NEW YACHTS
SEMI-CUSTOM SUPERCAT
Southern Wind unveiled this arresting 27m/90ft performance catamaran in January, a project that hints at the strong future potential for superyacht-sized catamarans. The naval architecture is by Berret Racoupeau, the La Rochelle firm behind Royal Huisman’s latest 35m/118ft sailing and power catamaran concepts (see overleaf).
The multihull market is the fastest growing marine sector, but only series production options or full custom boats have so far been available. The SWCAT90 targets the segment in between by offering a versatile platform whereby the design and engineering is in place, but a good degree of customisation is still offered to the customer.
The Cape Town shipyard is known for its go-anywhere 80-110ft semi-custom monohulls. The SWCAT90 concept, developed with Southern Wind’s long-term partner Nauta Yachts, has been designed to share these monohulls’ renowned qualities of performance, comfort and reliability.
The space and speed potential of this carbon catamaran is particularly appealing. Olivier Racoupeau says it was a challenge to try to match the performance of a 100ft monohull, but in fact this cat should exceed it on all angles but at just 5º of heel. The polars he showed
