JAMBO Powercat

Powercat are coming of age, for sure.  The surprise is that the greatest powercat enthusiasts seem to be, paradoxally, great navigators, sailors who have nothing left to prove, and certainly no chip on their shoulder.

Here, in Moorea, it's Sailing Great Laurent Bourgnon who advocates the powercat concept with his luxury charter cat"JAMBO."

Laurent isn't the first world-class sailor to visit DOMINO and subscribe to the powercat concept.  In Guadeloupe, it was Bob Escoffier who visited us.  He subsequently built himself a chartering powercat in France.  In the BVIs, the Gitana Team manager also showed an interest in our powercat.  In the Marquesas, sailing champion Herve Clarisse applauded our efforts.  In Guatemala, Cousteau team member Michel "La Francoise" Verdier pleaded in favor of powercats, doubtless cheaper to maintain and crew than a performance sailing yacht.  Yet, there are so very few true ocean-going, tough, passagemaking powercats out-there.  Certainly, Malcolm Tennant's designs DOMINO and Freemantle are superb ocean cruisers.  But we were really impressed with the Sunreef production.

Designed by ocean-racing champion Laurent Bourgnon ("Primagaz") the Sunreef 65 is built in France.  There have been 18 of the design produced.  Initially, Bourgnon designed the yacht as a family world cruiser.  Now based in Raiatea (French Polynesia) the yacht serves as luxury charter.  It's just beautiful, with room for 8 guests.

What really interested us was to discover the modifications that Laurent brought to his design in order to make his yacht more performing and more comfortable to use.

He added wave-piercing bulbs forward to reduce the pitching motion of the boat in heavy seas and improve mileage.

He also extended the boarding platforms aft to house his scuba diving operations inside the hulls and stow a very nice tender on the port platform.

He totally enclosed the flying bridge, making the space a luxurious lounge.

And, our favorite, he added an "anchor launching device."  Oh no!  Don't call it a windlass!  This contraption should belong on a rocket-ship!  The nacelle has been extended forward at its center, all the way to the level of the bows, and fitted with a monster windlass to accommodate the 100+kg anchor and the 14-chain.  This center windlass forward of the boat prevents the chain from chafing against the bows when extended, a problem that plagues us if we don't hurry to clamp the bridle in place before the wind turns our bows sideways to the chain.  JAMBO's anchoring angle is such that the horsing motion of the boat at anchor is greatly reduced.  Of course, the skipper controls all operations by radio-guided control: engine start, gear shift, throttle, and windlass operation.  It's a one-man show!  Finally, the chain is concealed inside the deck within a gutter, so there is no mud on board: a clean job.  We like it very much... so much so that JP has spent the last weeks re-designing DOMINO's anchoring system.  I don't think that's going to happen, though, I'm not ready to cut open the deck.

And that's it about powercats.  There are so few of us that we tend to give each other ideas, spring wishes, elicit regrets, like "oh, we should have done such and such..." 

There isn't a day I don't think about Malcolm Tennant and the way he ran around the world's boat shows carrying his burlap bag full of powercat designs, like a preacher with his bible.  Malcolm is long gone, but we keep his voice alive and advocate powercat cruising as a very, very efficient and pleasant way to cruise.  After 25,000 NM of blue-ocean cruising, it's a comfort and inspiration to come across "JAMBO" and her designer.  May the concept of passagemaking powercats live long and prosper!

Till next blog

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