Sailing Today – Windelo 54 boat test

“A tectonic shift in design"

There aren’t that many boats out there built from volcanic basalt fibres but, as Sam Jefferson finds out, the Windelo 54 is a yacht that dares to be different.

Many years ago in what seems another life I used to teach sailing in the Caribbean in Hobie Cats. To be brutally honerst, there wasn’t a lot to do and, occasionally when the torpor got too much, I would take a Hobie out and play around in the waves; getting the boat up to maximum speed then bearing away in an attempt to deliberately pitchpole. This was both exhilarating and extremely ill advised – particularly as it was me who had to carry out any repairs. It was also incredibly fun. Imagine my surprise therefore when I enjoyed a similar sensation playing about in the waves in a 54’ cruising catamaran – obviously I wasn’t trying to pitchpole, but the feeling of dancing across the waves at full throttle was life affirmingly similar and not at all what I had expected from a big, blue water catamaran. This was the Windelo 54 which I test sailed out of its home port of Canet en Roussillon in France in exhilarating conditions. The boat showcased precisely how far big multihull cruising yachts have come in recent years. That sharp divide between fast racing multihulls and somewhat lumbering cruising cats has been blurred. Boats such as this Windelo, Outremer and Marsaudo has changed the dynamic in a manner that was almost unimaginable a few years back. Yet despite that, perhaps the most interesting feature of the Windelo 54 is not the impressive performance but the incredibly forward thinking approach to design. This is a boat with serious green credentials and they are on show from the daggerboards up.

The concept

The basic concept behind all the Windelo range is to produce fast cruising catamarans capable of taking you around the world in comfort. Nothing particularly radical there – it’s a path well trodden by Outremer and Catana to name but two. Yet the devil is in the detail and this is where the Windelo most definitely starts to head off the chart because the other great aim was to do all this while constructing an extremely environmentally friendly boat. To this end, the company wanted to produce a boat with 50% less environmental impact than traditional designs. The first and most radical step was to switch from using fibreglasss to Basalt, a natural volcanic fibre which offers vibration resistance and durability while still maintaining a high strength to weight ratio. The other great asset it possesses is that it is naturally produced and has no toxic additives.

On top of that, the hull is cored with PET [Polyethylene Terephthalate]. This is created plastic from old bottles which is crushed into very small pieces then melted again in order to create the PET foam. Meanwhile, all woods are sustainably resourced and twin electric motors come as standard. In other words, we are looking at a yacht that does far more than indulge in a spot of ‘greenwashing’ as it is sometimes known. This is a boatbuilder that is serious about the environment. It’s also a serious enterprise. The builders have already won plaudits with its Windelo 50 and enjoys a full order book and is already gaining a loyal following.

First impressions were very good. The boat feels suitably huge at 54’ but also looked suitably stylish with lean, purposeful hulls and dreadnought bows topped by a sympathetically designed deckhouse and well dimensioned rig. ”

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