New Seawind Model - Announcement July 10

[Alistair242]

It’s all about personal priority, isn’t it? The Outremers and the Seawinds have raised midship bunks so that the BDC and sleek hulls can be retained. It actually looks like the 1370 has much wider hulls than the smaller models and the references to performance by the Ruby Rose crew were about reaching as opposed to windward performance. Their numbers were based on 110 true? The speed numbers will need to be confirmed in the water and will be considerably more modest one would guess.
I seriously doubt there was anything withheld by them in their reviews and I for one found them interesting and informative, albeit based on their opinions, some which align with my own and others not so much.
A couple of the more important priorities for them were(in no particular order) positioning of the life raft for ease of deployment, ventilation, helm position, a decent sized front facing nav station, simple systems, renewable energy and of course performance for Nic in particular.......among others. Keep in mind that they have done most or all of their cruising on a southerly 38[monohull). It was interesting to see them offering opinions on larger multi hulls. A 12.5m catamaran has the equivalent space to a 55-60ft monohull.
Of course all reviews should be taken with a grain of salt and once again I found Nic and Terysa’s efforts very informative, much more so than some similar others done around the same time.
After becoming very popular the couple from Sailing La Vagabonde found themselves in a position to be able to get into a brand new Outremer 45 and I would guess that the Ruby Rose crew will have a similar arrangement with Seawind. Good on them, they have put in a lot of time and effort to their YouTube channel and then into these reviews. Congrats to them and it already is giving Seawinds new boat a lot of publicity.

[HellBentSailing]

Not a fan of Seawind and will never, and I mean never, buy one of their boats due to a very poor experience at a boat show a couple of years back (equally the fault of the boat and the rude and forceful rep). Personally I have found the quality of their fit and finish to be on par with Neel (meaning acceptable at a distance but worse and worse the closer you get) and don't even get me started on the design language of their boats. There is literally no way I could ride up to one of these things in my dinghy and not regret every single choice that led to that moment. They just scream "cheap" even as you walk up to them and seemingly use outdated stylistic elements that would put a MacGregor to shame. The lower, "protected" helm positions looking through 2 layers of glass are a joke, good luck seeing literally anything while sailing at night, not to mention that, as a performance sailor, I like to have an unobstructed view of my sails during daylight hours and am perfectly happy to sacrifice a little protection for it. I probably wouldn't sail one across an ocean if it was given to me for free. As far as Ruby Rose is concerned, I somewhat enjoyed watching them check out so many boats but did find them to be a little biased in a mildly irritating kind of way. There were a series of dramatic oversights in a couple of their videos that left me gaping at my screen like a dying fish, unable to grasp the sheer ignorance that must have been required to say some of the things they did. I didn't mind the bias towards performance boats, being performance oriented myself, but then they would nitpick about bare walls and ring frames in the faster boats which just astounded me. There was definitely a bit of bias towards Seawind at the end which, considering that they were working with them directly on their own version of the 1370, is hardly surprising. They seem to be equally as biased towards their boats as I am against them.

I have no idea whether or not the new 1370 will be a good boat, only that it will be right at the bottom of my list alongside every other boat they have ever and will ever make.

[smj]

Of course Ruby Rose was biased, they were reviewing catamarans for their personal purchase using their priorities as a guideline, something they stated many times. I really don’t care for their number 2 pick so I guess my priorities don’t exactly match theirs.

[Factor]

Originally Posted by HellBentSailing

The lower, "protected" helm positions looking through 2 layers of glass are a joke, good luck seeing literally anything while sailing at night, .

I have owned 2 Seawinds and done probably 10000-15000 nautical miles on delivery trips on Seawind (and the delivery trips were almost all non stop, so a fair bit of night work).

At no time on any Seawind have I had to look through 2 layers of glass, never, not once.

[Mook1e]

Originally Posted by smj

Of course Ruby Rose was biased, they were reviewing catamarans for their personal purchase using their priorities as a guideline, something they stated many times. I really don’t care for their number 2 pick so I guess my priorities don’t exactly match theirs.

I think they did a good job.
Of course everyone is personally biased. I enjoyed their perspective, even if I disagreed on some points they made.
I'm a beginner, though, so my disagreements may be a combination of preference and ignorance on my part.

[sailjumanji]

Originally Posted by HellBentSailing

Not a fan of Seawind and will never, and I mean never, buy one of their boats due to a very poor experience at a boat show a couple of years back (equally the fault of the boat and the rude and forceful rep). Personally I have found the quality of their fit and finish to be on par with Neel (meaning acceptable at a distance but worse and worse the closer you get) and don't even get me started on the design language of their boats. There is literally no way I could ride up to one of these things in my dinghy and not regret every single choice that led to that moment. They just scream "cheap" even as you walk up to them and seemingly use outdated stylistic elements that would put a MacGregor to shame. The lower, "protected" helm positions looking through 2 layers of glass are a joke, good luck seeing literally anything while sailing at night, not to mention that, as a performance sailor, I like to have an unobstructed view of my sails during daylight hours and am perfectly happy to sacrifice a little protection for it. I probably wouldn't sail one across an ocean if it was given to me for free. As far as Ruby Rose is concerned, I somewhat enjoyed watching them check out so many boats but did find them to be a little biased in a mildly irritating kind of way. There were a series of dramatic oversights in a couple of their videos that left me gaping at my screen like a dying fish, unable to grasp the sheer ignorance that must have been required to say some of the things they did. I didn't mind the bias towards performance boats, being performance oriented myself, but then they would nitpick about bare walls and ring frames in the faster boats which just astounded me. There was definitely a bit of bias towards Seawind at the end which, considering that they were working with them directly on their own version of the 1370, is hardly surprising. They seem to be equally as biased towards their boats as I am against them.

I have no idea whether or not the new 1370 will be a good boat, only that it will be right at the bottom of my list alongside every other boat they have ever and will ever make.

OMG, buddy. Someone really turned you off at the boat show. Just to correct a few things, from someone that actually owns and sails a newer Seawind. No one ever has to look thru two layers of glass to see forward. The window above both wheels on the 1160 is removable, and there is a molded space especially for storage in the cockpit. Reach thru that removed window opening, and access the chartplotter, the VHF, ... all sitting in a nice dry, secure protected environment. On the 1260, I think the window is electric opening. So that just leaves one set of glass to have to look thru. But that said, both of the forward saloon windows are full opening. Makes for great air flow. And when open, you look thru zero layers of glass to sail.

If you want to see the sails, just lean out slightly from the helm position, and look up. You can see them both, much better than on a monohull as your view of telltales is from further outboard. When we race, we sit on the cockpit coaming next to the wheel, where you can still reach the wheel easily, and steer to the telltales. We owned and raced Corsair trimarans at Nationals and Key West for years, and wouldn't own a boat that doesn't sail well. We've cranked up the sail area on our new Lite with high aspect square top made of Dimension Polyant GPL Lite Skin, which makes for even better performance (although we have to reef a little earlier, but simple with one-line reefing and the electric winch). We've also done a lot of night sailing, including crossing the Gulf from Ft Myers, Florida to Freeport, Texas in some pretty gnarly conditions, and visibility wasn't an issue. Autopilot does the steering, sit in the helm seat, check AIS and radar, lean out a bit and get a good view of what's in front of you, etc. And I've yet to meet a single cruiser in the Bahamas who touted unobstructed view of his/her sail, over protection from the sun via a hardtop or other cover. But to each his own.

[ol1970]

I understand people critique of their critiques, but I think they were fairly up front about their bias towards performance. What they didn't do a good job of in my opinion is on the evaluation of the value side. It was a tough undertaking but they did the best they could, nobody is paying them a salary so it is hard to get fired up about how they came to their conclusion.

I think it is silly to have an Outremer 51 and Balance 526 that are going to be in the $1.5M category being compared to a Leopard 45. They should have broken it down to price segments in order to silence the critics. They should have then giving real world metrics like cost per square foot of living space, cost per load carrying capacity, cost per interior volume. Given a light wind performance rating at a common point of sail (60 degrees off the wind, 10 knots of wind and calm sea state = X.XX) But for a free video to watch on YouTube it is hard to bitch. We are doing the same shopping and it is nice to compare notes and apply our own bias in our decision.

[BlueSkyOne]

I really liked the review series that RR put together as an opportunity to see wide range of boats.

It was quite clear before they even announced a collaboration that something changed when they switched after the grand motte reviews of more affordable boats to boats over million dollar mark and the concept of affordable and value shifted, the series moved away from the mainstream boats to niche.

Nothing to do with them but it makes me laugh that the top boat in their series was the Seawind 1600 with over 500 reviews - how many 1600 have been delivered and/chartered. Most reviews I'm sure are just youtube sheep blindly following.

Who can blame the RR folks, I would jump at free/discounted/special deal, but for sure as with SLV it means their channel is no longer real life but a marketing effort (and with people who actually pay to watch adverts in the case of those patrons).

[NaClyDog]

Originally Posted by BlueSkyOne

Nothing to do with them but it makes me laugh that the top boat in their series was the Seawind 1600 with over 500 reviews - how many 1600 have been delivered and/chartered. Most reviews I'm sure are just youtube sheep blindly following.

It very much might have to do with them... for the very reasons you point out. So many "independent" reviews?



It's called marketing instead of truth for a reason.

[Sand crab]

The 1260 windows roll down (electric), I'm sure the 1370 will be the same. I'm interested in the other cats these posters would pick over Seawind.

[geoff326]

Exactly.

The early reviews were great to watch, then unfortunately they morphed into inconsistency. Pretty hard if you happened to be the manufacturer of say Neel Trimarans, who were on the receiving end of a very harsh review. Regardless, of whether the manufacturer was deserving of it, all the manufactures surveyed should at least expect the same yardstick to apply to their competitors.

I also note early on in the piece they claimed they would not be buying a catamaran until their boat was sold and their budget was $500,000 and then somehow they end up buying a Seawind $800,000 boat- a brand they found almost faultless in both the 1260 and 1600 reviews, still owning, I believe, an unsold boat.

While I admire them for bringing to attention the faults of certain manufacturers, they should not be beyond criticism themselves.

There is a difference between admiration and adulation.

[geoff326]

The early reviews were great to watch, then unfortunately they morphed into inconsistency. Pretty hard if you happened to be the manufacturer of say Neel Trimarans, who were on the receiving end of a very harsh review. Regardless, of whether the manufacturer was deserving of it, all the manufactures surveyed should at least expect the same yardstick as applied to their competitors.

I also note early on in the piece they claimed they would not be buying a catamaran until their boat was sold and their budget was $500,000 and then somehow they ended up buying a Seawind $800,000 boat- a brand they found almost faultless in both the 1260 and 1600 reviews, still owning, I believe, an unsold boat.

While I admire them for bringing to attention the faults of certain manufacturers, they should not be beyond criticism themselves.

There is a difference between admiration and adulation.

[smj]

I don’t see how this thread has gone from the introduction of the 1370 to the RR reviews.
If you are interested in the Seawind’s and don’t like the RR reviews then do your own research.
If your not interested in Seawind cats don’t look at the RR reviews.
The RR videos are free and based upon their opinion, what else could they do to please you?

[MicHughV]

whoa....these forums provide a venue to discuss, dissect, argue, pontificate, muse, compare, opine, evaluate, disassemble, provoke, and otherwise chit-chat about just about anything, all done by mostly faceless and nameless people. All things considered, it all generally works out pretty good and if all fails, you still have the mods, to edit, remove, or otherwise control the masses.

[smj]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

whoa....these forums provide a venue to discuss, dissect, argue, pontificate, muse, compare, opine, evaluate, disassemble, provoke, and otherwise chit-chat about just about anything, all done by mostly faceless and nameless people. All things considered, it all generally works out pretty good and if all fails, you still have the mods, to edit, remove, or otherwise control the masses.

And I thought this has been a pretty civilized discussion