The latest Offbeat is a Catana 53, the flagship of the Catana Group who are based on the Mediterranean at Canet-en-Roussillon in south-west France near the Spanish border. We signed the contract for her build in August 2021. Her hull was laid down in October 2021 and she was finally delivered to us in March 2023.
A quick timeline of photos from her build.
All her structural bulkheads and the cabin top are made from carbon fibre, as is the mast and bowsprit. This makes her a very stiff and strong boat. The wood work is almost all from a foam sandwich construction and is also bonded to the hulls. This is a labour intensive way of boat-building but eliminates the creaking that owners of volume production boats are familiar with and reduces the weight of the boat and hence improves performance.
She also has daggerboards (retractable keels) which allow us to raise them when going downwind to reduce drag but also to drop them to a maximum draft of 3.3m when going upwind to improve our pointing ability.
