Kinetic KC54 - The catamaran of the future?

The KC54 is the second model from the young brand Kinetic. A carbon cruising catamaran that plays the performance and technology card, setting itself apart from the rest in a market where competition is significant.

Test location: Annapolis, MD (USA)
Conditions: Wind 8 to 12 knots, slight chop

Kinetic Catamarans is a new player on the multihull market - born in 2015. At its origin, you’ll find Bob Hayward, a man with multiple talents. He was looking for the catamaran of his dreams, the one that would perfectly fit his program. Not being able to find such a boat, he decided to join forces with South African Leon Scheepers to take over Phil Harvey’s former shipyard in Knysna, South Africa, which built some models for Gunboat. The Kinetic brand was born.

Following in the wake of the KC62, the first model to be launched, we now have the KC54, which, with its size, is coming into a highly competitive area of the cruising catamaran market. However, Hayward and Scheepers are far from short of ideas, and the Kinetic stands out from the competition in many ways. Firstly, the shipyard has turned weight reduction into an obsession. To lighten the platforms and increase performance, the catamarans are built with an all-carbon structure, a material that is both very strong and pretty light. The other characteristic is the use of almost avant-garde technological solutions such as hydraulic rams for the sails, Kevlar shrouds, electric furlers or a dropdown bow thruster with Dockmat...