OK, confession time. When the roster of nominees for the 2022 Boat of the Year awards was released, the contest’s team and judging panel couldn’t help themselves, and quietly put three check marks, little symbols of anticipation, alongside a trio of boats: the untamed cats that would vie for the title of best performer in their class. After all, both Balance and Seawind had entered the winner’s circle in previous BOTY competitions, and it was clear they’d have a serious contender for the throne in yet another player from cat-crazy South Africa, the Kinetic KC54. How’d it go? Let’s just say, nobody was disappointed. The conditions on Chesapeake Bay were ideal for putting the three nominees through their paces, and the trio of scalded cats all acquitted themselves superbly. 

For 2022, if anything, the trend for flybridge catamarans is on a major upswing. New cats for 2022 from both Lagoon and Fountaine Pajot continued down that design path, putting an emphasis on living accommodations, not performance. But not aboard the latest Seawind 1600, a brand originally built in Australia that is now produced in Vietnam. And that suits judge Tim Murphy just fine. “This boat was very dialed in,” he said, “and one place Seawind has always been innovative is with their helms. This one was really great; it was -outboard and aft with great visibility, sort of half-protected where you could step in and out. There was also good access to the boom and mainsail, which you don’t always see on cats. The deck layout was excellent, particularly the forward trampolines. Some cats have lacings with large openings where you can twist an ankle, but these were nice and tight.”

“Compared to other Seawinds that I’ve seen, I was just blown away with it in terms of what it could do and how it performed,” said Ed Sherman.  “It’s a fairly conservative boat in terms of technology compared to some of the other boats in the same category, which depending on a potential buyer’s state of mind, could be either a good thing or a bad one. I loved the centralized winch aft which is where all the sail-handling takes place. It’s pretty brilliant for a short-handed crew, and it’s all in a very safe and easy-to-access location that a cruising couple can deal with without scaring the heck out of themselves.”

The Kinetic KC54 is a fresh entry in the cat universe, and we’ll let Tim Murphy get right to the point: “This is a fairly new company that was started within the past couple of years. My breath was absolutely taken away by this boat; it was spectacular. I think it was the best-built boat in the entire fleet. It’s an all-carbon boat, with a foam core, epoxy resin, all infused–fantastic. The whole boat felt integrated. You didn’t feel like there was a conflict between the forces in terms of accommodation versus performance.” With a price tag approaching $3 million, it perhaps should not be astonishing. That was a major factor in evaluating the boat, and while it did not win its class, the experts panel did present it with a Judges’ Special Recognition prize to honor the boat’s overall excellence.

“It was my personal favorite in this year’s contest,” said Sherman. The materials that were used are absolutely the highest quality available in our industry at this point, and it’s a very high-tech boat in terms of systems.” Gerry Douglas was also duly impressed: “This was the Tesla of sailboats. I think that that was their model. In terms of design and execution and technology, it hit all three of those marks. This boat is built without compromise, and what it cost was not an issue, they just wanted to do the best they could in every aspect of the boat. The construction was impeccable, the fit and finish was amazing. There are some very clever design things in the boat, but it all really worked seamlessly.”  

With that level of competition, the Balance 482 had a tall order to overcome to win its class. And it did. “The sailing performance was excellent,” said Douglas. “The boat felt really good. The steering was terrific. The structure of the boat throughout was exemplary. Storage is really good. Visibility was good. Ventilation was great. There was even a rain collection system on the cabin top, which is the only one of the boats we looked at had that. It was very well concealed because the gutters formed a handhold going forward. The solar panel installation was also well done. The panels were encapsulated into a fiberglass tray that elevated the deck so the panels wouldn’t overheat. Very clever.”

The driving force behind Balance cats is Phil Berman, a world champ at racing beach cats who brought that passion to developing and marketing fully found cruisers. Judge Murphy knows him well: “Phil comes from a very strong view of wanting to see boats that have solid sailing performance. He’s also a strong proponent of daggerboard boats, which tends to be quick shorthand for the dividing line between cats that are more about payload versus cats that are about performance, but not so much where you’re going to fly a hull or break a rudder. There’s a balance within a boat that really performs that you can still live aboard.” A winning balance, it turns out, with the Balance 482 securing its position as the Best Performance Cruiser for 2022.

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It doesn’t happen at every go-round, but occasionally, Cruising World ’s Boat of the Year judges are confronted with a sailboat that really can’t be compared to its peers but deserves top accolades nonetheless. At the U.S. Sailboat Show last fall, the Seawind 1190 Sport proved to be just such an entry, and so impressed the panel of experts with its execution and details that it was given the Judges’ Special Recognition Award.

Compared to the more plush full-on cruisers being considered in the Catamarans Under 50 Feet category, the 1190 was different by design, which became readily apparent when comparing displacement-­to-length ratios. Lighter boats are more easily driven and therefore theoretically more fun to sail. The 1190’s magic number was 136; the competition’s ranged from 171 to 191. Out on the water, even in a meager 3 knots that barely stirred a ripple, we managed to coax the speedo to 2.5 knots. “It really is a boat that moves,” noted judge Tim Murphy. Theorem proved.

The 1190 is modeled loosely along the lines of the Seawind 1160, itself a BOTY winner when it made its debut in 2007. Then, the boats were built in Australia. In the interim, Seawind owner and Aussie sailor Richard Ward purchased Corsair Marine and consolidated all manufacturing at that company’s Vietnam facility.

True to its name, the 1190 is intended to be sportier than its comfortable-cruising sibling. Carbon was used in the layup of its crossbeam and arch to add stiffness and reduce weight. Pounds were also saved by moving to fiber standing rigging, rather than wire, and replacing twin 30-horsepower Yanmars and saildrives with a couple of 20-horsepower outboards that can be tilted up while sailing to eliminate drag. Also contributing to hull slipperiness are daggerboards, used instead of stub keels. The net result is weight savings of about 1,300 pounds.

The 1190’s taller double-spreader rig carries a square-top main. A self-tending working jib is easily handled when tacking upwind; off the breeze, either a screecher or spinnaker can be set on the carbon-fiber sprit that comes standard with the boat. Twin wheels located to either side of the cockpit give the helmsman several options when driving: Sit outboard on the hull and enjoy the breeze, or duck under the bimini, out of the sun and weather, and take advantage of excellent sight lines forward through the removable tempered-glass windows that let lots of light pour into the saloon.

The saloon itself can be airy and open if Seawind’s trademark trifold door is lifted and stored under the cockpit bimini top, or it can be snug against the elements with the door down. Either way, the interior is laid out quite well for extended voyaging, with the galley down in the starboard hull and cabins fore and aft. To port, the owners cabin is forward with an athwartship bunk; aft is located the best head and shower we saw at the show (there’s an option to have a second head in the starboard hull). Throughout, construction appeared to be well-executed. The hull is resin-infused, with a foam core. The deck, also cored, is vacuum-bagged. Really, the judges’ only nit was that fuel hoses leading from the gasoline tank to the engine were not up to U.S. specs, a matter easily corrected either at the factory or by the dealer. Throughout, top-quality hardware from suppliers such as Lewmar and B&G is employed; sails are by Doyle. The boat’s sailaway price of $442,000 includes two 125-watt solar panels and AGM batteries.

Summing up his notes, judge Ed Sherman concluded, “If I were going to consider a multihull, this is one of the boats I’d look at for sure. … It would be a lot of fun, a lot of fun. I mean, that’s a great couple’s boat.”

Mark Pillsbury is CW’s editor.

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Winner: Seawind 1190 Sport

During every BOTY contest, the judges find themselves critiquing boats that defy easy characterization. It’s a contest, of course, and as such, every boat must be categorized, even if it means sometimes attempting to put round pegs in square holes. Yet some of these outliers are so clever, unusual and well conceived that the panelists, during their deliberations, find themselves returning to them again and again. This year there were three such nominees, including two boats built in the United States: the Alerion Sport 30, a stylish daysailer with an electric engine and camping accommodations in the Performance Cruiser class, and the Gemini Freestyle, which boasts a floor plan unlike any other, in the Charter Boat division.

But it was a third boat — a catamaran, naturally, in this Year of the Cats — that truly drew the judges’ attention and rendered them smitten. In fact, the jury was so taken with the interesting 39-foot Seawind 1190 Sport, a high-performance cruiser powered by twin retractable outboard motors, that they unanimously decided to honor it with the Judge’s Special Prize for 2017.

“Built in Vietnam, it’s a development of the company’s 1160. They’ve used carbon to make it considerably lighter,” said Tim Murphy. “So the design brief began with performance (the boat has a light displacement-to-length ratio of 136 and a powerful sail area-to-displacement ratio of 23.2). We sailed this boat in less than 3 knots of breeze but still made far better than 2 knots of boat speed. So it’s a boat that really moves. It has daggerboards, the rudders are in cartridges, and it has a pair of outboards that tip up, so it’s easily beachable. I think it’s going to be a very fun boat for people who love to sail.”

“I really like the Seawind conceptually, with a unique raised cockpit door/bulkhead that opens up the whole boat,” said Carol Hasse. “I think it’s definitely a boat that would live well in the tropics. Under sail, I particularly liked the ease of movement. The cockpit, by multihull standards, was not the focal point. The focal point was making the boat go fast. It would really be a joy to have for coastal cruising.”

Ed Sherman said: “I liked the boat immediately. If I were considering a multihull, this is one of the boats I’d be seriously looking at. It’s simple, but it’s sincere. It’s real. And I think Carol nailed it: It would be a fast, awesome coastal cruiser. “They did a nice job fitting it out,” he continued. “There were no extra bells or whistles, but access to everything was good. I loved the fact that it’s powered by outboard engines that you can raise and lower out of corrosive seawater, unlike a saildrive ­configuration. They’re so easy to service and maintain. The dual helms were great, as was that convertible bulkhead.”

All that aside, Sherman got to the very heart of the matter when summing up the quick, compact cruiser. “This boat,” he said, “would just be a lot of fun.”

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For more information, visit www.seawindcats.com.com.

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Fountaine Pajot and Lagoon may have been the largest catamaran builders to debut new boats during last winter’s Strictly Sail Miami Boat Show, but they weren’t the only ones. The most interesting of the other new cats, the Seawind 1160 Lite and the Gemini Freestyle 37, offered fresh, innovative takes on familiar, well-established platforms.

Perhaps befitting a boat that was conceived in Australia, the original Seawind 1160, of which well over 100 were built, was centered around the cockpit barbecue, a civilized idea if ever there was one. Pair that with the trifold door that opened the entire saloon and cockpit into one spacious central living area, and the 1160 packed a lot of cat into 38 feet.

Happily, those features remain the centerpieces of the 1160 Lite, which is now built in Vietnam. What makes the newer version unique is the elimination of the twin inboard diesel engines, which have been replaced with a pair of Honda 20-horsepower outboard engines that tilt up or down electrically. In addition to opening up vast lockers aft for sails, scuba gear, water toys and so on, they are easily serviced and save significant weight. And that’s been a theme throughout the boat, which has a clean, revamped interior with less wood; PVC closed-cell foam in the hulls; cored tables and furniture; a carbon-reinforced forward beam; and other innovations (like optional composite steering wheels) to keep the boat light and fast.

The other load that has been lightened with the 1160 Lite is the cash in your wallet to purchase one. At around $359,000 for a spanking-new ride, the cat also represents significant value.

The Gemini Freestyle 37 continued the minimalist trend. The basic boat starts at under $150,000, and it is indeed basic, with an open deck platform that can be tricked out or outfitted in countless ways. Add a hardtop canopy and modular deck furniture, and you have a fun, fast daysailing picnic boat. Take it a step further with hull accommodations and built-in furniture from the factory, and you’ve got a simple but able cruising boat. Want a “green” version? Go with the solar panels and electric engine. Or just add rows of deck chairs, as one tropical entrepreneur has done, and you have a ready-made sightseeing and snorkeling day-charter boat.

Now built by Catalina in Florida and backed by the solid pedigree of Gemini’s other popular models, the Freestyle 37 is one of the more original cats to come down the line in some time. The only limit to it is your imagination.

Speaking of compact catamarans, that’s the very definition of the South African-built TRU 32, a fully found cruising cat that’s just 32 feet long. This seagoing RV will appeal to adventuresome sailors who appreciate a lot of features in a diminutive package. Look for it this fall at the U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland, where it will surely draw curious cruisers.

Unfortunately, another builder launching a new cat from South Africa, Tamas Hamor of Xquisite Yachts, didn’t have time to get his new 50-foot X5 cat to Miami, though he drew plenty of visitors to his booth with a tour of the boat via virtual-reality headsets. He also plans to show the boat in Annapolis, where his luxury cat will turn heads in real time.

–H.M.

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Seawind Catamaran Assembly Line

My recent visit to the Vietnam boatyard run by the Australian catamaran builder, Seawind, was a fascinating experience. Seawind had been building cats for 30 years in New South Wales and owner Richard Ward wanted it to continue that way until his retirement but the global economy had other ideas. A soaring Aussie dollar and slumped market pushed the company to the wall in 2011. To extricate itself from what the Aussie government refers to as “administration” required a business plan that drastically cut costs and had a long-term strategy of creating a leaner supply chain. The inception for this came in 2010 when Seawind acquired the trimaran company Corsair Marine, which had followed a similar trajectory by moving from the United States to Vietnam in a bid for survival.

Arriving in the former Saigon—renamed Ho Chi Minh City in 1975—a hectic taxi ride through the busy sprawling metropolis of nine million people brought me to a bend on the Saigon River where the Seawind-Corsair yard is situated. It’s a modern 12,000 square meter facility with three enormous factory units. Operations Manager Mike Rees showed Kurt Jerman (the company’s U.S. West Coast distributor) and I around while introducing us to the 15 strong Australian management team. Along with185 local staff, including CAD designers, they run a busy enterprise.

**Seawind’s Vietnam yard has full order books and 200 staff to complete both Corsairs and Seawinds. Photo by Kevin Green.
**

“Corsair is a technically advanced brand, with lightweight building techniques and a highly efficient manufacturing process which we have learned a great deal from in the establishment of Seawind over here,” explained Rees. Corsair is currently releasing two new models, the 32 foot Cruze 970 and an upgraded version of the popular Dash 970.

| |**The author sailed a Seawind 1250 2000nm around the north of Australia last year and found it to be a fast passage maker. Photo by Kevin Green. **|

Seawind has used the move to upgrade many of its processes. Hulls are now foam cored while the vacuum bagging build has also been refined to include triaxial fibreglass cloth in key structural areas. The two lines of production for the Seawind 1000XL2 and the 1160 will shortly be joined by the company’s newest model, the 1250. Maintaining the brand’s quality was a question foremost on my mind as we looked over the two 1160s being assembled.

“The 1160 is our first Seawind model that is now CE approved and soon the Seawind 1000XL2 and 1250 will follow suit,” said Rees.

Seawind now deals directly with component suppliers such as Lewmar, North Sails in Sri Lanka, and All Yacht Spars in Australia.

| |**The Saigon River flows out near the famed Mekong Delta and allows large shipping access to the South China Sea. Photo by Mike Ree. **|

Standardizing components has been a priority so Lewmar steering gear is now employed on the 1160. Raymarine’s linear drive units are used as the autopilot on the latest version of the 1000XL2. Walking along the 1000XL2 assembly line, where four boats were in various stages of completion with uniformed workers (both men and women) busily assembling components showed a highly professional work process.

I noted a detailed project schedule for each boat in English and Vietnamese; an average build is 28 weeks. Doing business in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam requires that a union control staff salaries and conditions. According to boss Richard Ward, production is still gearing up but the company has already been able to achieve a $77,595 price cut on the 1160, making this award- winning design very competitive in the U.S. and global markets.

For more information, visit the company’s website: seawindcats.com

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Seawind cats

In early October, after undergoing a business restructuring in its base south of Sydney, Australia, Seawind Catamarans announced that going forward, the company would likely be building its entire line of award-winning cats in Vietnam.

In making the announcement, Seawind’s managing director Richard Ward said, “This year has been the most challenging in the 30 years I have been in business, however I have been humbled by the support of our suppliers and would like to offer my thanks to give Seawind this opportunity to move forward and focus on the next 30 years of building great multihulls.” Ward added that high manufacturing costs, and the ongoing strength of the Australian dollar—which put Seawind at a competitive disadvantage with many imported models—would necessitate the closing of the firm’s Australian production facility located in Wollongong.

Ward said Seawind would continue to offer after sales service and warranty support for future and existing Seawind owners in Australia and around the world, either directly from Seawind itself or through Multihull Central, whose headquarters are in the purpose-built multihull marina of Rozelle Bay on Sydney Harbor.

Following the completion of the last three Seawind 1250’s on order, future production of the Seawind 1250 will likely move to the Seawind/Corsair Marine facility in Vietnam, where the Seawind 1000XL2 and Seawind 1160 are already being built alongside the range of high performance Corsair trimarans and the Corsair 50 catamaran. Corsair Marine, originally based in California, has been producing boats for the last six years in Vietnam.

The accompanying photo shows an imported Seawind 1160, built in Vietnam, after launching in Sydney’s Botany Bay shipping terminal. For more information, visit www.seawindcats.com.

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Seawind

Should you ever get asked to have a glass of wine, a bite to eat, and a look around Australia, I’d advise you to accept, as the first two should prove delicious and the latter quite interesting. Earlier this year, AIMEX, the Australian International Marine Export Group, hosted a tour for marine editors so we could get a look at the industry Down Under. Our travels began in Brisbane, where we spent two days tooling about the Gold Coast in an assortment of boats. From there, it was off to Sydney and then on to Melbourne before we wrapped things up with a two-day catamaran jaunt through the Whitsundays.

What was most striking, I thought, was the passion we found along these eastern and southern coastal locales for anything relating to the water, be it sailing, powerboating, surfing, windsurfing, kiteboarding, parasailing—you name it. What follows is a notebook recounting our travels, presented roughly in the order in which they unfolded.

A Long Ways Away
For visitors coming from the United States, there’s truly no easy way to get to Australia, which is worth considering when you think about what’s involved in exporting a sailboat or gear to the States or Europe: One literally travels to the other side of the world. Boats must be either sailed on their own bottoms or sent by ship, which in either case adds considerably to the cost. Gear manufacturers, such as Ronstan, have things a bit easier because airfreight is an option for them, but still they face supply and manufacturing costs that others elsewhere in the world might avoid. All Australian manufacturers in recent times, meanwhile, face a common challenge in that a high Aussie dollar compared to a low U.S. dollar has made exchange rates relatively unattractive. The fact that many do continue to compete for customers in North America indicates that to keep in the game, they’ve had to be innovative in their product development and efficient in their methods of production.

Cams for cam cleats (right) are molded at Ronstan.

Lightwave Yachts and the Marine Precinct
Our first visit after landing in Brisbane took us to Morton Bay, where we spent the afternoon aboard a Lightwave 38 catamaran. Rigged for charter, the boat proved to be a nimble sailer as we tacked and reached, often at seven knots or better in light winds, across the protected inshore waters. Morton Bay is a well-traveled body of water and part of an expansive and popular cruising ground that stretches north along the coast.

The next day, we returned to Lightwave and this time met Roger Overell, the founder and managing director of the company. Relatively unknown in the United States, where only one boat has been imported during the last 15 years, Lightwaves seemed to be common sights in Australia. At the time of our visit, Roger had just launched his 74th catamaran. The line includes 38- and 45-foot sailing cats, a 46-foot powercat, and a 47-foot motorsailer.

We headed out on one of the 45s and set sails in the Broadwater region, a waterway whose name we found quite deceiving. “Thinwater” might be more appropriate. The area consists of a number of channels that cut through large areas of shallows, all tucked behind a row of barrier islands. One must pay close attention to navigation buoys to stay out of trouble here. Though houses lined the mainland shores, lush islands were everywhere, providing what looked to be many fine anchorages.

This Lightwave 45 catamaran features sleek lines and comes with a hot tub molded into the foredeck.

Lightwave, Roger said, has 25 employees and a plant in the Gold Coast Marine Precinct, where it built eight boats in 2010; the company was to launch 11 this year. As a hedge against slow times in the boat business, Lightwave also builds fiberglass septic tanks for a Japanese construction-supply company.

The day also included a tour of the Gold Coast City Marina, the anchor business in a nearly 700-acre marine manufacturing district located on the Coomera River, which provides nearby access to the Pacific Ocean. The marina itself has 200 berths and is surrounded by some 60 other facilities, ranging from small manufacturing and repair lofts to plants housing the likes of Riviera, Maritimo, Perry Catamarans, and Mercury Marine.

Said managing director Jeff Leigh-Smith, “At the end of the day, it’s really a shopping center for boat maintenance.”

Plans call for the precinct eventually to have berths for 1,000 boats as well as superyacht facilities. Precinct executives noted that 10 percent of the world’s superyachts make it across the Pacific, and the goal is to attract more than the current 2 percent or so that stop in the region for visits and repairs.

An Aquatic Playland
On a Saturday, we found ourselves back at Broadwater, with hoards of sail and powerboats seemingly everywhere: Owners were enjoying the sunshine and blue skies that bless Queensland 90 percent of the time. We spent the morning screaming up and down the Gold Coast’s offshore waters on big Riviera and Maritimo powerboats. OK, I’ll admit that this sailor found these sedans and cruisers to be a blast to drive. I’m not sure which dial on the instrument panel was more intriguing, the knotmeter or the gauge showing how much fuel we consumed each hour.

At lunch, we rafted up in a cove, surrounded by anchored sailboats, jet-skis, ski boats, and people all along the shore fishing, swimming, and enjoying a day off at the beach. I have no documentation to prove this, but I’d wager that boating ranks high as a national pastime.

A worker at EMP, a composite design and manufacturing shop, monitors the flow of resin during the layup process. The company makes components for a wide range of products.

A View of the Opera House
Sunday found us in Sydney, where we began our tour of the famous harbor aboard a Stebercraft workboat built by Steber International, a 65-year-old boatbuilder that began working in fiberglass in 1959. The company’s boats are popular with fishermen and law-enforcement agencies, with several models in production.

More to my liking, the Stebercraft ferried us to an anchored Seawind 1160 catamaran. It was a hot, humid morning, and just as we stepped aboard the sailboat, the skies darkened, the wind went from a gentle breeze to a noteworthy blow in minutes, and the mercury plunged 20 degrees in a snap of one’s fingers. Though we hadn’t come looking for one, we saw first hand one of the famed Aussie southerly busters, the term that locals use for the fronts that pass along the coast. By the time reefed sails were set and the anchor was up, the wind had the harbor whipped to a froth of whitecaps. We flew past the Opera House on our harbor tour, during which we clocked a gust of about 40 knots across the deck. Around us, crews scrambled to shorten sails, but an impressive number of locals seemed to take it all in stride and remained out on the water.

Our stopover in Sydney included a visit to Sydney City Marine, a full-service superyacht marina that’s being developed in the heart of the city, as well as a look at the site where Seawind Catamarans plans to build a new service facility along 300 feet of city shoreline. The marina will include 18 multihull berths, refit and charter services, a café, a slipway, a commissioning facility, and a showroom.

That night in Sydney’s Chinatown, we watched the Chinese New Year parade, a festive procession that wove its way along pedestrian-lined streets. The selection of restaurants was staggering.

The Gear Guys
During our factory visits and at three evening events held at Sanctuary Cove, in Queensland; Sydney City Marine; and the Sandringham Yacht Club, in Victoria, we met the representatives of scores of small marine-related companies, which, taken together, constitute a vibrant home-grown industry that’s innovative in finding ways to sell products and services beyond the nation’s watery borders.

Aqualuma Marine Lighting is one such company that comes quickly to mind. Brothers Carl and Grant Amor, both with backgrounds in the automobile business, were restoring a boat when they discovered that they couldn’t find light fixtures to suit their fancy. From that somewhat vexing dilemma sprang a company that’s today well represented at boat shows around the world, where it sells a complete line of interior, deck, and through-hull L.E.D. lights. The brothers picked us up at our hotel in Sanctuary Cove one evening in a pair of very classic cars and took us to Carl’s nearby house (Grant lives just across the street) for an authentic and delicious Aussie barbecue. There were no shrimp.

We visited Aeronaut Automation, a company that few may have heard of but one that many of us can thank for the sails that power our boats. The company produces automated cutters and the software that drives them, and its client roster includes North, Quantum, Ullman, Sobstad, UK-Halsey, and Doyle. Aeronaut Automation’s machinery is used to build nearly all the string and laminate sails produced worldwide, company representatives said.

A much more common name in American markets is Ronstan, whose factory in Braeside was the largest manufacturing plant we visited. In fact, the company is the largest maker of marine fittings in the country, and its line of products—rigging, blocks, cams, clothing, wire fittings—can be found on boats ranging in size from dinghies right on up to 100-footers.

The company’s expanding product line now includes drum furlers, and just this fall, Ronstan introduced its recently acquired Andersen winches to North America. Ronstan is also a diversified company, manufacturing a line of architectural rigging. Its boating products are found in most U.S. marine stores, and the company maintains offices Stateside as well.

Ronstan was established in Melbourne in 1953 by dinghy sailors Ron Allatt and Stan Le Nepveu. Since 1999, it’s been owned by its management team, most of whom carry on that tradition of sailors building gear for sailors. Managing director Alistair Murray—currently AIMEX president—gave us a tour of the manufacturing plant, and he proved during lunch and later at a networking event to be an able spokesman on behalf of the Australian marine industry at large.

Another name you might recognize from American boat shows is Barz Optics. Company founder Kevin Barz is a former surfing champ who developed a line of specialty sport sunglasses for people working and playing on the water. Being a fellow, myself, who needs reading glasses to see chart and chart-plotter details, I can attest to the quality of his line of polarized bifocals.

Some of the coolest products we found in our travels came from a company called Sealite, which designs and manufactures intelligent aids to navigation for ships and airplanes. Its rotomolded navigation buoys use L.E.D.s and specially designed lenses for low-power consumption, and the buoys can be controlled remotely to adjust, say, the light’s period. As leading lights, they can be set, as they are when used for airport landing lights, to pulsate and guide a ship down a channel at night. They’re also used by the military in cases in which, perhaps, a darkened harbor might provide a tactical advantage at one time, while at others, the buoys must be lit for ship traffic.

Seawind Cats and Sporty Raceboats
As our trip around Australia continued, our hosts provided a couple of more goodies designed to pique a sailor’s interest.

McConaghy workers prepare to dry-fit the deck on a new TP52 hull.

On the day we visited the McConaghy yard in Mona Vale, New South Wales, workers had just pulled Audi Racing’s new TP 52 hull, built entirely of carbon fiber and Nomex, from the 120-foot-long oven and were preparing to dry-fit the deck. This Judel/Vrolijk design, when we saw it, was squarely in fast-lane mode. Construction began the first week of January, and the company faced a ship-to-customer date so the boat could be in Europe by May for the lead up to the Audi MedCup. McConaghy is a world-renowned raceboat builder, and the company also has a yard in China, where it turns out a swarm of Moths each season, along with other custom projects and the McConaghy 38, a one-design racer. The company does luxury and quirky as well. It recently built an experimental boat for Aussie yachtsman Ian Oatley that has a keel that swings from side to side, rather than canting at the centerline. Photos of the boat, named Q, sailing closehauled show the keel and its bulb sitting well above the water to windward. McConaghy also builds a range of carbon wheels and other fittings, and it occasionally branches out to do repair work or take on non-marine projects, such as making acoustic panels for a concert hall or telescoping emergency ramps for trains.

We later paid a visit to Seawind Catamaran’s offices and the expanded manufacturing facility where it builds the Seawind 1000, 1160, and the new 1250 catamarans. (To read a review of the Seawind 1250, click here) On the shop floor with founder and managing director Richard Ward, we watched workers prepare to infuse an Airex-cored glass hull with resin; others were busy hand-laying a fiberglass deck and other components for assembly. Australia’s largest catamaran builder, Seawind relied until recently on overseas markets for a good chunk of its business. Exports to the United States, though, have been off due to exchange rates and the overall impact of the global financial crisis, which we’d hear about repeatedly during our visit. Still, Ward expected to build 24 boats this year and had plans to begin tooling for a smaller catamaran, the 950, which is designed to be disassembled and put into two containers for easier shipping.

Ward, whose company turns 30 this coming year, also recently purchased Corsair Marine, whose trailerable racy trimarans are manufactured in Vietnam. At the time of our visit, he was laying plans to build at least some Seawind components at his new facility to cut production costs. To build an 1160, Ward said, five big molds make up the structure of the boat, but there are 62 additional molds needed to complete it; it’s these he plans to make overseas in order to compete with lower-cost production cats being imported to Australia.

Tough Work, but Somebody’s . . .
Our Australian adventure all but over, two of us capped off the visit by flying north to Hamilton Island, in the Whitsundays. There we met Brent Vaughan, Seawind’s director of sales, for an overnight tour aboard a 1250 of the nearby islands that serve as a gateway to the Great Barrier Reef.

Privately owned Hamilton Island, with its resorts, high-end villas, marina, and other facilities, is where our visit began and ended. Lovely as the island is, the best awaited us outside the harbor, where we found nothing but white-sand beaches, uninhabited shorelines, protected anchorages, fine snorkeling, and even better sailing.

If the intent of our hosts at AIMEX was to leave us eager for more, they succeeded. As I said at the outset, if anyone offers you a glass of wine, a bite to eat, and a look at Australia, take them up on it. I know I’ll definitely be back.

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Introduced to the United States in 2007, the Seawind 1160 quickly won _ Cruising World_’s Boat of the Year honors for Best Catamaran. The new 1250 hasn’t yet made it to the States, but when it does, it will arrive with many of the same well-thought-out design details, but in a 41-foot package that’s 3 feet longer and about a foot wider than its predecessor. The result is a boat with a bit more powerful rig, higher water clearance, a little more speed through the water, and a roomier living space that comes with a revamped bimini over the aft deck and locates helm seats and two steering stations to either side of the cockpit (see the complete photo gallery here).

What remains unchanged is an open interior that flows aft to the cockpit thanks to a clever tri-fold door that folds up and stores under the bimini, a galley-up or a galley-down design (the latter of which creates immense space in the saloon but still lets the chef remain a part of the action), and a three- or four-cabin layout that you choose depending on your sailing plans.

Seawind is Australia’s largest catamaran builder, and its owner, Richard Ward, builds boats to suit local conditions that can be quite boisterous at times, such as when a southerly buster delivers 40-knot gusts and the consequent impressive waves. Luckily, we avoided those in our two-day test sail through the Whitsundays, but still we found conditions varying enough to give a good inkling of how the 1250 holds up in a squall and keeps moving when the breeze drops to near nothing. The boat is intended by the builder to be a true bluewater cruiser.

With the boat under power, Seawind’s director of sales, Brent Vaughan, used the twin 29-horsepower Yanmar diesels and saildrives to deftly move us off a tight dock and out into the waters off Hamilton Island. With sails soon set—the main was spun up effortlessly from its boom pouch using a self-tending electric winch near the port wheel—we sailed along quite comfortably at 7 knots or better in a breeze that hovered in the mid teens. When a front passed through later in the afternoon and sent gusts into the 20s, we picked up a knot or better of boat speed, but the ride remained smooth as could be. The little tacking we did do was simplified thanks to the self-tending jib set on a roller furler. Twin wheels mean you can steer from where the visibility’s the best, and the location of the wheels allows you to sit outboard on either hull, where you can enjoy both the breeze and see the telltales. Windows forward of the wheels can be removed, which means you can also stay under the bimini and out of the weather but still have good sight lines forward.

Evening found us anchored in an open cove in which swells rounding the point had nearby monohulls rolling, though we sat flat and calm and took advantage of the Aussie-style barbecue that’s incorporated into the stern rail and seats that span the transom.

Our boat was a four-cabin model from Charter Yachts Australia. The two aft cabins and an athwartship forward double to port all shared a head and shower amidships in the port hull. The galley, with natural light pouring in through the hull ports, was amidships to starboard, with a fore-and-aft double and en suite head and shower forward.

In the saloon, a versatile—and nicely finished—wood table can be rotated to accommodate crews of various sizes, or it can be dropped down to provide a huge lounging area, double berth, or comfortable place to spend a night watch. Large, opening windows provide fresh air when the boat’s anchored. A daybed just to port of the table is a comfortable place to escape the sun.

Seawinds are built in a new plant in Wollongong. Hulls are sandwiches fashioned from resin-infused glass and Divinycell, which means that weight and strength can be closely monitored. Divinycell is also used in the deck and other components for weight savings. The finish throughout the boat we sailed was clean and well crafted. And the attention to detail, both below and on deck, was well evident. Few builders these days offer triple lifelines, but with Seawind, safety is clearly paramount.

Seawinds aren’t the least-expensive catamarans on the market—the French will likely stake this claim for the time being—but still, the company is hedging for the future. It recently bought Corsair, and Ward has outlined his plans to begin taking advantage of certain cost savings by manufacturing at least some Seawind components at the Corsair facility in Vietnam. In the meantime, Seawinds dominate Australian waters, a good proving ground for bluewater cats that can roam the globe.

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