Australian Multihull World

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– Outremer 55 - White Stallion of the Sea –

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When the Outremer design team sat down to brainstorm their next performance cruising catamaran concept, they didn’t have to turn far for inspiration. With a 35 year history building high performance cruising catamarans and winner three times for European Boat of the Year for their Outremer 49, Outremer 5X and Outremer 4X, performance and cruising is part of their DNA. But look outside their window at the Gunboat shipyard, owned by the same parent company Grand Large Yachting, one of the most iconic high performance catamarans of our generation rolls off the production line, the Gunboat 68.

Details: Gavin Le Sueur

– Lightning and Lockdown –

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If you sail offshore for long enough, go enough places and explore your boundaries and limits with wind and sea conditions, you are likely to have a few disasters strike. I had thought most had happened to me. Until Boxing Day in Cairns. At the time Whim was nestled safely on her jetty.

Details: Kevin Green

– Lagoon 55 - Curvaceous Cat –

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The Lagoon 55 promises to be a comfortable long-range cruising yacht. Image Lagoon

Curvaceous and vastly spacious, the newly launched Lagoon 55 is a quiet evolution o this cruising marque, reports Kevin Green.

Details: Kevin Green

– Excess II - Compact Cruiser –

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The Australian debut of the new Excess range is a smart reaction to the burgeoning catamaran cruising market, reports Kevin Green.

Details: Terani Inoke and Ryan Glister

– Stay Calm –

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Stay Calm coming back into Rainbow Beach.

Twenty-twenty has been a year of change for most. A year of highs and lows, doubt and stress amongst extraordinary moments, both personal to each and shared by all. We went into the year with our first baby on the way. A beautiful girl. Little did we anticipate that she wouldn’t be the only lady to join our family that year. Having always talked of buying a boat to sail, a few months after our daughter’s birth we found ourselves looking at boats. We had little experience but a great desire for adventure, buckets of enthusiasm, a great deal of foolishness, a willingness to learn and just enough confidence to think we could buy a boat and just learn to sail.

Details: Chris Danger

– A Candid Look at the Sea Wander's Life –

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Dawn starts – worth getting up early for!

Are you toying with the idea of living the sailing life, but not sure what to expect? Or not sure how easy the transition to a nomadic sea existence would be? Being in her fourth year on a sailing catamaran, Chris Danger sheds some light on the matter for us.

Details: Multihull Solutions

– Iliad 50 Powercat –

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The team from ILIAD have taken the desire to explore and boosted the lifestyle element with comfortable apartment styled living, robust systems and effortless manageability.

Details: Peter Firkins

– We're Back! –

Fusion Catamarans Have Sailed Home

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From humble beginnings in Airlie Beach in North Queensland to a major composite manufacturer in Composite Marine Industries/Cobra in Thailand, Fusion Catamarans have come full circle and returned their manufacturing back to South East Queensland, Australia.

Details: Ian Johnstone

– Wet Season Sailing –

The Good, the Bad and the Downright Ugly

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Just after Christmas 2009 our family decided to go sailing once again after being land-locked in Darwin for 18 years. We had made a decision that we needed a boat and that we needed to become a sailing family and have some fun as work gave us all (me) rectal pains. I think I already had it in my mind that we would sail extensively but I had no idea what could happen, and what could eventuate with Chaotic Harmony and our family.

Details: Roger Hill

– Ayana - 14m Planing Hull Powercat –

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This project began with a call from the client enquiring about a 14m semi displacement alloy/composite (composite fly bridge) RHYD power cat that was for sale. He needed to confirm the overall dimensions as it was critical for fitting into their berth, the beam was about 50mm too wide, Murphy’s Law. They were very disappointed as the boat ticked most of the boxes for what they were looking for to take long range cruising holidays out of Perth, WA.

Details: Alex Stone

– Heavy Weather - How A Catamaran Survives –

Alex Stone provides pointers to storm seamanship in a catamaran after a difficult Tasman crossing.

The Tasman can throw it at you. And it did. On an eastbound crossing from Bundaberg to New Zealand we survived two gales and one intense storm. We sailed nearly 400nm without rudders. We sat at sea anchor for a total of eight nights. A weather window that should have been open – no less than six prediction systems assured us of it, two weeks of westerlies, none more than 25kts – well, that weather window had slammed shut. Decisively.

Tasman: (synonym) unpredictable, challenging, arduous.

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Details: Deb and Dennis Jansma

– Fusion With An American Accent –

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The journey of a couple who built the catamaran of their dreams and then went sailing – the hows, whys, and wherefores of it all.

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– All New Leopard 53 Powercat –

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This dream catcher takes cutting edge design and performance to dizzy new heights.

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- Milestone in the Whitsundays -

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We had planned a 10 day stay in the Whitsundays to celebrate a milestone birthday and were thrilled to be invited to join friends on a boat to cruise the islands. What a destination to start such an adventure with my family and friends.

We were met at the marina on Hamilton Island and walked down to the boat with some trepidation. I must admit that my boating experiences were very limited with only a day spent on a 42ft monohull. I recall heeling over at an alarming angle (to me) whilst clinging onto each child. I had put on a brave face thinking sailing isn’t for me. With this memory in mind, I was both relieved and delighted when we approached this glistening new power catamaran. Our friends had chartered her through Whitsunday Rent a Yacht and Lady Lynne a Leopard 46 was to be our new home for a cruise around the Whitsundays

As we walked aboard the excitement and anticipation quickly elevated any previous anxiety. I was amazed that this boat had all the modern features of a luxurious apartment. Panoramic views through the saloon which lead straight out to the bow through an opening door. On top was a huge enclosed flybridge and aft was a back deck large enough to entertain all of us in the utmost comfort.

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There are three dining areas, one on the aft deck one on a flybridge and another in the saloon. The main galley was furnished with a stand-up fridge freezer, dishwasher, bar fridge, filtered water and the most impressive set of appliances that made me want to remodel my own kitchen at home.

We were led to our spacious cabins on the portside. My two young daughters shared a forward double cabin and we were aft, each cabin had its own bathroom/shower and air-conditioning. Luxury!

After a comprehensive briefing we departed the marina past the Hamilton Island Yacht Club and then swiftly motored along the south coast of Whitsunday Island. We cruised from the front deck which could be accessed either from either side deck or through the saloon. This gave us an uninterrupted view, fresh air and room to relax. As we passed through Solway passage, we rounded the headland and we were met with the expansive vista of Whitehaven Beach perfectly framed with white cumulus clouds, aqua marine water and pine cover peaks.

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Whitehaven is famous for its fine silica sands and stretches as far as the eye can see. Deploying the tender off an electric platform I felt I was o n the set of an Ian Fleming movie. We tendered ashore and in minutes where bathing in what can only be described as paradise on earth. Our girls were super excited to practise their snorkelling skills so no sooner had we set foot on this idyllic beach they reached for their dive skins and masks in eagerness for ‘finding Nemo’ on the fringing reefs over the coming days.

Back aboard for a late lunch we continued north along this impressive beach to find our anchorage at Tongue Bay. As the sun set, constellations and myriad stars appeared in full view from the flybridge and from the aft deck we watched garfish darting across our stern as they played (and feasted) through our blue underwater lights.

The Whitsundays in summer?

The weather was settled for the four days aboard with south easterlies around 15-20kts for the first three days with a change to light northerlies at the end of the charter. Our friends had planned an anti-clockwise trip around Whitsunday Island to take advantage of following seas and planned stops at Border Island, Stonehaven, Butterfly Bay and Black Island to the north. The latter were stand out snorkelling and luncheon spots with conveniently placed mooring balls close to the fringing reefs along with a desert island beach on the tip on Black Island.

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An overnight anchorage in Nara Inlet was quite unexpected as views are more akin to Norwegian fiords than the tropical playground. The sounds of pheasant, coucal and sulphur crested cocktatoos echoed up the channel as we motored past a dozen catamarans for another night aboard with birthday celebrations, music, laughter, fine food and great company.

We continued our journey back down the Whitsunday passage cutting between north and South Molle to stop at the northern tip in Lovers Cove for a light lunch before cruising down The Narrows with our favourite tunes piped around the vessel.

It is strange how quickly you adjust to living on a boat. Waking before sunrise to watch the changing colors across the sky and ocean and setting sun across the Whitsunday Passage.

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Dropping the anchor at Mays Bay we all boarded the dinghy once more for our last magical adventure around the empty anchorage. Turning the motor off, we drifted slowly, all silently grinning and watching the sun set over the mainland. I knew that all of us, including our daughters, felt that same serenity that night, wishing the boat trip wasn’t coming to an end so soon. As we came out of our reverie, I had already started discussing our next family boating getaway. We could plan an overseas trip but with the Whitsundays just over an hour away from Brisbane there is still too much for us to see and explore on our own doorstep.

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