The latest multihull from HH Catamarans is an all carbon fiber couple-friendly rocket ship.
Performance Multihulls continue to gain momentum, and with more performance comes better handling and style. At Doyle Sails, performance, handling and style is our forte, delivered through a global network of sailing experts.
For those looking to gain more from their sailing experience, Doyle Sails has become the sailmaker of choice to many performance multihull’s around the world. A partnership with Doyle Sails offers style, stamina and performance, something that many HH sailors have chosen to upgrade to and take advantage of including HH50 Billy Black.
By sailors, for sailors.
Extract below originally published in Cruising World. Herb McCormick speaks with Tim Murphy.
“As I said earlier,” Murphy continued, “the HH is one of the two best-built boats in the fleet. Unlike the X40, it employs thermal form construction, which means they take flat panels of Corecell foam core and heat it up to make the complex shapes of the hull so that there are no slits or kerfs in the foam. In the simplest terms, you’re using that flat sheet to construct complex curves, and then you’re using the best resin available, which is epoxy, in the laminate. This is infused epoxy construction, post-cured after the fact. So this is a very, very high-quality hull.”
The big question: how do you choose between excellent and exquisite?
“This may have been one of the more interesting boats I’ve climbed aboard in terms of some of the gear choices that the owner made and the willingness of the builder to go along with them,” Mark Pillsbury said. “For instance, the auxiliary engine was a Beta Marine diesel. And on earlier HHs, I kind of scratched my head as to whether a couple could really handle a big cat like this. But on this boat, a couple without a whole lot of big-boat sailing experiences was handling it just fine. The Jeffa steering was rack-and-pinion and very sweet. The self-tacking jib certainly made the boat a joy to sail upwind. And for a cat, it could actually sail very close to the wind. I thought the daggerboard controls were brilliant. It was just a simple continuous-line Antal winch. Not a much could go wrong there.”
Designed by the veteran cat designers Melvin & Morrelli, who brought the Gunboat line into existence, with the HH 50 they’ve moved on from the forward cockpit that distinguished those boats, and brought the helms aft and outboard, further establishing yet another trend in the moving target that is boat design. The visibility is outstanding, and the sensation of steering this boat, even in light airs, is otherworldly.
This is sailing, quite frankly, that was once unimaginable in a cruising boat. But to paraphrase Teri Hatcher on an old episode of Seinfeld, as far as the HH 50 is concerned, it’s real. And it’s spectacular.
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