Rollin’
Andy Rice talks design with the M32 team as production gets (seriously) ramped up for 2016
Russell Coutts’ decision to take the Amer- ica’s Cup away from its roots in traditional monohull keelboats and into high-speed multihulls has had a dramatic trickledown effect on the rest of the sailing world. Life- long monohull sailors have started to sit up and take notice, and some are beginning to wonder what life is like in a faster lane. The M32 catamaran was designed to satisfy this growing curiosity with cats, and to offer a practical, affordable route into the world of high-speed multihull sailing. The ‘M’ in the name refers to Marström, Göran Marström, whose beautiful Tornado catamarans became the only weapon of choice for aspiring medal winners in the former Olympic multihull
34 SEAHORSE
class. The Swedish builder has been responsible for some of the finest small hi-tech multihulls of modern times, as well as the not-so-small SeaCart 30 tri and the Extreme 40 cat, which until this year was the mainstay of the Extreme Sailing Series. But Marström wanted a boat that he could blast around on with his friends at home on the west coast of Sweden. It had to be easy to rig, easy to maintain, not too hard to sail, yet still delivering blistering performance. Working with longterm design partner Kåre Ljung, the duo settled on 32ft (9.75m) as a good length for accommodating four large or five small adults, yet still manageable on the shore without the need for a crane.
‘The M32 was designed to be strong, to be able to do coastal racing,’ says Ljung. ‘It had to be reliable. You don’t want the boat to break when you’re out at sea. The M32 was Göran’s dream boat. He designed it for himself, the ultimate boat for his own use.
‘Göran and I had the knowledge from designing and building the Extreme 40s. We tried to address what was missing on the Extreme 40s, and also we were not constricted by the demands of stadium sailing. The Extreme 40s were good boats, but too hard to handle and too expensive. We wanted something easier to handle, but that was just as fast – yet much cheaper to operate.’
All-carbon construction for the hulls, beams and rig makes for an all-up weight of just 510kg, less than half the Extreme 40 weight. Coupled with a powerful 8.35m beam (including hiking racks that extend from the hulls), this means an immense power-to-weight ratio. The C-shaped foils provide about 50% lift, reducing wetted drag significantly. This enables the M32 to accelerate very quickly, to about 14kt upwind in moderate airs and sometimes in excess of 30kt downwind.
To some the lack of a jib can look strange, but Ljung says that an upwind
SANDER VAN DER BORCH
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