SPECIFICATIONS
MAKE / MODEL
Astus 22.5
PRICE FROM
£48,750
DESIGNER
VPLP
BUILDER
Astus Boats
Small multihulls can be remarkable boats in which you can do remarkable things.
Like Richard and Lilian Woods: each sailing one of their own Woods-designed Strider 24 catamarans single-handed from Plymouth to Russia in a series of day-hops in 1989 – not long after glasnost and perestroika. Joined by Stuart Fisher in a third Strider, they regularly sailed up to 80 miles in a day and once covered the 70 miles between ports in seven hours.
Or Rory McDougall, who built a Wharram Tiki 21 and sailed it around the world singlehanded. A few years later, he finished a close second in the Jester Challenge before clocking up to 185 miles a day on the return Atlantic crossing. Then there’s the Norwegian team that circumnavigated the globe in the Arctic Circle, taking in the north-east and north-west passages in one season. They chose a Corsair 31 because it had the necessary speed and could also be hauled up on to the ice if it threatened to crush them. That’s going up the size range a little, but smaller and closer to home is another trimaran from the same stable, the Corsair Dash 750, that completed every race in a major UK regatta faster than a state-of-the-art 42ft racing monohull sailed by a professional crew. Then, while the 42-footer was still bashing her way back around the coast to her home port after the event,
