Our boat is an Outremer 52 catamaran, called “Aquila”, built in La Grande Motte, France. We chose this yard because of the seaworthiness of its boats and their exceptional sailing performance.
Many catamarans are essentially floating condos that require 15 knots of wind or more to move through the water at a reasonable speed. They come with full sized fridges and island beds, but they can’t go to windward, their motion through the water even in moderate seas is uncomfortable, and they often top out in high single or low double digits speeds. We frequently chartered these types of cats as most destinations don’t offer alternatives, and found that we spend 2/3 or more of the time running the engines instead of using the sails.
An Outremer can be sailed in anything above 5 knots of wind speed, and it will do about 2/3 of wind speed or better on any point of sail. It can go upwind at 45 degrees true in part thanks to its daggerboards. It’s also fast in stronger winds, able to reach 20+ knots of boat speed while remaining comfortable thanks in part to its high bridge deck clearance, well designed hulls. The downside (yes, everything on a boat is a compromise) is that the living space is significantly smaller than a “regular” cat of the same length, but we believe that this boat is plenty big enough for the two of us and the occasional guests.
Outremers are highly customizable by their owners, and we picked many options both from the official options list as well as a few items that we saw on other boats and asked Outremer to install on Aquila. Some of the more noteworthy ones are:
- Carbon mast
- Genoa and staysail instead of self-tacking jib (in Hydranet, same for main sail)
- Downwind gennaker and spinnaker S4
- 3D genoa rigging
- All seven winches electric; line driver for mainsheet traveler
- Stanchions, handrails and cleats in black aluminum
- Air conditioning in saloon and owners cabin
- 2 x 6 KW lithium ion house batteries
- Twin charger-inverter combo (230v and 110v)
- Solar panels on bimini and davits; portable solar panels for foredeck (about 3 KW total of solar power)
- B&G Zeus SR chart plotter, Nemesis displays on port and starboard bulkheads; H5000 at nav station and owners cabin
- PC at nav station with weather routing software
- Fully redundant second autopilot
- Watermaker
- Washing machine
- Induction cooktop
- BBQ and outlet to connect to standard propane tank
- Additional bunkbed in port side forward cabin
- Ultra 35 kg anchor with 70m of stainless steel chain and 50m of rode
- Maneuvering cameras on spreaders and security cameras in cockpit and saloon
- Coppercoat antifouling
- Highfield Ultralight tender with Momentum M10 electric motor (10 KW/20 HP)
- Starlink and Iridium sat phone