Energy Neutral

With Lucia Mark has achieved every sailor’s Holy Grail – a boat that is energy neutral. She is equipped with a hefty 660 amp-hours of battery power and, in addition to the 500-watt solar panels mounted on the dinghy davits, she carries a hydro-generator.

This unit – a bit like a stern leg – mounts on to the trailing edge of the port pontoon and at 7 knots puts out 25 amps. Given the 49’s cruising speed, this generator is more than able to keep the batteries topped up. In fact, says Mark, because there is often excess power he uses the batteries to heat water in the 40-litre cylinder.

The cat’s powered by twin 40hp Yanmar diesels.

DECK & COCKPIT

Thanks to that low-profile cabin top, there’s an sense of extravagant spaciousness around the 49’s decks, and it’s accentuated by the positioning of the mast – quite a long way aft. This makes for a very large trampoline area up front.

Similarly, the wing deck is well aft, and I’d guess this factor helps to keep the weight aft, in turn forcing the hulls’ fine entries to pierce through the waves rather than being buried.

As with most cats, there’s a vast amount of space in the cockpit – and the layout’s geared to easy sail handling as well as laid-back chilling. Sail controls are simple. There are two large, manual Harken winches – one on either side of the cabin top – supported by two smaller winches further back, on pedestals either side of the cockpit.

The starboard, helm winch caters to the main halyard and the double-ended jib sheet – the other end of the jib sheet leads to the port winch, and it can adjusted from either. All other lines and sheets – mainsheet, dagger board lines, traveller – lead to the smaller winches mounted on cockpit pedestals.

Single-handed sailing might need a fleet-footed sailor to cover distances between the winches, but as Mark attests, with one helper