Xquisite Sixty Solar Sail Review
It’s difficult to believe that Xquisite Yachts, a premium cruising catamaran builder, entered the scene just over a decade ago. In its 11 years, the company and its spirited founder, Tamas Hamor, have taken the luxury cruising market by storm by offering a deluxe product combined with an exceptional client-focused mindset. The builder’s recently launched flagship, the Xquisite Sixty Solar Sail, is the culmination of their years-long development effort, which includes significant innovation and forward thinking. With all the hype, I had high expectations when we took hull #1 out for a spin.
At a Glance: Xquisite Sixty Solar Sail
Xquisite Sixty Solar Sail
- Semi-custom build with a high degree of flexibility and personalization
- Design team injects real-life cruising experience
- Established club of Xquisite owners to tap into for information and support
- A large platform and a complex machine that relies on its technology functioning optimally at all times
- Not ICW-friendly
- Pricing in the neighborhood of $3.6 million
- Distance cruisers looking for space and range
- Early adopters
- Affluent sailors with solid experience and little fear of advanced technology
Specifications
- LOA: 65 feet, 8 inches
- LWL: 59 feet
- Beam: 29 feet, 2 inches
- Draft: 5 feet, 4 inches
- Upwind sail area: 1,862 square feet (w/self-tacking jib)
- Air draft: 89 feet, 6 inches
- Displacement (light): 55,000 pounds
- Water capacity: 227 gallons
- Fuel capacity: 380 gallons
- Price: $3.5 million plus
Power and Performance
- Engines: Twin 110 hp Yanmar with saildrives
- Electric motors: Twin 15kW
- Top speed under sail: 10 knots in 15 knots of wind
- Top speed under power: 10.1 knots at 3,200 rpm
Features We Love
- Rain shower over the transom steps
- Masthead camera providing a bird’s eye view
- Translucent solar panels mounted on the aft end of the Bimini
- Boom with integrated sunshade
- Coachroof lounge on the semi-flybridge
- Toy garage that can hold three standup paddleboards
- Hydraulic platform
- Two bow thrusters
- Electric furlers and winches
- A 42-gph water-maker
- Washer/dryer
- Full navigation station
- Optional hybrid propulsion system
Design and Concept
When I stepped aboard hull #1 of the series, she had just sailed 8,000 miles across the Atlantic from South Africa on her own bottom in a mad dash to make the Annapolis boat show. After an overnight glow-up, she didn’t look any worse for the wear. The Bill Dixon design is a semi-performance cruising cat with an impressive weight-carrying capability. Most of the weight of a cruiser is in the onboard equipment, not the boat itself, so spreading it over a larger platform like 60 feet makes things a smidge easier.
The Xquisite Sixty Solar Sail is angular and more streamlined than preceding Xquisite designs that had a look of heft. The arch is slimmer, the windows and portlights are longer, and the profile is surprisingly low for a boat with a 3-foot, 5-inch bridge deck clearance. The massive rig necessary to power up this 55,000-pound platform towers to 90 feet and carries an upwind sail area of nearly 2,000 square feet.
Four key sails include a square-top main, a self-tacking solent, a genoa, and the top-down furling gennaker. Sailing her is a technical affair with cameras, hydraulics, and advanced monitoring technologies for push-button control of colossal forces. None of the tech can falter if couples want to sail short-handed.
Hamor’s insights on what makes a solid multihull cruiser come from his 100,000 miles of bluewater sailing experience. The X60 is his latest vision of a perfect couple’s boat, albeit an imposing one.
Helm and Deck
The bulkhead-mounted helm is at deck level on the starboard side. With an aft-swept solid glass windshield and a hardtop, it’s in a protected cocoon that shielded the crew from frightful weather during her Atlantic delivery.
Everything is at one’s fingertips, and the masthead camera delivers a crisp image of the gennaker furler up top as well as the perimeter of the entire vessel on the multifunction display. Backing into a slip is as simple as parking a car. In fact, Xquisite placed cameras all around, including one pointed into the sail bag to monitor the boom furling system and one in the anchor locker to check on the chain.
A coachroof lounge on the semi-flybridge sits next to the helm so the skipper has company while on watch. A nifty electric system integrated into the carbon V-boom deploys “bat wings” on struts to provide shade for the lounge below. It has the effect of tossing a tarp over the boom but with far more sophistication and flair.
The Xquisite Sixty Solar Sail is also loaded with superyacht hardware. That includes two electric Reckmann headsail furlers, an electric pad eye on the composite sprit for the gennaker, and solid railings instead of wire lifelines.
Meanwhile, in the cockpit, the transom seat hides a toy garage that can hold three standup paddleboards. Adjacent and below the galley module is a locker for a dive compressor that fills tanks that hide beneath the cockpit steps. Also here and embedded into the arch overhead is a rain-head shower so divers and swimmers can rinse off when they are done. The cherry on the sundae is the massive hydraulic platform that gives the whole aft end a beach club vibe that you often find on superyachts.
Xquisite Sixty Solar Sail Power Systems
The X60 depends on a 48V electrical system, which offers significant power management efficiencies to run the plentiful power-hungry systems aboard. All of these demand a lot of power:
- Two bow thrusters
- An electric tender crane
- The hydraulic swim platform
- Multiple air-conditioning units
- Electric furlers and winches
- A 42-gph water-maker
- A side-by-side refrigerator
- Two induction cooktops
- A dishwasher
- A washer/dryer
- A 22-inch MFD
A giant solar array of tempered and vented glass panels sprawls across the Bimini, the arch, and the coachroof. Panels even protrude aft over the end of the arch, pulling double duty as power generators and shade providers over the platform and tender below. They’re translucent, creating an attractive effect on deck.
To keep track of all this equipment and power draw, C-Zone digital switching comes standard.
Interior Accommodations
With this technological bent, life aboard the Xquisite Sixty Solar Sail is as posh as on land. Owners can delight in a suite that sprawls over the entire port hull with a king sized athwartships bed, a walk-in closet, and an enormous head. Two cabins share the starboard hull. Large families can opt for the four-cabin version instead.
On the main deck, the galley features an island and copious countertop space but still leaves room for a full navigation station in the port forward corner. Buyers have their choice of three color schemes to personalize the décor, and the finish is on par with the quality fixtures of a well-appointed home.
Xquisite Sixty Solar Sail Performance Under Sail
Production cats with fixed keels generally achieve a boat-speed-to-true-wind ratio of about 50 percent. In other words, in 15 knots of wind, the boat should sail 7.5 knots of speed. The design parameters for the Xquisite Sixty Solar Sail were more ambitious. Hamor’s directive was for her to sail at 80 percent of true wind, which is a lofty goal. In fact, we didn’t reach it on test day.
We settled in at 65 percent, making a good 9 to 10 knots in 14 to 15 knots of breeze at 70 degrees apparent wind angle. Not too shabby and likely to improve as wind speeds increase to move this behemoth.
Unlike performance cats with daggerboards, the Xquisite Sixty Solar Sail has fixed keels but still manages to point fairly high before succumbing to leeway. Unfortunately, after a few tacks, the mainsheet jammed up in a sheave and ended our test under sail. Instead, the crew regaled us with tales about the boat’s performance on the delivery as they threaded the needle between two hurricanes in the South Atlantic. They pushed the boat to her limits to get her to the show on time. It was mind boggling that nothing broke.
Performance Under Power
With twin 110 hp Yanmar diesels, our test boat made a good 7.1 knots at 2,200 rpm and 10.1 knots at 3,200 rpm. And while she’s called the “Sixty Solar,” the first of her kind hadn’t yet been fitted with the (optional) hybrid propulsion system that includes twin 15kW inline electric motors between the engines and the saildrives. With that system, she’s capable of running silently for short bursts or for motoring in and out of a marina. She can also hydro-regenerate power while under sail. Of course, the spinning props induce drag so the canvas needs to provide speeds of 9 to 10 knots before any meaningful recapture of energy is possible.
A parallel hybrid system like this one is made of two independent propulsion units, so if one goes down, you still have the other to get you home. With a series hybrid system, a generator powers both electric motors and there are no diesel engines as a backup, so it’s risky to rely solely on that one source of power.
Buyers can outfit the Xquisite Sixty Solar Sail with up to 7kW of solar capacity and 60kWh of lithium-ion batteries to support propulsion and house loads. All that and you never need to start a generator.
Xquisite Sixty Solar Sail Conclusions
During our sea trial, Hamor ran from one end of the boat to the other, taking pictures of every detail because this was his first sail on the boat, too. His attention to detail and enthusiasm about his new baby impressed me. Hamor plans to build three or four hulls per year and pricing is a moving target due to economic circumstances. The current estimate is $3.5 million to $4 million.
After the Annapolis show and our sea trial, our test boat headed to Xquisite’s fine-tuning facility in the Bahamas. It serves as their service center and a resort destination to entertain potential buyers and train new owners. It’s the kind of place that makes you want to belong to the club and it’s a secret weapon for Hamor, because who doesn’t want to belong to an exclusive tribe?
Find Xquisite and Other Multi-hull Sailboats
Zuzana Prochazka
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