Every so often I get a chance to market and sell a very special catamaran, and Kiapa is certainly one of the most exciting cats I have ever had the privilege to sell. She was designed by Morelli and Melvin (designers of the Gunboat and Playstation) to serve as a high performance voyaging catamaran for her owner and painstakingly custom built at Schooner Creek Boatworks in Oregon to the very highest standards. She is light. She is fast. She is strong. And she is fitted out with the very finest winches, sails, carbon mast, electronics, etc. To top all that off she is appointed with a rare level of taste and sophistication in terms of decor - she is nautical and traditional on the one hand, modern and european on the other. A big plus to my mind is that the owner recognized that a forward cockpit was not a sensible decision for a cat of this size and elected to set Kiapa up with a more spacious aft cockpit, but designed in a fine interior helm station for foul weather. In just about every respect her design is in keeping with my own views about how to layout and equip a high peformance voyaging catamaran of this size range. When she is sold I am quite looking forward to her sea trials.
Having gone over Kiapa myself with her owner, who has sailed her extensively thoughout the South Pacific, I can say she is as close to a 10 on the scale for a used boat as any I have seen. She is in so many ways better than a new boat - she is already built, built to the highest standards, and throughly debugged so that whoever is lucky enough to own her can sail away simply by stocking her fridge and freezer and setting a way point on the plotter.
Fast! Is she ever. Her fine hulls, long, lean and light, her powerful carbon rig and high tech sails push her along at windspeed or better in less than 10 knots or breeze. She will click off 240 days with ease, and with her high bridge deck-clearance do so in great comfort in even the lumpiest of seas. If you are a high performance catamaran voyager who will not compromise on speed or quality, and understand how much time, work and money it would take to build a boat like Kiapa from scratch, this is certainly a very special opportunity. To arrange a showing of this fine yacht, please contact Phil at The Multihull Company. Kiapa is currently lying in San Francisco and ready for immediate sale.