Winner 9.00
PRICE £70,000-£125,000 YEAR 2013-present
The Dutch-built Van de Stadt-designed Winner 9.00 is hand-built to a high standard utilising state-of-the-art GRP construction technology. Her laminated bulkheads are bonded to both hull and deck, and there’s a watertight crash bulkhead behind the anchor locker. Along with foam-filled floor beams, a reinforcing steel floor grid provides strength and stiffness, while foam-sandwich topsides reduce weight.
This RCD cat-a boat comes in three versions; Basic, Classic (Cruising) or Performance, with a choice between 1.25m, 1.60m or 1.90m draught. The latter features a deep T-keel, a flat-top mainsail, Dyform rigging and a retractable gennaker pole. By incorporating a cockpit transom box, adding lockers to the saloon and enclosing the aft cabin, the Classic is much more cruiser-friendly and luxurious below. The Basic is, well, basic. These options mean no two Winner 9.00s are the same.
Her interior is bright and practical. Saloon headroom is good and she has a forwardfacing chart table, decent switch panel and long, straight settees. The forecabin has two long bunks, plus infill and lockers in the Classic. The aft cabin has a double berth and the L-shaped galley is well equipped, with the Classic, including an oven.
Her cockpit well is comparatively narrow, but enables you to brace your feet against the seat opposite. The mainsheet track spans the bridge deck which, if you opt for a tiller, puts control easily to hand.
An under-deck furling drum maximizes headsail area while keeping the centre of effort low.
Her 9/10ths fractional rig with slab-reefed mainsail and a high-aspect furling jib has a single-spreader mast with no backstay, relying on the aft lowers to provide forestay tension. The Performance upgrade includes laminate sails, bigger winches, gas-sprung vang, Ronstan ball-bearing hardware and cockpit adjustable jib cars.
Options included the Jefa canting pedestal, allowing wheelsteering lovers to sit outboard. Although preferable to a fixed wheel, she is ergonomically better with a tiller.
She is fun to sail – small enough to give a dinghy feel, but large enough to not be easily knocked off course. She flips rapidly through tacks, losing very little momentum, and the two-speed, bridge deck-mounted mainsheet enables the helmsman to dump the main instantly in a gust.