HH 44 hull #1 Sea Trials

[Nahbrown]

Day 1 30-40 kt winds. They pushed the boat hard and even flew a hull twice.

Day 2. 15-25 kt winds


Im curious what experienced sailors think about its performance even though I doubt it was loaded as heavy as a cruiser would have it.



https://youtu.be/yxsiyswdkDE?si=C63HOzOqV378L1hS

[Kinkircating]

All I can say is that being giddy about seeing 12kts in that much breeze was a tad disappointing. Of course a lot depends on sea state and they didn’t exactly go over what sail configuration they had up at the exact time they showed the chart plotter. Plus add in they were doing initial sea trials and I’d say we sort of need to wait and see. Off the cuff this seems to be on the performance par with say a Nautitech Open 46 but with better pointing capabilities. Also, they didn’t really say if they had empty water and fuel tanks, but at least they did bring the tender along.

For reference a performance cat would have expected to see a somewhat effortless 15-16kts in those conditions, I’m sort of surprised they didn’t press it to get a 20kt reading on the plotter for the video, because that wouldn’t have been an issue on a day like that for a boat capable of it. Sailing info is so tough and super easy to make it look heroic for that brief instant in time, the real measure is to look at the performance over significant periods of time, like will she do 250 mile days. I think it’s a sweet catamaran, and they’ll sell a ton of them!

[CrispyCringle]

I think they said they were generating 1 kW per shaft when they registered the 12.2 kts. Thats a lot of drag. It would be interesting to see what it would do clean.

[CarlF]

I was also surprised by the amount of time at 8th and 10kt speeds. And the pointing was good at about 47 degrees TWA - but high quality sails, folding props and well trimmed mainsail gets my L50 to within 5 degrees of that at those speeds.

And they had ideal conditions - professional crew. Daggerboards. Carbon sails. Folding props, Flat water. And the inside tour showed not much in the way of cruising stores on board.

The Wynn’s boat is going to have mini keels. It will be interesting to see how much that hurts. I wonder if they are second guessing the mini keel choice?.

Maybe the water generator was knocking a lot of speed off.

I really love the aft door out onto the dock.

[Nahbrown]

I thought the speeds were a little low as well, but my experience is 4 yrs with a lagoon 440 so what do I know about performance?


I will say the build quality is good though. If you can fly a hull without ripping out any rigging that speaks to the build quality to me. Not that I would ever want to do that.

[skipperpete]

Well, I’ve been sailing for a while now......... but don’t ever want to do this!!

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Kinkircating

All I can say is that being giddy about seeing 12kts in that much breeze was a tad disappointing. Of course a lot depends on sea state and they didn’t exactly go over what sail configuration they had up at the exact time they showed the chart plotter. Plus add in they were doing initial sea trials and I’d say we sort of need to wait and see. Off the cuff this seems to be on the performance par with say a Nautitech Open 46 but with better pointing capabilities. Also, they didn’t really say if they had empty water and fuel tanks, but at least they did bring the tender along.



For reference a performance cat would have expected to see a somewhat effortless 15-16kts in those conditions, I’m sort of surprised they didn’t press it to get a 20kt reading on the plotter for the video, because that wouldn’t have been an issue on a day like that for a boat capable of it. Sailing info is so tough and super easy to make it look heroic for that brief instant in time, the real measure is to look at the performance over significant periods of time, like will she do 250 mile days. I think it’s a sweet catamaran, and they’ll sell a ton of them!

Marketing photos/videos of boats, and ARC results, have nothing at all to do with real life, especially for extended cruising with small crews.

200 miles in 24 hours is only 8.3 knots - should be easy to attain with any halfway performant boat over 40 foot. Real world: NOT!

The carbon/dagger boarded HH44 may perform OK when light ship, but the hulls are too short and fat to work when fully loaded and in actual ocean swells as opposed to flat offshore breeze coastal winds.

[Snowgoose35]

They did note the sea was quite flat in an offshore breeze but they had a lot of sail up some of the time and very good winds and they did speeds I am very very happy with on my 40 year old 50ft Quasar in such conditions but were I upgrading by $1.5M I would hope for more.

The re-gen is through the props so no folding props there - I'd guess that drag to be worth about 1 knot max from figures on other Hybrid Marine boats I've been on

It's certainly a fast cat by cruising standards against the charter fleets and very quiet compared to Outremer and Gunboat carbon boats but not a Dazcat type of performance and that's when its almost certainly very light - they will have had only enough fuel and water aboard for the day trips - though to be fair the video does suggest a few hundred pounds of tools and 5 people

[DougM]

As an owner of a daggerboard cat, I'm always interested to see how another one performs. Looks like a decent performing cat in big winds, and they were really enjoying the ride.

I noticed a couple things:

they seemed to be feeling joyful when they called out boat speeds that were in the double digits. I know the feeling. But I thought i saw discrepancies between STW and SOG, with SOG less than STW in all the shots. In the first two plotter screen shots STW was about 1.5 knots above SOG. The first time upwind, then downwind. Current? If so it seems a bit like the old monty python skit with the yorkshiremen, walking to and from school uphill both ways. Some of the other shots had smaller differences between sog and stw, but i'd suggest they should check paddlewhell calibration before getting too excited.

If i make a 1 knot correction on the speeds they showed, they are about equivalent to my seawind 1190 sport at the wind angles they showed. 37 ft waterline vs 43.65 for the HH (???) I would have expected more speed from the HH.

Would like to see it in 5, 10 15 knots though.

All in all, looks like a nice boat.

d

[smj]

Originally Posted by DougM

As an owner of a daggerboard cat, I'm always interested to see how another one performs. Looks like a decent performing cat in big winds, and they were really enjoying the ride.

I noticed a couple things:

they seemed to be feeling joyful when they called out boat speeds that were in the double digits. I know the feeling. But I thought i saw discrepancies between STW and SOG, with SOG less than STW in all the shots. In the first two plotter screen shots STW was about 1.5 knots above SOG. The first time upwind, then downwind. Current? If so it seems a bit like the old monty python skit with the yorkshiremen, walking to and from school uphill both ways. Some of the other shots had smaller differences between sog and stw, but i'd suggest they should check paddlewhell calibration before getting too excited.

If i make a 1 knot correction on the speeds they showed, they are about equivalent to my seawind 1190 sport at the wind angles they showed. 37 ft waterline vs 43.65 for the HH (???) I would have expected more speed from the HH.

Would like to see it in 5, 10 15 knots though.

All in all, looks like a nice boat.

d

I think you nailed it. Pretty much any form of cruising cat would be able to achieve the speeds they did in the winds and seas they were experiencing, but the true mark of a performance cat is the ability to perform in light winds.

[Student_Driver]

With all that windage, 60 hp (or 80hp with serial electric, for short trips), does not seem a lot. I displace (mono) 30% more and have 200% of that power. When bashing to windward and against waves, that power equals safety and speed.

[catarch]

I am in line for hull #4 of the 44. We are getting an SC version and I looked at the polars after the sea trial. I was a little disappointed as the speeds were nowhere near the polar numbers for a fully laden vessel let alone light ship.

I will ask Chris Bailey why. OF course the hydro regeneration was slowing things down b ut the speeds should have been in the mid teens for that wind and point of sail.

[Matt Johnson]

Haven't seen the videos, but did they keep the hydrogenation running the entire time? They could have turned it off at any point and checked the speed difference.

[Cheyne]

I believe they did from what was shown in the video.

Cheyne

Originally Posted by Matt Johnson

Haven't seen the videos, but did they keep the hydrogenation running the entire time? They could have turned it off at any point and checked the speed difference.

[P-Dub]

What I saw was impressive. There are so many caveats about each particular boat, the crew, and the conditions it is hard to comment objectively unless you are there on the boat during the sea trials and commissioning. The only thing that I can say is that I was impressed.

THAT, right there, regardless of anything else, is a proper boat trial and commissioning, well represented by the manufacturer, and properly turned over to the new owners. I wish all builders would undertake this process with sincere pride and professionalism.