‹ Back test

SEAWIND 1600: Seawind is on the attack

image description

Add several tests to your cart

and get an extra discount!

Back in October, visitors to the Barcelona show discovered a brand new model from the Australian builder Seawind: the 1600. Following the Catalan show, we tested this seductive catamaran, designed by the Californian Reichel-Pugh team. Resolutely different from European or South African productions, this catamaran with a distinctive personality gave us some nice surprises.

Building catamarans in Australia for 30 years!

Richard Ward, founder of the Seawind brand is from Queensland’s Gold Coast on the Pacific Northeast coast of Australia, protected by the Great Barrier Reef and an enchanting tropical climate. At the end of his studies, Richard traveled the Pacific cruising and got a taste for racing and regattas (completing in several Sydney-Hobart Races) before founding the company in 1982 and settling in Wollongong in the suburbs of Sydney. The first models manufactured were be small coast-hopping catamarans (the Maricats), then a trailable boat, the Seawind 24. Next came the 850 and 1000 (a real success, with 165 units sold!). The shipyard continued this route during the 2000s by selling 20 to 30 boats a year, and then in October 2010 bought Corsair (the American yard with 1,600 trimarans built to date!). Paul Koch, Corsair’s former owner, had relocated the production of the California plant in Chula Vista to Vietnam: Seawind seized the opportunity to repatriate all the group’s manufacturing to Ho Chi Min City (the Seawind catamarans and the Corsair trimarans). This yard today employs 200 people. The range of Seawind catamarans comprises three m...

Sign in

Password forgotten ?

To read in full,
Buy the boat test

Boat Test price$5.00Inc. tax

Purchase

Share this article


Follow us on