Groupe Beneteau, builder of Lagoon Catamarans, debuted its new Excess multihull line called at the Dusseldorf boat show in Germany in 2018. At the time they held a press conference where I may have been a bit of a pain as I asked what I thought were appropriate questions about the target market and what the difference was between these new boats and Lagoon. In fact, the first two models launched were based on a pair of existing Lagoon designs: the Excess (or XCS) 12 and 15 representing sportier versions of the Lagoon 40 and 50 respectively. I confess I had my doubts—but then I sailed them.

Design & Construction

Construction of the Excess line is a vacuum-infusion with balsa coring in the deck and hulls above the waterline. Built in three sections, the Excess 15 has the same bridge deck and inner hulls under the waterline as the Lagoon 50, but different outer hull halves. Design firm VPLP took about a ton of weight out of the Lagoon version by lightening up interior fixtures and doing away with the flybridge. In fact, no XCS model, current or future, will be a fly design, in an effort to emphasize the line’s focus on sportiness under sail.

On Deck

Like its two siblings (XCS 12 and 11), the XCS 15 comes equipped with twin helms on the aft ends of the boat’s two hulls. The starboard steering pod includes a Raymarine MFD and engine controls; the port helm has wind instruments and an attachment for a tablet. You can opt for engine controls on both sides, which would be a worthy investment adding scads of confidence when it’s time to dock.

A double seat for the driver and a companion can also be found at each helm. These both fold up and away to provide clear access to the steps and swim platforms. I’m still waiting for the builder to make these a bit more comfortable by curving the backrest to provide more room. Overhead, Excess includes an elegant structure on each side that provides the helms a bit of protection from the sun and rain. These mini biminis, so to speak, are unobtrusive and well-integrated: a good solution.

Before my test sail, the builder claimed the age-old problem of seeing forward from two aft helms had been remedied by the vertical windows in the saloon at the front of the cabinhouse. I was skeptical at first, but in the XCS they have, indeed, dialed in forward visibility, so that you can actually see all the way through the saloon down to the tips of both bows from the wheels.

Other on-deck features aboard the Excess 15 include 1) the soft-top accordion sunroof and 2) a forward cockpit complete with an actual lounge. It’s the perfect place to sunbathe or escape the heat of a setting sun baking the aft cockpit when swinging to anchor in the trades. I’d like to see the nonskid on the coachroof taken all the way to the edge since the smooth surface mixes poorly with wet feet on a moving platform. However, was happy to see that Excess has added elongated handrails extending almost all the entire way forward.

Accommodations

The Excess 15 comes with four cabins/four heads or three cabins/three heads with the owner’s version dedicating the entire starboard hull to a master suite. Once there, he or she can spread out and enjoy not only the large head in the bow with his and hers sinks, but a desk and outboard sofa. Personally, I’d do away with the sofa and add lockers. With all the other luxurious spaces to hang out in, it’s unlikely anyone will lounge in the cabin. Presumably, there’s also a layout somewhere including up to six cabins, which may appear if these models end up in charter.

The saloon is reminiscent of the Lagoon 50, but in the XCS 15 it’s lighter, sleeker and more contemporary. An L-shaped settee is slightly elevated above the rest of the main deck and faces a bench seat aft of the compression post. Seven can gather here comfortably. The port corner of the settee also serves as a seat for a pseudo-nav desk. The galley is tucked into the aft port corner with refrigeration and added countertop space to the right of the glass entry door.

In creating the interiors for their new line, the designers at Excess and Group Beneteau focused on streamlining the interior wood in order to both lighten up the new boats, as much as possible, in addition to creating a new aesthetic—and it worked. One oversight is the lack of overhead hatches. Granted, the entire aft section of the cabin opens rather nicely But when it’s hot fear things may get pretty toasty.

Under Sail

For all the test sails where I get skunked with little or no wind, there are also those days that make up for it—like our test sail on the XCS 15 off the beach of Fort Lauderale. The Excess 15 is offered in either “Standard” or “PulseLine” configurations, and we had the latter, which adds the optional sprit for a Code 0 and about 120ft² of the upwind sail area between the square-top main and self-tacking jib. I’ve long thought the ideal sailplan, especially for recreational short-handed sailing, includes a self-tacker and a big downwind sail on a furler, so our setup was perfect.

Again, test-sail conditions were ideal, with 12-18 knots of wind and a light, 3ft chop. With three of us aboard, the XCS 15 felt a bit like Papa Bear’s chair, but while it’s a huge platform, the boat is by no means difficult to manage. If you think two boats within sight of one another equals a race, then you probably know what I mean when I say three A-types on one boat will yield similar results. In the end we maxed out at 10.5 knots with the Code 0 on a broad reach. Under jib and main alone, we made around 8 knots sailing within 60 degrees of the true wind. Good times…

For the conclusion of the review:

Read more on Sail Magazine

U.S. Senators Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (and total reich wing fascist – ed), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) introduced the RETAIN GPS and Satellite Communications Act on June 23, 2021.

If the bill passes, it would force communications company Ligado to pay the costs associated with any GPS interference from their terrestrial-based 5G telecommunications — both in the private and public sector. Read on.

Read more on Sailing Anarchy

The ClubSwan 125 undergoes sea trials ahead of its 2021 racing season. Designed by Juan Kouyoumdjian, the boat 125-footer now stands as the racing flagship of the Nautor line. (Courtesy Nautor’s Swan/)

The ClubSwan racing yacht range is well-established and represents some of the finest performance One-Design racing available. The ClubSwan 125 now sets the highest possible benchmark for Nautor and is finally at sea ready to take part in the most iconic events in the sailing calendar with her debut being the Fastnet…

Read more on Sailing World

From top left (clockwise): Alexander Bryan and Cortlandt Heyniger, William Carl Buchan, Agustin Diaz, Gilbert T. Gray, Lynne Jewell Shore, Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce, Jane Wiswell Pegel, Captain William D. Pinkney (Lifetime Achievement), Dawn Riley and Richard Rose. (Courtesy Of The National Sailing Hall Of Fame/)

The National Sailing Hall of Fame (NSHOF) announced today eleven sailors comprising its 11th class of inductees. The Class of 2021 includes: Alexander “Red” Bryan and Cortlandt “Bud” Heyniger – founders of Alcort, Inc. and designers and producers of the iconic Sunfish; William “Carl” Buchan – championship sailor, Olympic gold medal winner and 1988 defender of the America’s Cup; Agustin “Augie” Diaz – Rolex Yachtsman of the Year; Star, Snipe and Laser World Champion; and 505 North American Champion; Gilbert T. Gray – Olympic gold medalist in the Star Class debut Olympiad, race official and chief measurer; Lynne Jewell Shore – one of the first women to win an Olympic gold medal in sailing, Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year and former Executive Director of Sail Newport; Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce – the founder of the U.S. Naval War College (1884) and leading educator on seamanship and training for the Navy; Jane Wiswell Pegel – a three-time Martini & Rossi (now Rolex) Yachtswoman of the Year and winner of several National and North American Championships in sailing and iceboating; Dawn Riley – the first woman ever to manage an America’s Cup syndicate and the first American to sail in three America’s Cups and two Whitbread Round the World (now The Ocean Race) races; Richard “Dick” Rose – a thirty-year member of World Sailing’s Racing Rules of Sailing Committee, he is considered “the” international authority on the Racing Rules of Sailing. The Lifetime Achievement Award recipient for 2021 is Captain William D. “Bill” Pinkney, the first African American to solo-circumnavigate the world via the Capes…

Read more on Sailing World

More than just a sailor and designer, James Wharram, originally of Manchester, England, is also both a free-thinker and an individual clearly dedicated to getting as much out of this life as possible. Although he made his mark as a multihull designer, builder and voyager who drew inspiration from the ancient catamarans and proas of Polynesia, such a distinction only scratches the surface of his story—as is evident in the tale of how he came to build his very first catamaran.

Looking back in time, my “I want to” [build and sail a double canoe across the Atlantic] seems ridiculous, a juvenile fantasy. I was 25-years-old, I had no inherited money, no trade, no profession; I was a dreamer. Ruth [Wharram’s then girlfriend and future wife, who passed away in 2013] sat quietly and replied, “I will help you, but only if you put all your best effort and all your abilities into the project.” Discipline had entered into my life. Then being practical she asked, “How much will it cost?” Around that time there was a small book on sailing by Weston Martyr called The £200 Millionaire, so I quickly said: “Oh about £200,” (£200 in 1954 being approximately equal to £5,500 in 2019, or about $7,500). We sold our Annie E. Evans to two river policemen and returned to England.

On the way back to my parents’ home in Manchester, we stayed in London to visit the Science Museum in south Kensington, with its marvelous collection of Chinese junks and Pacific canoe models. There I found exhibited a model of a 24ft double canoe with a beautiful hull shape made in 1935 by an old Polynesian islander in the Society Islands. I bought a photograph of this model and decided to use this boat as a base for my Polynesian double canoe. At 24ft it could be built within my limited budget.

The hull shape of the model was quite slender, so with this as a starting point I had to redesign the hull shape for loading up with sufficient stores to cross the Atlantic from Britain to the tropical isles of the West Indies, a voyage which would be of similar distance and sea conditions as a long Pacific sea voyage.

Read more on Sail Magazine

In 2017, Hurricane Matthew wreaked havoc on ­northeast Florida, with floodwaters leaving boats high and dry. Removing them was an expensive, difficult process. (Courtesy Barbara Hart/BoatU.S./)

If you’ve been on the hunt for a marine insurance policy over the past year or so, you likely already know that it’s a challenging market. Sailing and cruising groups on social media and web forums are filled with frequent posts about people struggling to find coverage, keep coverage, or just afford it. It’s a problem that seems to be affecting beginning cruisers and circumnavigators, with old boats or new. So what gives? How did the situation get to this point, and what can sailors do to protect their dream?

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and I’ve never seen a market this hard,” said Morgan Wells, a yacht-insurance specialist with Jack Martin and Associates. “There’s been a great reduction in the number of insurance companies writing boat and yacht insurance, and the international-cruiser segment of the market has been more adversely affected, particularly for boats anywhere on the US East Coast, and even more so for people looking for new policies for Florida, the Bahamas and the Caribbean…

Read more on Cruising World

There is an ocean-sailing science fiction novel I’ve been writing in my head now for some time. It posits a future in which the world’s climate has become so unsettled the sport of ocean sailing has been transformed. Sailing in the Vendée Globe has become so dangerous, due to all the furious weather roaming the planet, most competitors race robot boats from behind computer screens safe onshore. The action of the story revolves around the last two sailors crazy enough to sail the race themselves, who are, of course, bitter rivals. The denouement comes when they are shipwrecked together on a remote island in the southern Indian Ocean, where they are confronted by a horde of seemingly sapient penguins, who are in fact “transcended” tourists from an alien planet.

It says something about how the future is unfolding that this scenario now seems increasingly likely.

Take last year’s hurricane season. It was phenomenally dynamic and shattered all sorts of norms. It broke the record for the most named storms in a single season (30), the most named storms to make landfall in the United States (12), the most storms to form in a single month (10 in September), and the most late-season major hurricanes (four in October and November). It also tied many other records, including one for the most storms to rapidly intensify (nine).

The 2020 season was so insanely active every single mile of the U.S. southern and eastern shoreline, from the Mexican border in Texas to the Canadian border in Maine, was at some point under a storm watch or warning. All but five coastal counties ultimately did experience tropical storm-force winds…

Read more on Sail Magazine

Salcombe Gin RS Summer Regatta – RS Vareos

With some last-minute cancellations just 4 Vareos travelled to Torquay to join RTYC VC Jim Short.  Seeing the reducing numbers, Jim persuaded his son Jovian (an experienced Sailor in other classes including 29ers) to borrow another local boat to give us a fleet of 6.

The yellow course was set well out in the bay by race officer Bob Penfold and was shared with the 100s and 600s.  After a short delay to allow for some of the fleet to get to the sailing area the Vareos were started first.  Jovian got off to a good start followed by Richard Woods and Luke Fisher.  With the wind not really filling in as expected the first beat was very long and after a gentle run down with the kites up the windward mark was moved down to shorten the beat (although for us pond sailors it still looked like a long way). In his first outing in the Vareo Jovian took an unlucky line downwind allowing Richard and Luke to get past. As the race progressed the 100s and 600s who started 6 minutes behind began to catch up giving us a larger fleet to contend with in the final run.  Richard made the most of his new spinnaker (won at the Milton Keynes Inlands two weeks ago) to take the win from Luke then Jovian. At the back of the fleet Jim and Alan Basset were fighting for 5th and 6th as they did all afternoon…

Read more on Sailing Anarchy

Peter Gibbons-Neff, of Annapolis, self-deployed to France for the summer to prepare for the Mini Transat race. (Paul Todd/Outside Images/)

“Why not?” There’s a phrase that leads to trouble. So too does its problematic next of kin: “If not now, when?”

Those were the sorts of thoughts rattling around the mind of Peter Gibbons-Neff last year as he considered his future on the verge of transitioning from active duty after a 10-year stint in the Marine Corps.

A captain and US Naval Academy graduate, he’d survived two deployments to the war-torn Middle East and a divorce, and was back on home waters last year, working at the Pentagon and living in Annapolis, Maryland. With the rest of his life looming large, he wondered, what next?

It turned out the answer lay around the corner from his place in the Eastport section of the quaint old sailing town. It was a boat, of course—a life-altering, slippery little beauty designed to the Mini 6.50 class of tiny, trailerable race boats in which every other year a gaggle of grizzled Frenchmen charge alone into the tempestuous Atlantic on a 4,000-mile sleigh ride to the Caribbean. And, of course, it was for sale.

“I got a test ride,” Gibbons-Neff says, “and I fell in love with the boat. I loved the speed, the size, and what you can do with it. The timing was just right.”

This was 2020, the year of COVID-19, and he figured that by September 2021, if he hurried, he could get ready for the start of the biennial Mini Transat in France, the premier event on the global calendar for the 21-foot sleds. Out there alone on the ocean blue, he wouldn’t have to worry about quarantines, masking or hand-sanitizing. That sounded good. And at 32, in the prime of life, he was fit and ready for anything…

Read more on Sailing World

Last week the United States SailGP Team announced that applications have opened for community sailing organizations to join its “Foiling First” program, created to “develop foiling sailors and advance diversity and inclusion in the sport through building the first ever professional pathway to foiling in the States.

The Skeeta foiler, imported by Melges Performance Sailboats will be used for U.S. SailGP Team’s domestic foiling initiative. (Melges Performance Sailboats/)

“The first partner announcement came through Rhode Island’s East Bay Sailing Foundation which operates on the grounds of Bristol YC where, in late July, U.S. SailGP team members will kick off the initiative on the upper reaches of Narragansett Bay with its first foiling camp for local kids and coaches. “Since launching Foiling First we’ve been overwhelmed by the response from the American sailing community,” said U.S. SailGP Team CEO and Driver Jimmy Spithill in a team statement. “We’re looking forward to working with Bristol Yacht Club and East Bay Sailing Foundation and we’re excited to invite more organizations to join. It’s really encouraging to see communities ready to participate in change on and off the water.”

The program, the team says, has three components whereby organizations such as the East Bay Sailing Foundation will build a fleet of foiling boats to train locals with the support of U.S. SailGP Team sailors and coaches who will lead annual multi-day clinics. The partner organization will also then incorporate one diversity-focused organization in their community to work with, supported by Foiling First, to create introductions to the sport of sailing.

Read more on Sailing World

The sad news of Seattle sailor Greg Mueller, who perished this week after being jerked overboard during a race at Anacortes, recalls a strikingly similar incident more than 50 years ago.  Mueller apparently stepped into the loop of a spinnaker sheet just as the sail filled. The force lifted him off the deck, then held him upside down in the water as he was unable to free himself from the line.

Rewind. For the 1965 Sydney-Hobart race the Italian navy entered their elegant 69-foot training yawl Corsaro II. The yacht (above) has recently been restored. Off the coast of Tasmania the navigator, Lieutenant Franco Barbalonga, was flicked overboard by a wire spinnaker brace. The crew, many of whom were only young cadets, failed to retrieve him.

Miraculously, the much smaller Australian yacht Corroboree was running South down the same heading. After a brief search they located Barbalonga and hauled him aboard – cold, in shock, but alive. By then he was wearing just one sock…

Read more on Sailing Anarchy