NEW WAVE

I’m going to call it. The era of the multihull superyacht is dawning, with the Global Order Book showing a 65 percent jump in orders. Owners at last seem to accept that two or even three hulls are no mere passing fad. Concepts and designs for these boats have blossomed as designers perceive the changing tide. A new breed of super-luxury catamarans and trimarans is on the way.

Although this has taken its time. Designers and naval architects have been talking about the benefits of multihulls for years, even decades: volume and efficiency; stability and speed; even the cost is favorable compared to a monohull of the same volume, according to some. There are isolated examples built: the 145ft sailing cat Hemisphere by Pendennis; Racoupeau’s 108ft sailing cat by Jinlong Mega Yacht; and the 139ft McConaghy trimaran Adastra.

But after that initial flurry, things went pretty quiet on the build front, with the gloriously conspicuous exception of the 276ft trimaran from Australia’s Echo Yachts. And in some ways the multihull has gone back to the drawing board. Although there are plenty of big, wacky concepts out there, right up to the jet-black, 331ft foiling beast Nemesis One, the multihull supeiyachts inbuild today are smaller with its military-style camouflage livery.