As power catamarans seem to be making a comeback, shaking up the design teams, we talk to a former sailing champion and well-respected authority on the matter about his experiences. Back in 2008 we had spent a couple of days with Laurent Bourgnon and his family at Port Camargue, France, during the preparation of the Sunreef 70, “Jambo”. The future expedition catamaran had just been on display at Cannes after arriving there from its shakedown delivery from the shipyard at Gdansk in the Baltic. Six years have since passed and we made the most of Laurent being at the last Cannes Boat Show to catch up, and have a look with hindsight at how he had got on, and if he had any ideas which could be incorporated into future models in the series. The first mate’s opinions have not been left out either! The test of the most recent Moorings 514PC amply demonstrates the development of the Power Cat as part of the charter fleet. In an exclusive interview, Lex Raas (former CEO of Moorings and developer of Aquila Catamarans) also offers his view of the market. The fairly specific area of power trimarans is not dealt with here, but will be discussed in a forthcoming article.
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Publié le
16/12/2016
Par
Philippe Echelle
Numéro :
140
Parution :
Mar.
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Apr.
2015
Review: 6 years on board JAMBOA champion’s passion: research and development It’s in his blood! The twice-winner of the Route du Rhum and holder for 10 years of every category of single-handed 24 hour speed records is fanatical about helming, but also putting extreme vessels into action. After going over to the dark side of family motor-cruising, his passion for the challenge remains the same. Half a circumnavigation later (via the Patagonian channels), “Jambo” is now being used professionally as a diving expedition vessel based out of Tahiti and operating in Polynesia’s Leeward Islands (Raiat…
