AMEL - Death of the Cruising Ketch ?

[alctel]

I'd love a ketch but having to pay for TWO sets of standing rigging (let alone the sails) definitely priced me out

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by alctel

I'd love a ketch but having to pay for TWO sets of standing rigging (let alone the sails) definitely priced me out

Is this truly an issue given how expensive these boats are in the first place.


I would guess an AMEL 60 would be EUR 1 mio and upwards?


b.

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Arghhhhh ....


So, a beautiful new boat, but bit of a shame lingering too. I expected this.


I have sailed (limited, only locally) an earlier 54' boat I was so swept. It was so easy for me (hardly a Shrek, although perfectly fit) and my intelligent, good and sexy crew!


In my wildest and totally unrealistic (financially) dreams I have seen ourselves sailing something like AMEL 55 round the world again!


I have seen an AMEL 55 in Le Marin (on dry and at the dock, not inside) and she was so, eh, 'bespoke'?


Such a shame. I hope the boatyard will not place themselves into some impossible corner and then out of the market.


barnakiel

There is an old saying in business that often the best competition for your new model is the one you built last year. In our consumerism society you either innovate or eventually you'll go out of business. You can buy an older Super M Amel and refit it for peanuts compared to buying a new one so why buy a new one? They have been building those older models for many many years, making small changes every year so lots and lots of choices if you want an older design, sky is the limit.

I've always liked Amel's very practical approach to building boats and fortunately they have retained many of those practices in their new boats. A close friend recently bought a new Amel 50 so I've been flooded with information as they went through their build process and now just started cruising. Considering the price of the new 50, well north of a million dollars their sales have been surprisingly good.

[TDB1227]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Is this truly an issue given how expensive these boats are in the first place.


I would guess an AMEL 60 would be EUR 1 mio and upwards?


b.

About EURO1.7M as starting price with many options such as AC; heating; watermaker; davitts etc. not included.
When my boat was ordered there were about EURO250K of AMEL options additional.

[LAGO]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Is next AMEL a cat then?


b.

Now you're talking!

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by LAGO

Now you're talking!

Mean it?


Look:


X-yachts are now making power boats,
Exquisite are now offering power cats.


Why not AMEL offering a cat up next.


Or better yet, a power cat.


Since, 'you make what the clients want to buy' ...



b.

[Bundyon]

Got to love the lines of a good Ketch, not all of them are fast but they have that mystique about them!

[billgewater]

No more adventurous seat of the pants minimalist sailors either We are molly coddled. My wife asked if they named tomato sauce after the boat under discussion. Or the other way around.

[MicHughV]

my understanding of a yawl...is that the proper definition of a yawl is that the mizzen mast is located behind a vertical line of where the stern of the boat exits the water...often with the boom hanging over the stern.....steering wheel location has nothing to do with this definition...the mizzen on a yawl is typically quite short too, much shorter than the mizzen on a ketch....there is no confusing the two, keeping this in mind.

[MicHughV]

but to get back to Amel...like others on this thread, did my share of lusting after these boats, but typically out of reach for po' folk like me.

say what you want...ketches are sexy !!!

[barnakiel]

In fact, AMEL ketches can be blazingly fast. I watched one sail past us on a crossing from Martinique towards Dominica. It was sailing just a bit too fast to my judgement of what a good sailor I am. And so I looked them up on our AIS ...



She was clocking a regular 10+ kts !!!


We were also overtaken by an older AMEL (2000 Maramu style) on one of our passages toward the Caribbean. She was using those funky AMEL outriggers and twin genoas. She was making a near ddw track right towards Martinique. We had to sail at an angle and by nightfall she was gone behind the horizon.


I met this boat later at the dock in Le Marin, their passage was only 19 days. Pretty cool.



barnakiel

[MicHughV]

many well known ketches have won the round the world race ( Steinlager, Great Britain II...around Britain race.....etc..etc...
Suhali of Peter Blake fame was a ketch
and who can forget Eric Taberly on Pen Duick
and many more....

and ahem.....the Roberts 38....ketch...often times a race winner (on handicap), and a demon on the water in the hands of her capable skipper....ummm....me

[Clivevon]

"my understanding of a yawl...is that the proper definition of a yawl is that the mizzen mast is located behind a vertical line of where the stern of the boat exits the water...often with the boom hanging over the stern.....steering wheel location has nothing to do with this definition...the mizzen on a yawl is typically quite short too, much shorter than the mizzen on a ketch....there is no confusing the two, keeping this in mind."
I'm pretty sure (OK I know) that a Yawl has the mizzen mast aft of the rudder post, & a ketch has the mizzen forward of the rudder post. Thats it. My ketch by the way has a fairly short mizzen mast but she is still a ketch because of its position. The mizzen is a very useful sail for all sorts of reasons and also means the entire sail area is lower down so less heeling moment so I can hold more sail for longer (which on my boat I need to do to be fair because she is not a flyer in light winds).
Also about the twin rudders - they are needed because of a boats shape, not just the beam. Most boat hulls these days are almost triangle shapes so when they heel over the boat centreline is no longer parallel with the sea, the bow is pointing down & the middle of the stern is way out of the water, & so would be the rudder if central, hence the need for two rudders so one can work in that situation. Otherwise you would need the rudder to be probably deeper than the keel so it could remain effective....

[Mike Banks]

Dunno--real shell backs?

[Sailing4Jesus]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

Amel is simply building boats that their customers want to buy. If you want to buy a ketch there are lots of used ones. Simply no desire for ketches anymore, are there? No more full keels, no more ketches, no more round ports, no more tanbark sails, no more oil lamps, no more paper charts.....ok you guys help me out..what else is no more in new sailing boats?

What else has the Sailing Life lost? BEAUTIFUL SAILING YACHTS, that is by far our greatest loss. Everything being built today has one thing in common, IT MUST BE UGLY. The romance of Red Sails in the Sunset is lost to Cats and Floating Bathtubs. At least that is what they look like to me. The Sextant is NO MORE, Paper Charts are NO MORE, and dreamers like Joshua Slocum, Tristian Jones, and Lin & Lary Pardee are what I cut my teeth on. No more do we see our youth interested in much except iPhones and Crack Cocaine. Plastics have all but destroyed our planet, yet more and more plastics are being produced. Go to the center of The Pacific Ocean, catch a fish there, take it to a laboratory for analysis and it will be full of microplastics that we are all digesting in 2020. Oh, I better shut up or I'll be Flagged for talking of Politics and Rotten Politicians.

Senior Chief Freeman, United States Navy, Retired