A Fast Tank

We needed a boat to sail around the world. When I started looking for boats, safety was my top concern. As racer of sailboats, I had seen big weather. I had experienced being out of control. I had heard stories that made it clear I hadn’t seen a fraction of what the ocean was capable of. I started my boat search looking for a monohull that could be knocked down by a hurricane, but would never sink. I wanted a tank that could charge into a shipping container without getting holed. I did kinda want something fast; I wanted a fast tank.

I like speedy high tech carbon fiber boats. Even before I learned to sail, I was obsessed with the Team Philips catamaran of the late 90s/early 2000s. The boat had carbon fiber wing masts set in giant titanium sockets. The boat was abandoned when the crew lost control in a storm. Team Philips was doing crazy speeds with masts and no sails. The crew had no way to slow her down. Years later, after our vacation to British Virgin Islands on a bareboat charter cat, I thought it would be fun to have a Gunboat and cruise the world with a live aboard friend-commune. The Gunboat is a delicious carbon fiber cat. The Gunboat is a luxurious Manhattan condo strapped to a 20+ kts rocketship. But there are also stories of Gunboat owners losing control, or losing rigs in big storms. Catamarans were tempting, but just didn’t seem like a smart option. I browsed multi-hull options anyway.

Team Philips

Gunboat

Refining the Search

These two extremes covered a wide range of boats, though I did have some narrowing criteria. I had a strong preference for a single masted boats. I wanted sloops over ketches. Yawls are right out! Yawls always seemed to me a cheap fix bolted on to an unbalanced sailplan. I thought multiple masts only existed because of past limits in shroud and mast materials of the time. Sloops were obviously the superior modern design. I did later learn that a mizzen of any kind provides huge control of helm balance, but it still looks like crap to me. I had a strong preference for a composite hull, but was open to steel or aluminum. For length, my friend Angus strongly encouraged us to look in the 40 to 45 foot range. Angus had sound reasoning. He said, “Remember how much the main sail on Finale (Swan 46) weighs? Now imagine its just you and Sarah taking the sail down and moving it around.” This was good advice, but I didn’t heed it for long. I was looking at 50+ foot from the onset. Sure, 50+ was dangerously large, but they looked so much more comfortable. For price, I started the search at $150k and up. Inevitably, Yatchworld searches quickly expanded from 40 feet to >100 feet, and prices at or above $3M. I could not actually purchase a $3M boat nor could I afford a single night of moorage for a 100 ft yacht, but such is the way of boat shopping. I just wanted a look see. Below I talk through some of my favorites in the mono hull and multi-hull category. Heck, I even found an incredible deal on an old Orma 60 tri-maran! I could live out my Waterworld fantasies on that bad girl.

Orma 60

Monohull Options

The monohull wish list included a number of French blue water boats. Including Garcia, Allures and Boreal. These boats tend to be Aluminum and have either a pilot house or a dog house to provide a nicely protected helm. Most of these boats were beach-able, which seems very fashionable in France. Most of these boats are a survivalists wet dream, ideal for high-latitude cruising and able to thrive in serious weather. Most had cutter rigs, making it easy to switch to a staysail when shit hits the fan. We took the oppurtunity to walk around a Garcia Exploration 45 at Swiftsure Yachts on Lake Union. There were some cool features, including water tight and bullet proof companion way doors. The doors provide extra security in sketchy ports. There was a lot to like in this boat, if you want maximum margin of safety, but it wasn’t a great boat for me. I didn’t fit in many of the interior step-downs and the aft cabins. I did love that you could keep watch safe and warm within; there was great visibility inside the boat. I really liked the safety of aluminum, but I had just dealt with corosion in Hydra’s aluminum fuel tank. I was scared of accidentally leaving a stainless washer in the bilge only to find a hole in my boat months later. My fears about aluminum were not well founded, but I decided to focus more on composite boats in a similar or lower price range anyway. If we ever decide we want to do some high-latitude cruising, I would take a very serious look at Garcia boats. Especially now that Garcia have a catamaran.

Garcia Exploration 45

Boreal 55OC

I have fond memories of racing Finale, a Swan 46. I searched around and quickly learned that Swans hold their value. Older models were at the higher end of our initial price targets. Newer models, like the Swan 60, looked amazing, but were way out of our range. Baltic yacht’s had many of the same aesthetics of the Swan, but at a lower price point. I liked those boats, but I was tempted by faster boats. There was a Marten 49 in New Zealand that really had my attention. X-Yachts were also floating to the top of my list. There were a number of X-Yacht listings, and it appeared we could get a fast boat with a lot of nice features for a reasonable price. Of course I browsed a few of the gold-standards for composite blue water cruisers, Amel and Oyster, but I wasn’t particularly excited by them. That Marten 49 looked real tasty, with its carbon foam core hull and sexy lines. The draft was certain to be an issue, it draws 8.3 feet with the keel lifted, 11.8 feet in the down position. That would limit our anchorages and passages. I wanted comfy and fast with a shallow draft. Monohulls required compromises on most of those dimensions.

Marten 49

X-Yacht Xp50

Multi-Hull Options

My friend Angus finally pushed me over the multi-hull edge. He thought a catamaran was the way to go without question. He said you can avoid the weather with modern forecasts, and outrun the weather if that doesn’t work. Catamarans with dagger boards can go to weather just about as well or even better than many of the cruising monohulls I was looking at. With the dagger boards up, the boats draw around 3 feet, making just about any anchorage and passage accessible. Only beachable boats can go further. So my search increasingly centered on catamarans. Gunboats were a ridiculous option, the cheapest was more than $1.5M. Most were much larger than 45 feet, and have so much power to weight they can fly a hull. Even if price weren’t an object, that type of boat probably wasn’t one that Sarah, Lillie and I could handle if the wind ever got past 7 kts. I became a bit obsessed with an Alibi 54, one particular boat was listed out of Grenada. It was listed at more than twice our price target, but seemed like it was priced at almost 50% of what a carbon, foam core super fast catamaran should be listed for. It was close enough to our range that I just kept coming back to it. We also looked at Chris White catamarans. There were a couple of local Chris White’s available. One particular model featured two rotating rigid wings and touted the design as one you could singlehand in any condition. Outremers were on the list pretty early on. Outremers were featured in two particularly popular YouTube sailing channels. Our broker strongly endorsed Outremer, especially the older Danson designs.

Alibi 54

Boat Tours IRL

We toured one of the local Chris White catamarans. It featured a forward cock pit and helm station. Chris White made this popular before Gunboat adopted the same signature design. It also had a galley down in the starboard hull, a design that was falling out of favor in comptemporary designs. I really liked the galley down, it left lots of room for counter space and had a full size cooking range. The build quality of the Chris White was very nice. Ultimately we decided the salon and aft cockpit were too small, but I had no doubt that this was a boat designed to sail well. It wasn’t just a floating condo. We decided we needed a few more floating condo features.

Chris White Atlantic 48

Around this time, June I think, Covid was really starting to ramp up. Covid was going to severely limit the geographic range of the boats we could consider. Covid also caused lots of people to suddenly want to buy a blue water boat and sail away. As a result, the price of blue water catamarans had increased by 30%+ in the last year. There were very few catamaran options on the west coast, but there was an older Outremer 55L called Lil Bear in San Francisco.

Outremer 55L

The Boat that Got Away

I fell in love with Lil Bear slowly. The price point was in the right range, and left some room for sail upgrades and replacing systems with exactly what I wanted. It was in San Francisco, which meant an easy flight down and a not-so-terrible delivery back. The 55 foot length was great for logging 200 mile plus days, but would be a bit expensive for moorage fees. These Danson designed Outremers came highly recommended by our broker. They have a reputation for well built stiff hulls. Sarah and I decided we were ready to fly to San Francisco to make an offer. We thought it prudent to look at one more boat before buying plane tickets. We had only viewed the Garcia Explorer 45 and the Chris White Atlantic 48. Our broker arranged a viewing of a current design Outremer. We headed to Anacortes to see Lyrae, an Outremer 49. When we arrived, our broker let us know that Lil Bear was under contract. That was a huge dissapointment. I’m still a little sad about it. I was really looking forward to outfitting that boat with a new set of North 3Dis.

Lyrae checked all of the boxes for Sarah, and it seemed like a nice enough sailing vessel to me. The aft cockpit was ample, the salon large enough and well laid out. The salon wasn’t nearly as large as a true condo cat, which saved weight and left lots of tramp-space forward. That made the boat fast and more capable in heavier seas. Our broker brought three other west coast options for us to review, a custom cat, a Dix Harvey 550 and a just-listed Outremer 51, a slightly newer version of Lyrae. The Outremer 51 was more than 2x above our price target, and initially I didn’t really consider it an option.

Sarah and I spent the next day looking at photos of the Dix Harvey 550. Initially I had said “no wood!” and the DH550 was a plywood build. The more I learned about the boat, the more I liked it. It was a wooden version of a Gunboat, stiff, light and fast. The DH550 had the forward cockpit and a huge salon. The salon was so large, it featured a standard kitchen range and oven. The boat had household furniture, including a coffee table, couch and a dining room table. To my surprise, this use of house furniture caused Sarah to immediately use her veto with prejudice. Sarah thought boats should have built-in boat furniture. It was a shame, the DH550 is a great boat for the price point. The other option was a custom catamaran with a hyrbrid drive system. It seemed like a decent option, but Sarah and I weren’t super excited about it. Sarah was excited about the Outremer, especially after seeing the Outremer 49.

DixHarvey 550

Time to Make an Offer

I went to the spreadsheets and started modeling dollars. As ridiculous as it was, we could afford the Outremer 51. It was still much more than we thought appropriate to spend on a boat. I showed Sarah some math, ultimately she agreed. The little devil on my shoulder was quick to whisper in my ear, “You know this means you can also afford the Alibi 54, right?” The Alibi had many more unknowns, it had had its rudders replaced with deeper designs and a few other mods that made me think the owner may have had a few scary out-of-control moments. It had been on the market for more than a year. I had recent painful memories of buying a boat only to find a cracked carbon rudder post, and I was worried that this carbon boat may have a few similar surprises. Oh, and the damned thing was in Grenada under COVID lockdown.

Before the weekend was out, the day after seeing Lyrae, we made an offer on “Eight Directions” a 2015 Outremer 51 in Long Beach, CA. In an upcoming post, I’ll tell you all about the Outremer 51 and the history I know about Eight Directions, who would soon become our Spice.

Outremer 51