underneath the bridgedeck,’ Rougevin-Baville explains. Multihulls are more sensitive to weight distribution than monohulls because they don’t have a ballast keel that puts 35 to 50 per cent of their overall weight in the optimal position to reduce pitching. The shorter the platform, the better the weight distribution and the gentler the boat’s motion in a seaway. ‘The bows should be narrow too and can’t have a wide double bed if you want to dampen the ride and keep the motion smooth,’ he says. ‘The height of the centre of gravity (COG) and weight distribution are crucial on a multihull if you care about sailing with a comfortable motion.’ The 4X and 5X both have a very low vertical COG: just 70-75cm above the waterline, 80cm lower than a typical cruising cat. This is achieved partly by having low freeboard, a carbon bimini and foam-cored decks, topsides and superstructure with heavier solid GRP underwater sections, but also by not adding a flybridge (which also raises the boom) and not mounting the mainsheet on the coachroof or bimini, which then needs heavy reinforcement. Bridgedeck clearance is also important. Waves slamming the underside of the platform and hulls slow the boat, exacerbate the
Top: owners enjoy close- matched and hard-fought racing in the Outremer Cup organised annually by the shipyard. Above: very careful weight reduction and distribution are key to Outremersʼ performance, seakeeping and comfort- able motion. Even the furniture is foam-cored to save weight, which means more speed: transatlantic passage times are typically just 10 to 13 days
hobbyhorsing caused by poor weight distribution and a high COG, and can prevent the boat making headway to windward. While most cruising cats have 45-60cm of clearance, Outremers have 85-95cm. Hull beam is another factor. Charter spec dictates a beam for each hull of 1.85 to 2.4 metres. By contrast, the slender hulls of an Outremer – 1.2m for the 4X and 1.6m for the 5X – create much less drag and aren’t prone to pitching. Buyers have to choose between two different types of comfort. A wider living space inside the hulls means a less comfortable motion. Daggerboards are a further differentiator. Nearly all other cruising cats have fixed keels. ‘They make a huge difference,’ Rougevin- Baville says. ‘We feel they’re compulsory for safety (getting away from a lee shore in bad weather, for example). A tacking angle of 90° allows you to sail anywhere, faster than most. Fixed keels usually give a tacking angle of 110°-120° and if you add some current, you can’t make headway without engines.’ The upwind performance boost of daggerboards is impressive. ‘The best VMG is usually around 48-53°,’ he says. ‘An Outremer will beat a good racer-cruiser monohull upwind in good conditions, with a target speed upwind of 10kts at 47° TWA in a true wind of 15kts.’ Few other cats can do that.
He cites a round-the-world voyage in which two friends – one with an Outremer, the other in a cat with fixed keels – sailed the same route: ‘The Outremer spent less than five per cent of the time close-hauled, for the other cat it was 30 per cent. When you can sail against the wind efficiently you spend less time doing it. And no one enjoys beating into the wind for a long time.’
Aren’t daggerboards a liability?
‘They are designed to be a fuse if you hit something hard and will break,’ he says. The board’s front crashbox will go first, then the rear one, and then the whole thing will shear off. ‘It’s not a big deal, you can use the other one. That’s why we’re not big fans of asymmetric boards.’ Outremer’s construction methods are also different. Most builders assemble a cruising cat in a few weeks by gluing together prefabricated pieces. An Outremer takes seven to nine months to build, laminated entirely by hand as a single solid piece, including berth supports and shelves. Cabinetry is fitted with a soft bond of Sikaflex, not rigidly bonded. The result is a very stiff boat with none of the creaking, squeaking, cracking noises most multihulls make in choppy seas. Vinylester resin is used as an osmosis barrier and for carbon fibre lamination but regular polyester is used elsewhere. ‘It’s very practical for ease of repair,’ he explains. ‘You won’t be stuck for weeks until a shipyard with a controlled environment can handle your eight or nine-metre wide boat. In the tropics, where 100 per cent humidity is common, it helps being able to laminate a repair with any resin you can find. You can’t do that with a hi-tech composite.’
Buyers can specify how much carbon fibre is used. ‘We have a tool to define the optimum compromise between cost and weight depending on the result the buyer wants to achieve,’ Rougevin-Baville says. ‘You add more carbon to go faster or to compensate for heavy equipment. Of course the price goes up, so our cost/weight tool is useful to decide where to set the limit.’ A hand-built yacht tailored precisely to your own sailing plans does of course cost more than a standard production model but due to a combination of build quality, performance and ocean cruising capability, Outremers hold their value remarkably well and are highly sought-after on the secondhand market.
Despite being built for blue water cruising, with things like washing machines on board, Outremers have performed impressively in passage races: line honours in many editions of the ARC and Transmed, an OSTAR win back in 2000 and first production boat in the 2018 Route du Rhum. And while Outremer has never built a race- oriented boat, that’s about to change. ‘We have several projects under way for the next Route Du Rhum,’ Rougevin-Baville reveals. ‘For the first time they intend to race “for real”, so we should start pushing boundaries soon!’
www.catamaran-outremer.com q SEAHORSE 63
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