THE FIRST WINDELO CATAMARAN, THE ADVENTURE 50, HAS A SKIPPER
Canet-en-Roussillon, 29/04/2020 – Windelo Catamaran has achieved its goal! The first eco-friendly catamaran Adventure 50 has already been paired with her first adventurer, ready to hoist the sails this autumn!
Windelo Is Celebrating Its First Sale
After two years of research and development into new materials, Windelo began to build its first environmentally-friendly catamaran in November 2019. The project attracted a lot of interest and the first sale has just been signed!
A seasoned sailor, Windelo’s first customer came to see their future boat in the new plant, with their own naval architect, just before the stay-at-home order in March. The customer found the boat’s innovations and eco-friendliness attractive and decided it was what they wanted for their voyage in the North Atlantic. This is the beginning of a beautiful relationship between the staff at Windelo and their customer. What is the goal? A launch in autumn and a cast off in May 2021.
A Long Cruise for Windelo’s First Boat
The boat will set off from France, heading towards the Irish Sea, and then on to the West Coast of Scotland and the Hebridean, Shetland and Faroe Islands. The crew aims to have reached Iceland by autumn 2021. The boat will then cross from Iceland to North America, stopping off in the south of Greenland and sailing around Cape Farewell. It will take them to many dream destinations along the coast of the United States as far as the Caribbean Sea, the final destination of this year-long cruise. The comfort and performance of the versatile Adventure 50 will make it a fantastic family voyage.
The Windelo 50 and the Windelo 54, Two Highly Innovative Boats
The staff at Windelo aimed high and succeeded, combining innovation with ecology performance, safety and comfort. Designed in partnership with the architects Christophe Barreau and Frédéric Neuman, these two boats come in three different versions: Adventure, Yachting and Sport. The Adventure 50, the first Windelo catamaran to put to sea this autumn 2020, is the version designed for exploration and adventure.
Structure
The feature that sets this new boatyard’s project apart is the ecological design of the materials and the construction methods. The construction methods reduce the need for molds, giving the yard greater freedom to vary the models and make changes to the boats designed. The Windelo catamaran structure is made from a new environmentally-friendly composite sandwich, mixing basalt fiber and PET from recycled plastic bottles. The new innovative composite reduces carbon emissions by nearly 50% compared with traditional GRP composite manufacturing methods.
Hybrid engine power
The two electric engines are hooked up to a bank of lithium batteries. These can be charged in different ways, using solar panels as well as the electric engines’ ability to operate via hydrogeneration. These two systems combined mean you can use green energy for short periods when the electric engine is in use. Sailing for longer times on the engine will require starting up the generator after one or two hours, depending on the battery strength chosen. This extends the boat’s cruising range to around 800 nautical miles.
Forward cockpit
“The challenge was to build a boat marrying performance with the joy of sailing, and to create pleasant and spacious living areas at the same time. The boat has an innovative cockpit layout with rigging converging at the helm station midships. It also features a new handling of the living space aft of the nacelle,” says Christophe Barreau. Just behind the mast, the forward cockpit has two helm stations protected from the wind and spray, a good view of the sails and the bows, and all the running rigging at hand, limiting the need to move about on deck. When the boat is not sailing, the cockpit can be well protected from the elements and opens up to the stern.
Modular space
Aft of the cockpit everything is flush, offering a large, highly modular space that can easily be opened up
. “We have focused our attention on the geometry of the material and visual boundaries of this space and on the way the doors open”, adds Barreau. Once they are open, they “disappear” so that the interior space blurs with the exterior. The ample windows also modulate ventilation, using a wide range of openings on four sides. The work on modularity and blurring boundaries can be seen to the far aft of the nacelle, where an articulated platform with davits converts to a floor at anchor, and in the aft cabins, where a wraparound porthole does away with the corner between the hull side and the aft side, opening the view.
With the Adventure 50, Windelo has succeeded in building a comfortable, high performance, and eco-friendly catamaran and it will hoist the sails this autumn. What will the catamaran be called? We are eagerly awaiting its name, along with the first stories of our Windelo sailors!
About:
A recently established boatyard, Windelo Catamaran has been based in Canet-en-Roussillon since 2019. It builds comfortable, innovative, high-performance ecological catamarans. After many years of research on eco-friendly materials with the Ecole Nationale des Mines d’Alès and guided by strong family values, Olivier Kauffmann and his son Gautier Kauffmann, who are both passionate about sailing, founded Windelo to build comfortable environmentally-friendly recreational craft.
