Beats us. Just what in the hell is it, anyway? Thanks to Zoom Sails.

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Lagoon 55

“Our experience tells us that people ignore a design that ignores people. That’s why we wanted to draw a beautiful boat that would be immediately identifiable as being a Lagoon,” says designer Patrick le Quément. And indeed, the new Lagoon 55 is a boat with an unmistakable profile. A hardtop shields the flybridge and its helm station from the weather, making for a tall, triple-stacked silhouette. NautaDesign, which was responsible for the interior, was also tasked with bringing the same sense of light and space found aboard Lagoon’s other even larger cats belowdecks. To that end, extra-large windows and skylights were added to bring the outdoors in. Construction is in polyester with anti-osmotic resin to ward off blistering. The hulls, deck and coachroof are all infused, with a balsa core in the deck and solid laminate below the waterline. Spars are aluminum, a self-tacking jib comes standard, and a fully-battened square-top mainsail is available as an option for those in search of additional power.

LOA 54ft 4in BEAM 29ft 6in DRAFT 5ft 2in DISPLACEMENT 58,00lb (lightship) SAIL AREA 1,948ft² (std. main); 2,001ft² (square-top main), Lagoon, cata-lagoon.com

HH44 Open

The HH44 Open was designed in collaboration with the Disabled Sailors Association (DSA) of the UK. From getting on, off and around the boat to having space to turn a chair around on board, accessibility has been at the forefront of the design. The expansive saloon is 334ft² and has the standard HH finishing and style. A weather-protected internal helm station makes full control of the helm and sails possible from a wheelchair. Large windows and a sunroof allow the breeze to wash through the boat and give it an open, airy feeling. The galley is aft-facing. With a 62ft carbon mast and square-topped mainsail, this is very much a performance-oriented boat that will undoubtedly make the best of a wide range of conditions. Curved C-shaped daggerboards provide lift sailing hard on the wind. A second version of the HH44 Open is also on the way for sailors without mobility limitations.

LOA 44ft 3in BEAM 24ft 7in (7.5m) DRAFT 4ft 4in (board up); 9ft 10in (board down) DISPLACEMENT 19,840lb (light ship) SAIL AREA NA, HH Catamarans, hhcatamarans.com

Balance 580

It seems there’s always something in the works at Balance Catamarans, with the latest example being this impressive-looking 58-footer. The latest in a long line of well-crafted performance cruisers, the boat has all the trademarks of a Balance cat with its sleek lines, powerful rig and high-aspect daggerboards. Hull #1 will be constructed entirely in epoxy, carbon and Corecell M foam, but the boat is also available in E-glass with some carbon reinforcements in high-load areas. Hulls and deck are vacuum-bagged, and the mast, boom, forward crossbeam and spreaders are carbon with Kevlar standing rigging. (Aluminum spars are also an option.) Stacking doors separate the saloon and aft cockpit and allow the two to be combined into a single, large free-flowing space. The boat’s trademark VersaHelm allows you to steer from beneath the shelter of the hardtop in dirty weather, or from up high when the sun shines. It’ll be fun to see this boat when it launches.

LOA 58ft BEAM 27ft 10in DRAFT 4ft 6in (boards up); 10ft 11in (boards down) DISPLACEMENT 31,785lb (light ship) SAIL AREA 2,191ft², Balance Catamarans, balancecatamarans.com

Xquisite X5 Plus and Sixty Solar

Following up on its SAIL magazine “Best Boats” winning X5, South Africa-based has been busy of late working on no less than three new projects. The first of these, the X5 Plus represents an evolution of the already outstanding X5. Chief among the changes relative to its predecessor are lighter displacement and a more powerful rig in the interest of speed. Other upgrades, based on feedback from existing customers, include everything from a state-of-the-art electrical system to more handholds—all with an eye toward the best sailing experience possible. Also in the works are a pair of 60ft Bill Dixon-designed “Sixty Solar” models, which will be available in both power and sail variants. The latter, in particular, is being expressly designed for singlehanded sailing with all electric sail controls and the option of an eco-friendly parallel hybrid propulsion system.

X5 Plus: LOA 53ft BEAM 26ft 2in Draft 4ft 5in Displacement 35,274lb (light ship) SAIL AREA 1,550ft², Xquisite Yachts, xquisiteyachts.com

Dragonfly 40

A truly impressive effort on the part of Denmarks’ Quorning Boats, the company’s recently launched Dragonfly 40 offers an outstanding combination of speed and comfort afloat. Available in either a “Touring” version with a self-tacking jib, or a turbocharged “Ultimate” version, with an overlapping headsail, the boat features a carbon mast, a batten-car system for the main, the option of a fixed sprit and twin helms aft. The amas include a pair of deck hatches providing easy access to a wealth of storage space, and the accommodation space belowdecks in the main hull (long a Quorning specialty) looks to be both well-thought-out and comfortable, with an L-shaped galley to port and a private double cabin aft. Finally, there’s Quorning’s proprietary “Dragonfly Swing Wing” system, which allows you to deploy and retract the amas in a matter of seconds.

LOA 40ft 7in BEAM 13ft 1in (amas folded); 27ft 6in (amas extended) DRAFT 1ft 4in (board up); 6ft 3in (board down) DISPLACEMENT 12,125lb SAIL AREA 968ft² (Touring), Quorning Boats APS, dragonfly.dk

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Day one of the Delta Pro highlighted the level of competition and the challenges that the kiters will have to overcome to claim the crown. Eight, high-speed races saw battles from start to finish. The front of the fleet was strongly contested with top-five finishes by seven of the eighteen racers, and an especially tight battle amongst the top six.

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If experience has a tone, it would sound like three-time Olympian and 470 sailor Stu McNay—steady, measured, with a positive, almost Mr. Rogers feeling. “Each Game has a unique flavor,” he says, the day before last spring’s 470 European Championships, one of the rare events he and crew, Dave Hughes, have been able to use to prepare for this month’s delayed 2020 Olympic regatta in Enoshima, Japan. “It reflects many things and who you are at that time.”

McNay and the rest of the U.S. Sailing Team have spent the last year doubling down on their campaigns, creatively analyzing the mental and mechanical elements in the context of a global pandemic. Not surprisingly, this has been no easy task in light of the spattering of on-again, off-again events this year combined with travel restrictions that have kept most Americans out of Europe at the same time many of their competitors have been able to train together.

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Three days into its historic voyage attempting to become the largest autonomous vessel to cross the Atlantic, project organizers are reporting that the Mayflower has experienced a “small mechanical issue,” and that they are stopping the voyage. A recovery team reached the autonomous vessel on June 21.

“We decided not to force the ship to continue as what’s broken is easy to fix at the moment. Our team is on their way to get the ship, and the Mayflower is waiting,” the team put out as a mission status update. Initial updates on June 18 only said that there was a small malfunction, but the vessel would be taken back to base to investigate and that they hoped to restart the voyage shortly. Read on.

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Blue Point, NY (June 19, 2021) – Another beautiful day allowed 32 J/24s to complete three more races at the Good Samaritan Hospital J/24 North American Championship, and it was day one leader Keith Whittemore’s Furio which added an additional two wins to increase their advantage heading into the final day of competition tomorrow.

Now discarding a fourth, Furio tallies just 6 points in six races. Mike Marshall’s American Garage moved up to second place overall with 12 points, three ahead of Travis Odenbach’s Honeybadger. Leading the Corinthian division is Mark Hillman’s Sisu…

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When the USA defender moved the America’s Cup from San Francisco to Bermuda after their 2013 defense, there was heartache from the locals, but they also knew it was never their event. Billionaire Larry Ellison owned the team, funded the team’s club, and had twisted the City for event support.

But the situation is different in New Zealand, and the Māori Party has hit out at Team New Zealand’s plans to take the America’s Cup overseas, accusing the Grant Dalton-led syndicate of selling “their souls to the highest bidder”.

“When the Americas Cup gets distilled to how much money rather than how much mana, we have truly lost our way,” Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi said in a statement titled ‘the rort that is the America’s Cup’.

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A total WTF concept. Not sailing, but check it out.

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