Cruising over to the dark side

The latest marine engines and innovations Could a new breed of fast motor sailers see motorboaters deserting the fold?

Conventional wisdom states that, as sailors become older and more infirm (or possibly just tired of battling the tide and manhandling miles of rope), some of them turn to the dark side, abandoning their sailboats for more easily managed powerboats. But could a new breed of fast motor sailers see some motor boaters heading back in the other direction?

In truth, this new genre doesn’t really represent an opposing direction so much as a fascinating and innovative coming together of the two types; sail and power. And for those who could never see their metaphorical motor boat hats becoming dislodged (however strong the wind), perhaps the most interesting point is that from a design point of view, the two boats shown here are philosophically at least as close to a modern powerboat as they are to their sailboat siblings.

First though, the speed thing. The builder of the bigger of the two boats here, the 54ft 8in (16.66m) 56BD, estimates a top speed of 21 knots for its ‘seagoing SUV’ (as it has christened it) when it’s fitted with the most powerful twin 350hp petrol outboard option. Although the 56BD will almost certainly be planing at that speed because of its comparatively light displacement (12.5 tonnes, against, say, a Princess V52’s 19 tonnes), 21 knots is not what we’d think of as a typical planing boat top speed for a 54-footer. Crucially though, it is well into semidisplacement territory, which is plenty fast enough to make that fundamental jump from a cruiser that needs to factor in the effect of adverse tides, to one which does not.

Even the far smaller MS6 is reckoned to cruise at 14 knots with its 70hp Yamaha outboard, again, good enough to brush aside if not completely ignore the tides. So in this moment in time, what exactly has brought about this new foray into sail-power hybrids? Firstly, mass-market cruising sailboats have changed radically during the last decade. Typically, their underwater shapes have become shallower and wider and they sport far less rocker (rocker is the curvature of the foreand-aft keel line, which is typically a dead straight line on a powerboat until the forefoot curves upwards into the bow). All told, these shapes lend themselves to going much faster, whether that be under sail or power, and it’s not at all unusual for the faster sailboats to be able to plane along in only moderate winds.

Long-term knowledge and improved engineering means that retractable bulb keels have become commonplace even on the largest sailboats, and that suits the powerboater’s lifestyle, which often involves dropping anchor close enough to the shore to easily deploy a tender and row ashore. Lifting the keel reduces drag too, most significantly at high speeds, and it’s noticeable that the 56BD and the MS6 both have retractable keels. There’s a further benefit on the MS6; a retractable keel plus a maximum beam set at the European towing limit of 2.45m, along with a weight of just 1.35 tonnes makes for easy towing.

Both boats have features that will appeal directly to motor boaters. The 56BD has a tender garage and although it’s not in Sunseeker territory, its hull sports the large swathes of glass which enlighten contemporary powerboats. While the wonders of joystick control are not the preserve of motor boaters, they’re on hand for the owners of the 56BD who opt for the twin outboard version. And were it not for the tell-tale winch, you could easily mistake the picture of the 56BD’S saloon for that of a pure powerboat: patio door opening out on to a cockpit at the same level – tick; galley-up arrangement – tick; big sunroof and huge saloon windows – tick. Modern sail-handling systems are also very slick; on the 56BD, the aforementioned miles of rope have largely disappeared and the threat of sweaty manual labour has been replaced by electric winches.

The MS6 is no less powerboaty. Laterally expanding cockpits have been around for a while now, but this is certainly the smallest boat we’ve seen that benefits from this feature, and the resultant sociable cockpit layout is clearly more powerboat than sailboat. It’s more difficult to hide the ropes on a boat this size, but Nuva Yachts has cannily managed to keep the sailboat side of things forward of the expanding cockpit. Access to the below-decks accommodation is through a tinted sliding door which runs across to sit beneath a dash which is pure powerboat. Looking at the picture of the MS6 running at speed suggests that it would benefit from a pair of trim tabs or interceptors, so it might yet have more potential than the 14 knots that Nuva Yachts suggests.

The motor sailers of old were often voluminous beasts which offered good accommodation, but fell short when it came to the sailing because the rigs were modest in size. Unfortunately, because they characteristically had heavy displacement sailing boat hulls, they were also a disappointment under power, kicking up a huge stern wave whenever they got near the top end of their single-figure displacement speed. This new generation of motor sailers looks set to consign that antiquated model to the history books.