Dufour, long one of France’s most well-respected builders, has been producing sailboats in La Rochelle since the dawn of fiberglass boatbuilding. Having recently merged with another La Rochelle-based builder, Fountaine Pajot, Dufour has now joined other European mass-production yards in producing a large-scale luxury cruising yacht. Its new Dufour 61, winner of SAIL’s 2022 Best Boat Award in the Flagship Monohull category, combines a competitive price point with high-end comfort and some seat-of-the pants performance.

Design & Construction

Dufour has been working with Italian designer Umberto Felci since the turn of this century when it bifurcated its models into a Grand Large cruising range and a Performance racing range. Stepping now into the big-boat luxury cruising market, Dufour has again teamed with Felci to create a boat that hews to the contemporary design idiom: lots of beam carried aft with a hard chine to increase initial stability, a low-profile cabinhouse, an open flush foredeck and an efficient T-bulb keel.

The boat’s construction is fairly straightforward. The fiberglass hull laminate is solid below the waterline, with the topsides cored in end-grain balsa. An internal aluminum grid supports the keel, which boasts lead ballast. The infused deck is also cored with balsa. Finish quality is better than average for a mass-production vessel.

On Deck

The Dufour 61’s cockpit layout is modern in every respect. There are twin wheels aft turning one deep rudder, and I was pleased to see engine controls and a full set of instruments at both helm stations. All lines are led aft under the deck to two pairs of Lewmar 65 winches positioned just in front of each station. The double-ended German mainsheet is controlled via a narrow bridle positioned atop a tall carbon-fiber arch at the forward end of the cockpit…

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Anacortes, Washington, is an unassuming sea-salty town near the San Juan Islands of Puget Sound, and the Betts Boats yard is easy for a passerby to miss. But within Betts’ facilities, the dawn of an era in Pacific Northwest production boatbuilding could be breaking with the construction of Hull #1 of the new performance-cruiser Whitacre 47. In true Cascadian fashion, it’ll be locally grown with a sustainable ethos, both environmentally and economically, for rugged off-grid all-weather living. Combined with a high degree of customization and ideal market conditions, the Whitacre 47 is positioned to make quite a splash.

The seeds that sprouted into the Whitacre 47 were first sown when Mike Mullenberg, a yacht broker with his own Anacortes-based brokerage Pacific Cruising Yachts (PCY), sold retired U.S. Navy fighter pilot, aerospace engineer and avid sailor TC Skeels a Dragonfly 1000. After cruising extensively with his wife for over six years, it was time to go bigger…

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The days of multihulls being the weirdos of the sea are gone. Nothing illustrated this better than the 2021 Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC), which departed Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (in Spain’s Canary Islands) in November and wrapped up in December on the island of St. Lucia in the Caribbean. Of the 143 boats that crossed the starting line of the 3,000-mile voyage, 32 were multihulls, mostly cats with a smattering of trimarans as well.

The ARC has been running 36 consecutive years, ever since the first one was organized by the World Cruising Club (WCC: worldcruising.com) in 1986, and multihulls are increasingly visible. This ARC was rough, with 15ft seas and 40-knot winds barreling down on the fleet about a week after an unusually slow (and upwind) start. Nonetheless, the crews on cats fared well. Many commented that they appreciated the more stable platform of multiple hulls and that it enabled them to be more rested and make better decisions…

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For years, Nautitech Catamarans has been doing things differently from other production cat builders, and it seems to be paying off. When the French company launched its Open series in 2013, it shrunk the saloon and dedicated more space to the cockpit where most catamaran living takes place. The company also placed the helms outboard on the amas rather than high up on a bulkhead or flybridge. Owners loved both approaches. Now Nautitech has decided to focus on its core market of private owners rather than building for charter. That strategy can be tricky, since it ignores 50 percent of the market. But it does give the builder the ability to dial in exactly what distance cruisers are looking for. With that in mind, Nautitech just introduced its new 44 Open, a boat positioned perfectly for the cruising-couple sweet spot…

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It was always known that the financial support from major Oracle shareholder and founder Larry Ellison was not open-ended and Team Japan becomes the first casualty of that.

The statement released  regarding SailGP Team Japan reads as follows:

“After much deliberation and taking into account logistical and commercial considerations, SailGP has made the difficult decision to pause the participation of Japan SailGP Team indefinitely. The league would like to thank Nathan Outteridge and all of the athletes and staff involved in the Team for their outstanding performance in the first two seasons of SailGP and wish them the very best for the future.

Season 3 will continue with nine teams racing for the remainder of the season…

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Meet the worldly Casa Blake, a new ownership opportunity in the heart of the Costa Palmas Marina Village. Come explore this collection of residences on the Sea of Cortez in Cabo. Register to find out more.

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Luxury high-end cruising cats with high-performance DNA have occupied an established if somewhat rarified niche in the sailboat market ever since Peter Johnstone launched the first Gunboat in South Africa just over two decades ago. Kinetic Catamarans is an interesting new player in this field. An American company also building boats in South Africa, it launched its first model, a 62-footer, in 2019. The company’s latest offering, the slightly smaller Kinetic 54, designed to appeal to active sailing couples, is a highly attractive, thoughtfully designed craft that snagged a nod from SAIL as Best Large Multihull in our 2022 Best Boats compilation.

Design & Construction

As is de rigueur for boats of this type, the design and construction of the Kinetic 54 tips straight out of the world of go-fast racing. Its hulls are narrow and svelte, with sharply angled wave-piercing destroyer bows. The bridgedeck is set high to reduce resistance from passing seas and is cut back toward the middle of the boat, with only a light forward crossbeam and a central longeron carrying headstay loads. Construction is at the cutting edge of lightweight strength—all carbon everything, including interior furniture, cored with foam and vacuum-infused with epoxy resin. Even the toilets on this boat are built of carbon fiber.

That said, there are also some important variations on the theme. Where daggerboards are normally favored so as to maximize performance to windward, Kinetic offers centerboards, which are much less vulnerable in groundings (with daggerboards as an option if an owner prefers). Also, like many modern performance cats, the Kinetic 54 boasts a forward working cockpit just ahead of the cabinhouse, but has its carbon mast-mounted outside the cockpit aft, with the maststep set on the very forward end of the coachroof.

The heart of the boat systems-wise is a sophisticated 24-volt C-Zone distributed power system designed by Cay Electronics of Rhode Island. This automatically balances high loads and feeds juice to a bank of lithium batteries from a large coachroof solar array, a DC genset (which fires up on its own as needed) and high-output engine alternators. It includes online diagnostics that allow for detailed remote tech support.

On Deck

The Kinetic can be controlled from three different helm stations. The primary station is inside at the front of the bridgedeck saloon just behind the working cockpit. From here you can easily access the winches and running rigging by stepping through a nearby forward-facing door and also operate engine controls, navigation electronics and board controls. A large moon-roof directly above the wheel allows you to easily keep an eye on mainsail trim.

The other two wheels are aft, one at the back of each hull, with full sail controls and a B&G multifunction display at each station. The Jefa steering system linking the three different stations is segregated with clutches, so that only the wheel being used is actually connected to the rudders. When the autopilot is engaged, no wheels are connected. The break-default mode, which engages automatically when anything goes amiss, connects all wheels to the rudders. All sail controls, including the furlers, and the board controls are push-button powered systems, with load sensors to prevent over-tensioning and breakage.

Unlike many catamarans with aft decks dominated by long mainsheet travelers, the Kinetic’s traveler is mounted atop the back of the long coachroof, with a nicely curved track that carries sheet loads more efficiently. This saves lounging guests from accidentally tangling with the mainsail controls and creates a convenient space for an outdoor electric grill and fridge. It also allows for a unique fold-down transom that connects the back ends of the two hulls and transforms the rear of the boat into an immense swim platform spanning its entire breadth.

Accommodations

As we’ve come to expect with modern catamarans, the Kinetic is available with two basic layouts: a four-cabin/four-head plan with double berths in the back and front of each hull; or a three-cabin/three-head plan, where one hull is given over to a vast owner’s stateroom. The most important space, as on any cruising cat, is the bridgedeck saloon. On the Kinetic this truly does have wrap-around views of the outside world, thanks to the absence of the mast forward…

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