Two years ago, BOAT International published an article predicting the dawn of the mega multihull age. A wealth of ambitious concepts and a fattening order book at the smaller end of the market made it look as if a new wave was coming. Back then, we counted 29 in-build multihulls over 24 metres. That wave still hasn't quite broken, with the largest of those projects not yet delivered, but today there are 72 big multis on the order books.
“As designers, we naturally spot trends very early on,” says Tim Ulrich of beiderbeck designs, which is emerging as an expert on large multihulls. “For three or four years, large catamarans have been making up a significant part of new inquiries, or are at least being discussed as an alternative.”
Superyacht designer Malcolm McKeon, with a lengthy sailing portfolio that encompasses monohull award winners such as 6o-metre Sarissa and 33-metre Ribelle, confirms this. “We receive a lot of enquiries for cats. Of the dozens of serious inquiries we receive each year, I'd say about 30 per cent are for multihulls.”
With nearly half of the biggest catamarans in the Global Order Book due to be built by Sunreef, it is little surprise that
