All about Zephyr

Without a doubt the MVP

Zephyr is one of the renowned Outremer 50 Light Catamarans. Outremer has been in the business of making performance catamarans designed to be robust for the needs of world cruisers. Twenty six 50s were commissioned between 1992 and 2007 with most of them still sailing the seven seas today. Without a doubt, Outremer does the best job of managing the delicate balance of performance, simplicity, strength, and longevity. Performance wise, we are able to sail at nearly the true wind speed when conditions allow. Often times we are sailing under the jib alone at 7 or more knots making downwind passages a breeze.

What makes her robust?

Solid fiberglass hulls and a smart underwater body design. Most if not all cruising catamarans today have a cored fiberglass sandwich hull. This makes the hull stiffer, as well as lighter weight but at the expense of longevity and repairability. The outremer 50 design saved weight through making the design as simple as possible. For a vessel that has to survive 1000s of miles of ocean passages as well the occasional collision with objects at sea, longevity and repairability are paramount. She sports daggerboards that allow us to reduce the total draft to 3ft allowing us to operate safely around coral or shoal waters. Her rudders and propellers are protected by skegs that would deflect collisions with underwater objects.

Performance?

Beam: Zephyr really shines when the air is light. With beam on conditions we can sail at 90% of the true wind speed with the code zero and main sail. Its truly magical being able to sail at 8+kts on flat seas!

Upwind: There is a stereotype with catamarans that they cannot sail to windward. Its true that typical charter catamarans have trouble there but not so with Zephyr. Her low windage, daggerboards and sail plan allow us to out sail most monohulls to windward in breezy conditions. In 15kts of true wind our VMG to windward is typically north of 5kts. Our experience racing Zephyr is that when the air is light, we will typically be a bit behind very fast cruising monohulls to windward. As the breeze picks up and the monohulls heel over losing some sail area, we are able to point higher and win a tacking duel.

Downwind: Downwind with our largest spinnaker (large symmetric) we can sail about 60% of the true wind speed. Truly champagne sailing. With only the large jib and no main we can sail about 30% of the true wind speed dead down wind or 40% on a broad reach. This is quite the advantage on long passages as we can cover 1000s of miles with the furling jib alone making reefing and watches extremely easy.

Our best day sailing on passage was nearly 240 miles in a day averaging almost 10kts. The original owner reports his best day was 286 miles!

Racing Record?

Winner of the 2018 Baja Haha Cruising Rally multihull division!

Winner of the 2018 Bandaras Bay 3 day sailing regatta multihull division

One of only three boats to complete the light air course in Tonga’s 2019 Bluewater Cruisers Festival

Accommodations:

Each hull has a bathroom and two cabins, one forward and one aft. Three of the cabins are full sized with twin or queen beds in them with tons of headroom and storage. One cabin is smaller at 5ft in length but shares legroom with the shower. The saloon easily has space to seat 6 or more and we’ve entertained 17 in the cockpit before! The forward nets are more than 400sqft of lounging space and the top of the Bimini is also a choice spot for Yoga.

Designed for off the grid living

Zephyr was designed for being at sea and remote areas for long periods of time. She sports 1300Watts of solar as well as a wind generator to keep up with the power needs of the 2 freezers and fridge. She also sports a water-maker for turning all of that sunshine into tasty fresh water.

Safety

Safety is important aboard Zephyr! She has not one but two EPIRB satellite emergency beacons as well as an IridiumGo satellite phone for calling for help in emergency situations. In addition to the life raft there are also 5 emergency survival suits aboard. Extremely important for survivability in any immersion situation whether that be tropical, temperate, antarctic or arctic.

What’s her history?

Originally she was commission in 1999 by a young family with a newly born child. They sailed around the world leaving from France and returning to France in 2005. In 2005 she was purchased by an owner who sailed her around the Mediterranean for a bit and in 2007 she was purchased by a French family of 5! They sailed her to French Polynesia and lived aboard there for 3 years before selling her so they could move home and put their now teenage children into school. I bought it from them in 2015

Specs:

Displacement Loaded: 14 Tons

Displacement Light: 11 Tons

Main Sail Area: 800sqft / 75sqm - North Sails 3DI Squaretop

Genoa Area: 600sqft / 55sqm - Hydranet Dacron

Code Zero: 1050sqft / 97sqm - Ullman Sails Stormlite Polynester/Nylon hybrid

Code D: 1700sqft / 157sqm - Ullman Sails 1.5oz Nylon top down furling spinnaker

Spinnaker: Big and old!

Storm Sail