and it was uncharacteristically overbuilt out of carbon. There were no breaks or cracks in the laminate or between structures. Being made completely out of carbon and titanium, everything seemed very solid. The mast and the standing rigging looked fine.”

Even so, before embarking on the trip to California, l’Hydroptère underwent a Honolulu refit that included a new diesel engine, some cobbled-together delivery sails, fresh deck hardware and winches, new backstays, and a lot of new lashings for the sail controls and rigging.

Then, Price says, “we brought a ton of diesel fuel, lashed it down everywhere we could find room, and left on the most benign weather window that presented itself. We had very flat seas and light air for the first 800 miles. We motored for six days at 5 to 6 knots, and it was nice for most of the passage. But it’s a very wet boat! At some point, every piece of electronics crapped out and had to be rewired at sea. The most wind that we ever saw was 25 knots, and we sailed the boat super conservatively with the foils all the way decambered to keep l’Hydroptère firmly in nonfoiling mode. We cruised under jib only when it was windy and made the passage in good shape. But it was something like science fiction, man. What a cool boat!”

Shortly after the boat returned to California, the COVID-19 pandemic brought much of the world to a halt, though this would prove to be a blessing in disguise for the newly reassembled l’Hydroptère team. “It was strangely good fortune that we ended up with five people all stuck together for 90 days,” Welsh says. “We got a lot done because we didn’t have a lot of distractions, so we just made the most of it. We cleaned up the boat and got everything out of it. It needed to be disassembled in a way that you could inventory the condition of things and restore them before putting it back together. In doing so, we were pleasantly surprised that the boat had survived the sun in Hawaii better than we expected.” Unfortunately, due to visa restrictions, Terrasse had to return to France, where he’s pursued new technical partners.

“L’Hydroptère is a big, tough boat,” Welsh says of the vessel he’s still learning about. “She is not some delicate wallflower that takes 25 guys to run. She was solidly constructed out of carbon and titanium, and is built for real sailing. She’s strong enough to try other foils, and there are some clear pathways to making her lighter. And l’Hydroptère is an interesting platform to move forward with, and there is still potential for some record breaking, particularly with point-to-point passages.”

Likewise, Terrasse insists that there is a lot more left in l’Hydroptère’s tank and that there remains a world of possibility. “We want to make her fly again,” he says. “To improve her. I’m working on the R&D to make her faster, with new technology. L’Hydroptère was built with 20-year-old technology. With rigid sails (a wing), with new foils for higher speeds, with more weight reduction…. There is a long list of possibilities. We have a big wish list. It is a nice and crazy project!”

Sailors are, by nature, dreamers. It’s one of the qualities that makes this sport so beautiful and keeps us all coming back. As well, the boats themselves, and the adventures that those vessels have inspired, have an uncanny ability to bring people together. From the forward-thinking sailors and engineers who first dreamed up this magnificent flying boat nearly 50 years ago to the unlikely cast of characters who are today bringing it back to life in Northern California and in France, ­l’Hydroptère has inspired legions of sailing fans for decades and continues to do so to this day. In a world in need of some good news right now, the unlikely renaissance of the world’s first famous flying boat—and the new bridges that have been built as a result—continue to remind us that anything is possible. What will ­l’Hydroptère’s next chapter bring? We don’t know. But we can’t wait to find out.

Offshore cruiser and racer Ronnie Simpson is a CW contributing editor.

The post The Return of l’Hydroptere appeared first on Cruising World.

Gather round for the story of Thunderbird, a 49-foot cruising trimaran for a growing family with, yes, a half-dozen adventurous and athletic kids —a huge step up from the Open 40 monohull they used to call home…and a truly magic ride to the surf spots and rock walls where they all thrive.

After two days of air travel from Port of Spain, Trinidad, a layover in Paramaribo, Suriname, then to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, our motion finally came to a halt. The airport shuttle stopped in the arts district of Amsterdam Noord on a quiet street that ran between the former NDSM shipyard and a waterfront canal. My husband, James Burwick, our five kids, and our driver off-loaded bags out of the van onto a sidewalk next to docks adjacent to the Rhebergen Multihull Yachts yard. Sweet-smelling summer wildflowers taller than my three youngest ­children stretched along the verge; the sun was shining, ­butterflies fluttered, and bees were buzzing.

On the ground next to us, our entire lives were packed into four duffel bags, one tool bag and a camera bag. The kids each carried a backpack with their personal belongings. We told them they could bring from our former boat, an Open 40 called Anasazi Girl, to our new yacht—a completely different one in almost every way—­anything they could fit into bags and carry on their backs.

We looked through the chain-link fence. All of us were wild with excitement as we stared at the big white trimaran floating on the canal with blue Victron Energy logos on the amas and the name Sound of Silence on the hull. There before us was our new home and sailboat.

It was late June 2019 when we’d found her: a Peter Bosgraaf-designed Gaviota 49 cruising tri. The seven of us had been living aboard Anasazi Girl like sardines at Crews Inn Marina, in Trinidad’s port of Chaguaramas. Over a year had passed since we had made any significant sailing passages.

On so many fronts, things were about to change dramatically.

Where to begin?

So many amazing life experiences had ­unfolded in the five years since breaking Anasazi Girl’s mast in the Southern Ocean in 2014. After more than two years of hard work in the high latitudes of South America, we’d successfully earned the funds needed to pay for the replacement rig and cost of the epic transport from Watsonville, California, to Puerto Williams, Chile. During our dismasted period, we became residents of Chile, formed a Chilean LLC for our marine services, yacht brokerage and photo business, and I gave birth to my fourth child, Tarzan.

Miraculously, Buzz Ballenger’s alloy rig and two pallets of equipment and sails had arrived safely and undamaged. With the help of the Armada de Chile—the Chilean navy—we successfully stepped the replacement rig on the existing carbon mast stump in November 2016.

After sea trials in the Beagle Channel and completing our voyage prep list, we were ready to depart. In March 2017, we sailed with our family along the entire Atlantic coast of South America from the Beagle Channel to the Caribbean Sea. Our four kids—Tormentina, Raivo, Pearl and Tarzan—were ages 8, 6, 4 and 11 months, respectively, when we departed.

While en route from Rio to the Caribbean, we crossed our old track from 2011 off the coast of Recife, completing our ­circumnavigation with our two oldest kids. A milestone.

From July 2017, when we arrived in Grenada, to March 2018, we did a refit and delivery, as well as a brokerage project that allowed our family to keep sailing on a bigger boat: a Kiwi-owned, Chuck Paine-designed Bougainvillea 62. We took the Bougainvillea halfway down the coast of South America, from the Caribbean Sea to Rio de la Plata, off the south coast of Uruguay. The vessel was sold underway to a buyer we showed the boat to in Salvador, Brazil. Our bags were rolling down the dock two days after arriving in Punta del Este, Uruguay, and we were soon en route by buses and planes back to Chile.

Our kids are exceptional athletes, so after the delivery, we invested in private rock-climbing and surfing lessons with pro instructors. The kids climbed in the mountain towns of El Chalten, Argentina, and Puerto Natales, Chile, and learned how to surf the waves surrounding the famous Chilean break at Punta de Lobos. We dealt with residency papers, Chilean taxes, drivers’ license renewals, our LLC, and reporting Tarzan’s birth to the US Consulate so he could get a US passport in addition to his Chilean one.

By the end of May 2018, business was in order, we were back in the Caribbean for hurricane season, and I was pregnant with our fifth child. We stayed aboard Anasazi Girl, now tied up at Camper & Nicholson’s Port Louis Marina in St. George’s, Grenada. The marina’s high-speed, on-the-dock cable internet made working in our virtual offices efficient. We carefully lived on the income from the Bougainvillea and my photo sales, keeping constant watch on any tropical systems that might force us to move south to Trinidad.

Port Louis Marina facilities were clean and secure, with an ATM, bakery, restaurants, shops and various marine businesses on the property. Six on the boat was tight, but after caring for someone else’s vessel and renting funky short-term housing in South America, it was nice to be back in our own space. We appreciated the low-maintenance and functional simplicity of Anasazi Girl. Lack of indoor space was balanced with a full-time, active outdoor life.

The kids wanted to surf bigger waves and climb higher-grade stone routes. They got strong, lean and fit, swimming laps in the pool, in inland freshwater holes, and snorkeling and freediving at Grand Anse Beach. The island was an excellent backdrop for creating outdoor and active kids’ imagery aimed at the photo department of a longtime supporting client, Patagonia Inc.

Because we had one more on the way, James was constantly working and scouring the internet for a bigger boat. Our circumnavigation was over. Thanks to the kindness of the owners of the Bougainvillea, we had been fortunate to prolong the gift of sailing with the family a bit longer, but now our sailing days seemed finished. Anasazi Girl was on the market, and though there were always interested parties, nothing serious materialized. With no sailing voyages planned and our funds slowly disappearing, it was not long before we began mentally rotting in port.

In October 2018, James flew to the Netherlands and France to help a client from Brooklyn inspect several boats, one of which he purchased. The funds from the sale provided us with just enough of a budget to fly to Chile and back for the birth of our daughter Jade that December. Like Tarzan, she held dual US/Chilean nationality. Afterward, James got a job managing the refit of a Chris White-designed Atlantic Cat 55 in Chaguaramas, and we returned to Trinidad.

The project was estimated to take two months. We were totally unsure how we could pull it off aboard Anasazi Girl with seven people—after all, the boat had originally been designed for solo and shorthanded adventures—but decided we would make it work.

On arrival to Trinidad in February 2019, we relaunched the boat and got a monthly berth at Crews Inn Marina. Trinidad’s crime statistics seemed worse than two years previously. Despite many invitations from local friends to do activities outside the marina, we stayed mainly in the marina bubble. The facility provided us with on-site security, a pool, a fitness center, a couple of restaurants and a grocery store.

That year, there was also a drastic increase of Venezuelan immigrants seeking refuge in Trinidad. With sadness, we read about the desperation and exploitation they experienced on both sides of the border. We met many Venezuelans waiting outside the port’s immigration and customs clearance offices. With delicacy, we asked what was happening. Some were more open than others about sharing their experiences. We watched as they stocked up on basic life necessities such as rice, flour, toothpaste, diapers, toilet paper, salt and sugar before heading back to Venezuela with supplies.

All these encounters made us feel grateful. Despite whatever hardships we personally experienced in our lives, the reality was we were so fortunate and privileged. Lack of personal space was nothing. We had work, freedom and the ability to feed our kids.

By the end of June 2019, the first phase of the Atlantic 55 refit was coming to a close. And we were all ready for a change. The seven of us living in a such a small space was bordering on ridiculous. I am sure the other marina guests thought we were nuts. We loved our Finot-Conq Open 40. She had allowed us to make a truly memorable circumnavigation with our older kids, especially the legs in the incredible high latitudes. But the reality now with so many people aboard was that we no longer had the capacity to carry enough food and water to make any long passages.

We were done with being nonsailing liveaboards tied to ­marinas. We wanted to get our family off the dock, on the hook, and sailing again in a completely different cruising mode.

Because we were seeking minimalism, creature comforts were not so important, but we did want the ability to carry a few things, such as a dinghy, surf boards, a small sailboat, or a couple of kayaks. Adequate water, fuel, food and off-grid capacity were necessities. Pubescent teen years were just around the corner for our oldest kids; more space and privacy would soon be critical.

We mentally struggled. With the refit funds we’d earned, we could instead invest in an undeveloped parcel of land or make a down payment on a fixer-upper commercial property in Chile. It would be a practical thing to give to our kids for the future. We thought hard about it but just could not do it. It did not feel like this would be choosing to live la vida loca.

James was 65, and it felt like our window for sailing together would soon close. For him, there was no “later.” If we did not go now, then maybe we would never voyage as a family again. If we went now, then there was hope that he could pass on whatever knowledge of seamanship he had to the kids while he was still mentally and physically sharp.

We stopped looking at real estate and dived into an intensive search for a new boat. James found a trimaran in Madagascar and a proa in Australia. The proa was not a vessel we could imagine circumnavigating aboard, but we did see a plausible project of sailing between Australia and Indonesia, a workable scenario where our kids could be full-time surfers.

With the trimaran in Madagascar, we saw the potential for having a really wild cultural experience. I was turned off by the idea of bringing my kids to a place where child-prostitution ­tourism was prevalent, but the Malagasy history, culture, landscape and unique fauna were all positives. With that vessel, we could do a South Atlantic loop between South Africa, St. Helena and Brazil.

Either way, the reality was that the current condition and seaworthiness of the boats were unknown until we committed to going and looking. Both felt like somewhat of a gamble—in time more than money—and a step down from the incredible sailing machine that we already had. But we had to do something. Time was ticking; the moment had come to make a change for our family.

James’ friendship with sailors and marine-industry pros around the world has always been a great sounding board for problem-solving, ideas and advice. One friend in particular, a Dutch solo multihull sailor named Henk de Velde, told him that he honestly didn’t like either of the boats on our wish list. He knew we did not want a full refit project, that we just wanted to go sailing.

He asked James to wait on moving forward. He thought there might be a boat in the Netherlands that would work for our family. He was sure it was a strong, seaworthy, go-anywhere vessel. He believed we could make a circumnavigation on it, and there would be enough space that we could stretch into it at least for a few years. It was not on the market yet, but he had a hunch that it might be soon.

We waited to hear from him, and true to his word, Henk soon sent us information about a 49-foot trimaran called Sound of Silence (aka SOS). Immediately after seeing photos and reading the specs, we felt like it just might be the perfect boat. She was a 1996 design but had great lines and appeared to be a super-sexy-looking sailing machine. Dutch-built, she was made of fiberglass, epoxy and strong plank. Beams were constructed of carbon, glass and aluminum, and she had a carbon mast with Navtec rigging. The tri was just shy of 50 feet long and very wide, over 36 feet, but she had a Farrier folding ama system that shrank the beam to a little less than 20 feet, allowing for ease of haulout, storage and maneuvering in tight spaces.

All living space was in the center hull, and there were three cabins that could fit a total of six crew—still a bit tight for a family of seven but palatial compared with an Open 40. All the systems had top-of-the-line gear, and for certain it felt like we could potentially make a smooth transition from one incredibly cool boat to another.

We were unsure that we could financially pull it off, both in the initial purchase price and the ongoing maintenance. But we had an undeniably good feeling about her. We decided to follow our instincts and pursue it, figuring we had nothing to lose by trying. We asked Henk to go to Amsterdam to inspect the tri for us. Upon returning, he reported that it was in excellent ­condition and just needed a little TLC. He sent us updated photos and was certain it was sound enough that we could get on board and start sailing right away.

Trusting him, we made an offer on SOS sight unseen, with the funds from the refit project as a down payment and a loan from the owner of the Atlantic Cat for the remainder (secured with Anasazi Girl as collateral). We were incredibly nervous to live beyond our means but believed somehow we could pull it off until Anasazi Girl sold.

Unbelievably, our offer was accepted. It would be binding, contingent on James’ personal inspection of the boat.

The first week of July 2019, James flew to Amsterdam for two nights to see the boat. He hauled her out, called me, and told me that all the sailing gear looked excellent, functional, and in good condition. The systems on the boat were much more complicated and required a lot more maintenance than Anasazi Girl, but he felt confident we could manage the work or simply not use the systems that were not critical for sailing. After all, we had been “camping” aboard Anasazi Girl for the previous eight years. The well-maintained vessel had only two owners for the past 20-plus years and had been sitting in a freshwater canal most of its life when not at sea. The four separate compartments of the amas were for storage but could potentially become in-port berths for the older kids.

With my approval, he signed the final purchase and sale contract papers, then flew back to Trinidad.

We dropped the price of Anasazi Girl to cover the balance of the loan we had taken, and spent a week preparing for haulout, decommissioning and long-term storage. We packed our bags, then booked flights to Amsterdam via Suriname. Our lives were about to seriously change.

Now here we were, teleported from the Caribbean tropics to the Northern European summer. I’d spent the previous couple of weeks looking with excitement at photos from Henk, the broker, and even an old Google Earth satellite image of the vessel on the dock. Our plane landed two days before my 42nd birthday, and this was an amazing present.

My stomach was filled with joyful anticipation as we walked through the gate. The kids ran down the docks, jumping in pure bliss on the trampolines.

She was impressive. Despite being an older design, Bosgraaf’s lines made her a classic and timeless beauty. Having no experience with a trimaran, I had no idea how we were going to sail the boat, nor even any idea of how we would move the massively wide beast out of the canal. SOS looked as though she had been parallel-parked like a compact car on a one-way city street into her berth at Rhebergen’s.

All of this we would figure out with time. The reality was we had been given a true gift. We were so grateful to Henk who found the boat for us, our friend Colin Dykstra (the owner of the Atlantic 55 who loaned us funds), Bosgraaf for his brilliant design, and to Reinout Vader (founder of Victron Energy and the owner of Sound of Silence) for giving our family the gift of sailing.

Vader allowed us to move aboard before the transfer of funds was complete and offered to go out for a daysail when we were ready. A few days later, funds were dispersed, papers signed and in order, and we were officially the new owners. We renamed the boat Thunderbird. Our first night aboard, my oldest son, Raivo, was so used to sleeping on a hard surface that he got out a camping pad, laid it down and slept on the floor! Not only did we have mega cushions, but we had space, both inside and out.

The creature comforts were a bit overwhelming: a microwave, two-burner induction cooker, freezer and fridge. Hydraulic systems folded and unfolded the amas; lowered and lifted the boom, centerboard and rudder; and controlled the bow-thruster, windless and several winches. Three sources of power generation charged the boat’s lithium batteries: an alternator on the 51 hp Yanmar, a WhisperGen DC generator (serving also as a hot-­water and space heater), and eight Solbian 50-watt solar panels. Wiring was 24-volt, and Thunderbird had a Victron Multiplus inverter for controlling charging and converting to 220-volt AC.

We were now in serious pump land, with a big Spectra ­watermaker, indoor and outdoor shower, 110 gallons of water, 158 gallons of diesel, and more than 50-gallon holding tanks. The navigation system included two modern B&G Zeus 3 chart plotters with AIS and radar; an older B&G processor; and Hydra 2 autopilots, speedos, compass and depth sounders. In our sail quiver was a 968-square-foot main and 538-square-foot jib from North Sails, and a spinnaker and gennaker from Incidences.

We spent the next month in Amsterdam waiting for reflagging, servicing and learning about all the systems of the boat. Henk gifted us his Rocna 72-pound anchor, which never failed him on his voyages with his trimaran, Juniper. New lettering and graphics were made for Thunderbird. We made our pre-voyage checklists and dived full time into our new project.

We did little tourism, only a token trip to the Rijksmuseum to see all the classics. We ate amazing Dutch bread, baked goods and cheeses, tried bitterballens (a deep-fried Dutch snack) and local beer. Our kids helped us with the workload, balanced with recreational time rowing around in a small dinghy in the canal, climbing fences in the boatyard, running wild on the docks, picking wildflowers, swimming in the canal, foraging for summer berries, and exploring the surrounding neighborhood.

We were most definitely in Amsterdam. Across the canal from us was a cannabis cafe. Along the wharf was Rhebergen’s yard and the NDSM shipyard, which was now converted into a space for a hundred artists of all disciplines. Twice a month, the biggest flea market in all of Amsterdam (IJ-Hallen) was set up in the open-air outdoor spaces surrounding NDSM. Spray-paint art was encouraged, and we watched artists creating epic murals on the old shipyard buildings, the walls of which were sometimes completely transformed daily.

Though there was a marina in Amsterdam Noord and canal boats everywhere, our location was not within walking distance of all the yacht services and chandleries we needed. For this, we rented a vehicle and went to the port of IJmuiden at the end of the North Sea canal to get needed parts and new netting for our trampolines.

James met with Bosgraaf at his floating design office—a canal houseboat—in downtown Amsterdam. A couple of weeks later, Bosgraaf drove through the canals in a small powerboat he had designed to visit us aboard Thunderbird. He spent an afternoon answering questions and talking about the history of the boat.

Henk visited us weekly at Rhebergen’s and became a surrogate grandfather to my children, always bearing chocolate and local treats. We spent time with Laura Dekker—the Dutch sailor who was the youngest to sail alone around the world, at age 16—who we knew from New Zealand back in our Auckland days; we met her family, and she taught the kids how to sail a Pico.

Vader took us through the locks and bridge canals to the inland lake of Markermeer for a daysail. We learned the history of how he started Victron Energy, and watched in amazement at how he sailed the tri. “No using hydraulics,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. Tall, fit and lanky at 75, he was still grinding winches with joy and making sail changes.

The US Coast Guard Documentation Center at last emailed us our paperwork, and we were ready to depart after five weeks. We set sail from Amsterdam in August 2019, making our way through the English Channel to the port of Caen, France. In September, we crossed the Bay of Biscay to the port of La Coruña, Spain, and got approved for a Schengen visa extension. In October, it was on to the Canary Island of Lanzarote, where the boat was hauled out in preparation for crossing the Atlantic. Two days after Christmas, we were again on the move, bound for Cape Verde, arriving in São Vicente just after the 2020 new year.

Departing from there the last week of January, we crossed the Atlantic in 10 days, arriving in the port of Cabedelo, Brazil, where we learned we were expecting our sixth child. We sailed south to Salvador de Bahia, Caravelas, and then Vitoria, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. We stayed there for almost two months in self-quarantine, doing repairs and maintenance on Thunderbird, awaiting the arrival of a used sail to replace the 20-plus-year-old delaminated main, watching as the early stages of the pandemic unfolded. We then decided to continue south, seeking isolated areas to cruise safely with our family.

While awaiting the birth of our next child, we explored the region between Ilhabela and Ilha Grande. Our son, Atlas, was born in late August of last year.

Our aim in raising our kids has always been to give them time with us, to choose their teachers and offer rich life experiences, to expose them to inspiring people, give them a practical understanding of the world, and support their passions.

Sailing is an excellent platform for all these things—and much, much more.

Saving for college educations, lucrative financial investments or a pile of material things is not part of our life goals. All of which would be wonderful to have, but we are just not savvy investors. For us to achieve even some of these things would require both of us working full time plus overtime, a sacrifice of time with each other.

Working really hard and then “gambling” all of it into impossible sailing dreams for the opportunity to experience the world is something we can do, and do together. It feeds our souls. We work and sail and do everything together. What we have is time to invest in our kids now, before they choose their own life paths. We don’t know everything, but we can teach them what we know and seek out teachers to show them the rest. The hope is they will have the confidence to follow their own outrageous dreams, and understand how to navigate the steps needed to achieve them.

Here in this voyaging life, we operate in our mode of feast or famine. We departed the Netherlands in a state of financial famine, but we felt positive and hopeful. Somehow things have always worked out, much of it having to do with our amazing friendships, leaving a clean wake in every port, and a lot of serendipitous moments.

With Thunderbird, we feast on the sea, the world’s oceans fully open to us. We are officially a family of “rafters” with the ability to cross oceans, now able to live at anchor and get into shallow-­draft spaces. What an unreal feeling to once again give our family the gift of sailing, taking with us all the rich things that ­accompany the life of a voyager.

Following the birth of Atlas last year, photographer/writer Somira Sao and her family are continuing to explore the coast of Brazil. She writes: “As a family of eight, we participated in the 70th Santos to Rio Race and the 2020 Ubatuba Troféu das Ilhas Race. For us, there are no shortcuts when it comes to learning about sailing. We are doing the miles, moving to a different anchorage every single day.”

A Freedom Machine Called Thunderbird

Peter Bosgraaf designed the custom-built cruising trimaran for a Dutch businessman named Willem Woestenburg, who fanatically sailed a Farrier 31 trimaran with his son, Rob. When Woestenburg hit the jackpot in the stock market, he decided to build a bigger tri with the same folding principle. Bosgraaf had just designed two smaller trimarans, so Woestenburg commissioned him to design his 49-foot tri.

A Dutch woodworker/boatbuilder named Fred Winter built the boat at Woestenburg’s metals and hydraulic factory. Woestenburg’s factory team fabricated all of the hydraulics and metalwork for the boat. Winter, along with Rob Woestenburg, worked on all the construction and interior. The folding system works just like the small Farrier systems, but due to the weight, hydraulic cylinders were added to control folding from behind the wheel.

The boat was built out of strong plank, which was widely being promoted by a boatbuilder in the Netherlands at the time. Strong plank uses PVC foam-cored strips with fiberglass sheathing around those strips. Due to the stiffness of the battens, it takes the minimal amount of building frames to set up the hull. Once the hull is sheathed with the strips, only one or two layers of fiberglass cloth is sufficient to obtain a stiff hull.

After the boat was launched in 1998 and named Gaviota, Woestenburg did not get to sail much, but his son, Rob, logged some miles on the boat. Financial problems forced him to sell the boat to Reinout Vader a year after it was launched.

Vader is a Dutch physicist who developed a pure sine wave inverter. He is the founder of Victron Energy and developer of the WhisperGen Stirling generator. He renamed the tri Sound of Silence, or SOS. Over the course of 20 years, he sailed to the Caribbean, through the Mediterranean, and in the North Sea.

Thunderbird sails fast but is a cruising tri, so she’s a little on the heavy side. She needs approximately 12 knots of apparent wind to really get going. She sails upwind super well. We try to maintain 10 to 13 knots on average, but in the Bay of Biscay and going around Brazil’s Cabo Frio, we saw boatspeeds of up to 17 to 20 knots. James is working now with Bosgraaf to offer for sale a modernized, stripped-out racing version of the boat as a new construction.

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On a cold November afternoon, we rolled up to the dock at the ancient Cape Cod Shipyard, hard along the waters of the Wareham River Basin, for the concluding sail of our 2021 Boat of the Year campaign aboard the Corsair 880, a 28-foot folding trimaran built in, of all places, Vietnam. It wasn’t on purpose, but you could easily say we saved the best for last. The best sail in our 2021 BOTY sea trials, that is.

We were joined by Bob Gleason, who’s been peddling fast tris for as long as we can remember, and Dave Reed, the editor of our sister publication, Sailing World: two boys who always can be counted on to press on a bit more sail. In other words, for the task ahead, darn-near perfect companions.

The classic Buzzard’s Bay sea breeze had kicked in, ­appropriately—like, what else is new?—as we powered out of the basin and into the fresh southwesterly. Up went the big, roachy, powerful square-topped mainsail, and out went the self-tending jib. We were sailing.

The Corsair 880 is cool, cool, cool. Comfortable canvas bench seats. A nice little interior with all the basics for pleasant camping-­style cruises. A rotating carbon-fiber spar. A tiller with an extension, and the traveler and mainsheet right at hand. Sails up, daggerboard down. As good as it gets.

We tacked upwind for a while to say we did, got some ­numbers, and then the real fun commenced. First, bye-bye jib; hello Code Zero. Welcome to the realm of double-digit boat speeds, which always feel faster when you’re reaching on a screamer under 30 feet. Greetings, sailing world, indeed.

We swapped the helm back and forth, and took snapshots of one another. Who had the biggest smile? It was a tie. Then the kite went up for the run back to the dock. Heaven on Buzzard’s Bay.

There wasn’t another boat around, and for that matter, there wasn’t another boat in the competition that matched up with the Corsair. But you can be sure as heck we were still going to name it the year’s Best Sportboat. Which we could. So we did.

As the sun set over Buzzard’s Bay, it also set on Boat of the Year 2021. Thanks, one and all, for the memories.

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There is a sound in the world of sailing unlike any other, one experienced (thankfully) by a small, select group of sailors, most of them elite, competitive racers in the thick of action on some of the lightest, fastest, most innovative boats on the planet. I’d never heard this particular noise, at least not up close and personal, until I found myself in the cockpit of the amazing 63-foot trimaran Shockwave late last winter on a very windy race around the Leeward Island of St. Maarten. In a side gig as the press officer for the second running of the Caribbean Multihull Challenge, I’d been invited aboard for the day to do my daily race report, and about a third of the way through a race around the island, was basically hanging on for dear life, and in awe of both the boat and its very talented crew.

And then, suddenly and with zero warning, there was a loud crack overhead, a shocking moment aboard Shockwave. It was the unmistakable reverberation that carbon fiber makes when it suddenly, totally, completely fails. It’s something—trust me—you never want to hear on a Grand Prix yacht pounding upwind knocking off double-digit boat speeds in a wavy Caribbean seaway. 

Then, after a brief moment of raised voices and general confusion, it all got very calm and even quiet. It was the low hum of a race being quickly, irreversibly over. And the controlled buzz of a boat being rapidly taken care of.

A new noise. The sound of having been silenced.

Shockwave had come a long way to have the brakes applied so suddenly and unexpectedly. In fact, she’d traveled some 4,595 nautical miles to the islands on an almost nonstop, maniacal delivery after a major refit in San Diego to begin her inaugural season of racing under a new syndicate comprised of owner Christiaan Durrant, skipper Jeff Mearing, co-skipper/program manager Scott Klodowski, navigator Nils Erickson and a crew of fellow passionate sailors. 

Originally designed by the noted British multihull naval ­architect Nigel Irens, Shockwave was previously called Paradox, a name reflective of its dual purpose as a flat-out ocean racer also capable of occasional cruising, with a 75 hp Volvo diesel with ­saildrive, and a relatively comfy interior for a racing trimaran with decent berths, a proper head and an induction stove. There was even air conditioning—a luxury installed for steamy anchorages when cruising, but also so the off watch could get proper rest on long oceanic races in tropical conditions. Klodowski gave me a quick tour before heading out to the racecourse that revealed seriously robust, all-carbon construction. Shockwave was built to go places. Fast.

It turned out Klodowski and Durrant were old mates who’d done a lot of ocean racing together, much of it on a 35-foot ­catamaran. A pivotal moment in their shared careers occurred after getting pasted in the 2017 Rolex Middle Sea Race, a 600-nautical-mile lap of Sicily that begins and ends in Malta. It wasn’t the first time they’d been creamed, and they came to the same conclusion: “We need a bigger boat.” Hence, Shockwave.

Durrant is a hyperfit Aussie, who, before becoming an ­international businessman, had played rugged Aussie Rules Football and spent 14 years as a fighter pilot in the Australian Air Force. Like many of his countrymen, he’d fallen hard for sailing as a 13-year-old in 1983, when the Aussies won the America’s Cup and returned home with their prize as national heroes. “Everything I’ve done since then has been high-performance,” he said.

He’d considered buying a larger multihull but felt the slightly more modest Shockwave was a better fit: He could enjoy it with his family from time to time and still sail Grand Prix events with his like-minded mates. No, Shockwave would never snatch first-to-finish-line honors in major races, he admitted, but if sailed smartly and efficiently, would always be in the hunt for the podium on corrected time.

As the trade winds seriously kicked in while the fleet ­assembled for the 0900 starting sequences to commence, it was readily apparent that conditions were going to be, as they say, sporty. The breeze registered a solid 30 knots, with gusts to 32, 35 and eventually 39 knots. This was well beyond the low 20s that had been predicted for the day. “I think the weatherman took the night off,” Durrant said. “He must’ve sent the forecast from the bar.”

The talk aboard Shockwave was about sail configurations, specifically how small a jib to carry and whether to go with two or three reefs in the mainsail. Skipper Mearing ultimately called for one of the smaller headsails in the inventory and a double-reefed main. 

The other classes had already started and cleared the area when the countdown for the MOCRA Multihull class—along with Shockwave, it consisted of the powerful MOD 70 trimarans Argo and Maserati—began. All three boats were using the Caribbean Multihull Challenge as a tuneup regatta for the upcoming Caribbean 600, another 600-miler on a challenging course winding through the islands that would start and finish in Antigua. There was some serious star power on the other big tris, particularly Maserati, which was skippered by the legendary Italian sailor Giovanni Soldini, famous for rescuing Isabelle Autissier from her capsized yacht in the Southern Ocean in a solo round-the-world race. Soldini, the saying goes, was as serious as a heart attack. The air was thick with anticipation. 

Until, of course, it wasn’t.

With the wind continuing to build, there was a postponement for the race start, then a second one when Maserati radioed to the race committee they had a problem. I know Soldini a bit, and something very messy had to be happening on board for him to make that call. The race committee hailed Argo and Shockwave to see if both boats were OK to postpone, and both readily agreed. Argo, it should be noted, was also a formidable competitor; American skipper Jason Carroll and his all-star crew had served notice to the sailing world after being first boat home in last summer’s 50th running of the iconic Transpac Race from California to Hawaii. As Shockwave’s Erickson explained, the crew of Argo helped Shockwave in Antigua after the boat had damaged its mainsail track on the long delivery, and it was clear there was a strong sense of camaraderie among the competitors. Yacht racing can actually be pretty cool.

Once the final countdown began, on Shockwave there was a slight moment of hesitation among the six-man crew just before the start, and for the briefest of periods, it seemed that the big tri might be late. But Mearing, steering from a helm station positioned well out on one of the amas—seriously, it was almost like he was on another vessel entirely—pulled the trigger inside of a minute, and Shockwave hit the line perfectly, making better than 20 knots on a power reach to the first mark. Argo, bigger and meaner, scorched past to leeward like we were almost standing still, which we most certainly weren’t. Meanwhile, Maserati, still with seeming problems, lagged behind. Then both leaders rounded the mark and came hard on the breeze for a beat down the southern shores of St. Maarten, the first leg of a long round-the-island race. 

And folks, let me tell you, it got wet. And trust me, when the spray comes flying off the amas of a powerful trimaran like Shockwave, it stings. Bigly. It was time to put my camera and notebook away; actually, it was much too late for that, because the camera was totally drenched and the notebook was wet pulp. There wasn’t a dry spot topsides. I could not have been damper if I’d just stepped out of the shower.

As we turned the corner at the southeast tip of St. Maarten and took aim for the distant isle of Tintamarre—the next mark on the course—all was well; Argo was ahead but in sight, which meant we were right with them on handicap, and Maserati was still in arrears. And then one of the crew said something that stopped everyone cold: “I see sky.” The fact that he was staring at the mainsail was, um, disturbing. The bottom panel was ­delaminating, deconstructing, whatever. You could see sky.

Team Shockwave quickly went into action to tuck a third reef in the main and minimize the damage. Once the job was complete, the mainsheet was sheeted on hard, and moments later, there was that unmistakable, piercing sound of cracking carbon that could easily be heard over the wind and waves. Shockwave’s boom was in two pieces; it had literally gone boom. The racing, and the regatta, were over.

Nobody panicked. If anything, there was more of a collective, reflective sigh. Down came the mainsail. On came the engine. It was a long motor home. 

The silver lining was a long chat with Durrant who, despite the day’s unraveling, was positively upbeat. He went so far as to say he was pretty satisfied with how things unfolded, especially his crew’s cool response to adversity. “I built my first boat with my dad as a kid,” he said. “I worked my way up from the bottom rungs of sailing. Everyone on board did. We worked hard to get here. We’re individuals with a lot of passion for sailing. And we’re building a strong team. We showed that today.”

He also had a cool story about the graphic on Shockwave’s bow, which I’d been curious about. In his Air Force days, he flew F-18s, but back in World War II, his same squadron had flown Kittyhawks, with the famous bared-teeth logo on the nose. The symbolism was clear. They came to play, but to play—and fight —very hard.

A week later, having sorted out and repaired the boom in a ­relative flash, Shockwave was on the starting line for the Caribbean 600, and would ultimately earn a second in the Multihull class, knocking off Argo and Maserati in the ­process. Given what had transpired so recently in the roiled waters off St. Maarten, the sweet result was, well, shocking. 

Herb McCormick is CW’s executive editor.

The Caribbean Multihull Challenge: Sailing On

After two successful runnings, the Caribbean Multihull Challenge is now a solid annual event on the Caribbean’s busy racing calendar. The hosting St. Maarten Yacht Club has announced that the third edition will take place February 5-7, 2021. A celebration of this special section of the sport, the event is open to all multihull sailors on racing and cruising trimarans, as well as chartered cats and cruising multis. For more information, ­visit the event’s website.

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