Punch 13.70 - The winning return of epoxy wood

After a decade’s absence, Multicat Algarve launched the second model in its new Punch range in Portugal, a 13.70 in a Day Charter configuration. For the editorial team here at Multihulls World, who have always been fans of epoxy wood construction, the opportunity was just too good: we met up with builder Christian Hernandez in Portugal to sail a few miles aboard this unclassifiable newcomer.

Test location: Vila Real de Santo António, Portugal
Conditions: wind 5 to 10 knots, calm sea

There are some catamarans that capture the imagination. Whether on the glossy pages of an old article lost in an unlikely pile of magazines, or deep in our memories of tropical cruising, the Punch is always up there. These multihulls have left a whole generation with a taste for the tropics, the sun and the trade winds.

It has to be said that Punch catamarans, with their original construction method, strong inverted deck sheer and colorful visual identity from the 1990s and 2000s, helped to associate catamarans with escape, simplicity and performance. Despite the closure of the Martinique-based shipyard run by the inimitable Christian Hernandez in 2010, the catamarans have continued to sail the world, proving the reliability of their epoxy plywood build, a construction method that dispenses with the need for molds and guarantees excellent mechanical qualities such as strength and rigidity. Plywood epoxy means sharp chines: only the Punch 1700 benefited from strip-planking hulls, an assembly of narrow battens that allows part of the hull to be shaped. According to Alain Mortain, one of...