Dazcat 1495: A very British catamaran – and a rather racy cruiser-racer

The last time we sailed on a Darren Newton-designed catamaran was back in 2014 when Philippe Echelle joined the crew of the Broadblue Rapier 550 for the Round the Isle of Wight Race.  At the time, Philippe described it as an “exceptional catamaran”, so when we got an invite to sail on a Dazcat 1495 cruiser-racer, we jumped at the chance.  

The River Tamar is the major tributary of Plymouth Sound, and forms the geographical border between Devon and Cornwall. An unassuming little village named Millbrook is at the head of a creek which runs west off the Tamar, and it was here in 1968 that Pat Patterson established the Multihull Centre. Since then, a significant number of British catamarans have been built and launched from here; designs not only from the drawing board of Patterson, but also from Richard Woods, and now from Darren Newton.

Darren (the “Daz” in Dazcat) became a catamaran addict sailing Hobies as a teenager in Devon in the 1980s and has been designing and building multihulls ever since. In 1993, Dazcat relocated to Millbrook, and in 1999, Multimarine was established to build boats from other designers. In 2012 Dazcat and Multimarine moved into the Multihull Centre when Pat Patterson’s son Pip retired.

And a tour of the yard reveals just how entrenched multihulls are here. Aside from boats currently in build, there are many, many catamarans and trimarans on the hard here being worked on by their owners or by the yard.

The DNA of performance

So after a fascinating day touring the facilities at Millbr...