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Aeroyacht - Edel H42– Introducing the Next Generation Cruiser
Excellent performance, spacious accommodations at a very reasonable price.

Photos and article by Gregor Tarjan
published July/August 2004 issue Multihulls Magazine

The Aeroyacht H42 is a unique cruising multihull in many aspects. She seems to have all the ingredients for success: Spacious and well finished accommodations, good performance and a proven high tech-infusion construction process. Combine these virtues with an extremely competitive price and you might have found the missing link in today’s cruising multihull market. 

Let’s say, one would be looking for an affordable, well performing production catamaran, with enough headroom and accommodations to live aboard. One would be hard pressed to say “ There are many to chose from”.  At closer reflection you would admit that there actually extremely few.  

When I first discovered this vessel an ambitious team of boat builders and retired industry managers had taken over the well known builder - Edel Catamarans of France. With the help of Bertrand Lelievre , of C-Class Little Americas Cup fame, they created a simple, yet well built cruising catamaran. Having been aware of the absence of a boat that could fill this large niche I became involved, fine tuned the design and concept and at the end became so convinced of this vessel that my company Aeroyacht formed a partnership with the builders, whereby we would  exclusively distribute her under the name of Aeroyacht H42. With the help of Eric Ferchaud and Claude Lecharpentier this dream became a reality and much is owed to them.

So what is so special about the Aeroyacht H42. 

 Models: The H42 will be offered in various versions to suit customer requirements. Although most have been built with daggerboards and tiller steering, she is also available with twin hydraulic wheels or low aspect ratio keels. There is an open bridgedeck and a high performance version the H42R, with carbon rig, boom and forward crossbeam. Clients can chose the optional electric drives by Solomon Technologies and 5 accommodation layouts.

The Aeroyacht H42 has a high bridge deck and full volume bow sections where it counts

 Design and Concept:  When you first see the H42, she will strike you as a well proportioned, simple, yet powerful looking multihull. Her elliptical, F-1 racing trimaran- inspired hulls, clever coachroof overhang and high bridgedeck clearance are core to her adaptability to open ocean cruising and living aboard. Cockpit and saloon are seamless, on one level and there is no step to enter the saloon.

 Hulls: The hulls are well rounded and are equipped with a high prismatic coefficient for excellent payload capacity. If kept light they will thrill with earlier surfing characteristics than a narrower waterplane hull. Their cross section, similar to an egg, yield an extremely strong structure, without the hassles of an exposed hull to deck joint, with an added benefit of lesser weight and low windage. Elastomere bow and hull bumpers give the boat a high tech look, but they work and they are a practical safety feature found in no other catamaran. 

Interior and Cockpit: Unique to this catamaran is that the saloon is reached without stepping down or crouching under the door sill. A convenient feature found on only few 55 plus foot multihulls. The pleasant feeling of space and the headroom of this 42’ boat are enormous. Even tall sailors can walk completely straight throughout the saloon, even in the very forward part. There is excellent headroom in the hulls as well.  A feature, which I as 6’3 individual greatly appreciate. I have stopped counting the times I hit my head on other boats. The layouts are modular and there are 5 to chose from. Few boats, unlike the H42, offer a forward looking chart table and completely seamless windows, which are great features when steering or on watch in inclement weather. There is even an integrated laptop storage at the nav-table, which lets you conveniently chart courses or check the weather. The quality interior is refined in a clean straightforward manner and can be ordered in different wood finishes.

Performance and Safety: True performance in my mind is effortless safe sailing, yielding high daily averages of 200+ mile days. The H42 will satisfy and better this mark. On long sometimes arduous ocean passages, where one does not even touch the helm for days,  reaching ones destination even 20% earlier is an indicator of performance, which also translates into safety. What makes the H42 unique are also her twin tillers (wheels optional), which give her “day sailor” characteristics. Steering feedback and The Fun Factor with the tillers cannot be beat and the H42 has been clocked at 22.7 knots surfing.  Watertight compartments, a 100% foam composite construction and conservative design parameters such as a high bridgedeck and full volume bows make the H42 a very safe boat. The triple crash boxes - the forward one even filled with foam - and the innovative bow protection system will also reduce damage in case of collisions Twin inclined high aspect ratio daggerboards will rival any performance monohull in pointing to windward, yet can reduce the draft to less than 35 inches. This is not only a shallow-harbor convenience feature but lets you also beach the boat in an emergency. The tuned performance rig is inclined aft by 7.5% to improve windward ability even further. Sail controls are functionally placed and walking around the deck is safe with handholds in strategic places.  All halyards are lead into one of 3 cavernous lockers, so there is never a chance to tangle them. There is a solid composite walkway between the bow trampoline to safely reach the headstay without circus acts. All builders talk about it, but few do it conscientiously: Centering of weights for less pitching motion, better comfort and performance. This is why we put all of the H42’s major components between the center and aft crossbeam-without exception. Even the engines.  Windlass and ground tackle are easily accessed – in the lockers at the foot of the mast. All the sails, fenders, generator and various equipment disappear in these huge main beam lockers that have to be seen to be believed. They are so large that one of them could hold 4 stowaways. There is even a smart cockpit table storage in one, while the other one houses the heavy life raft, which can be accessed from both sides of the boat. Practical storage space and the placement of heavy items have been perfectly married - not compromised, to enhance safety and performance.

5 different layouts, conscientious centering of weights with double collision bulkheads

Construction and Reliability:The composite hulls and the nacelle consist entirely of a PVC foam sandwich, are vacuum bagged and are built in an infusion process, which removes all excess resin. It has to be noted that very few boats in this class are built in the infusion system, which yields one of the strongest structures for a given weight. Closely spaced bulkheads and interior fittings are entirely constructed with honeycomb and PVC sandwich panels and are also vacuum bagged for an optimal strength to weight ratio. Hulls have 5 composite longitudinals, the bow to stern floor stringer alone is 7 “ high and 2” thick ! The separate crossbeams are made of a spun composite tube surrounded by a massive honeycomb box system. It is the “heart” of the boat and makes the H42 extremely stiff. "Bateaux" Magazine, the French equivalent to "Sail", extensively tested the H42 in rough N-Atlantic conditions in winter and noted her outstanding build and performance "....very stiff under sail...very rigid construction..."

Aeroyacht H42: light air performer and ocean cruiser

The bulletproof construction of the H42 make her a reliable and fun boat to sail. She is both a long-term, trouble free, live aboard vessel and a supremely capable ocean traveler. The H42 has now become a true production boat with 4 being built each year. The vessel was extensively tested and debugged and 9 have been built to date. Since her introduction to the US in April we have been encouraged by the positive responses of our clients and we are proud to be able to display the first model at the Oct. 7-11 Annapolis Boat Show.

It is maybe one of the first times that a company like Aeroyacht, a dealership specializing in multihulls, has integrated their knowledge with the needs of the market. The comparatively low introductory sail away price of 263,000 Euro will make people wonder. Yet Aeroyacht, an experienced company with the flexibility to listen to clients and study their needs, in combination with the know how of a yard without massive overheads can do just that.  Offer a great production catamaran at a reasonable price. There has to be a first time for everything. Welcome to the next generation of cruising multihulls.

Aeroyacht Ltd.  info@Aeroyacht.com
 
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