Catamarans don’t belong in the UK, I hear you cry. If you’ve been put off by towering topsides, the vast beam and ideas about how much it might cost to keep one in a marina, or their supposed lack of upwind performance, then stay with me. The Excess 11 is a boat that has certainly made me think again.

High-volume production catamarans certainly make fantastic boats for chartering with your family in hot climates and introducing nervous crew to life afloat, but I was eager to find out if a new brand of catamaran could also make a genuinely practical and enjoyable cruising boat for private owners to sail in the UK’s more temperate waters.

If you’re looking for a cruising catamaran you have, until fairly recently, faced a choice between a high-volume, stubby-keeled cruising catamaran, or a dagger-boarded speed machine. Alongside Nautitech, however, Excess has jumped into a niche for high- volume but modest displacement cruising cats that seek to offer the best of both worlds.

The Excess brand emerged from the Beneteau Group just six years ago to fill this perceived void. Employing top racing catamaran and foiling IMOCA designers VPLP means this boat has at least a modicum of performance in her DNA. Could this be a catamaran that’s comfy to live on, reassuringly solid at sea, and still genuinely engaging to sail?

At first glance, the Excess 11 has much in common with other modern cruising cats – high topsides, a generously glazed deck saloon, staggering amounts of space in the hulls, and shallow, long chord keels. But it was her differences that piqued my interest. To start with she’s just 37ft in length – a good 3ft shorter than any of her competitors, and only the Broadblue 345 is smaller than this.

Rather than a single, raised helm station, she has twin helms on the main deck level, aft and outboard of the superstructure. To bring the helm to life, steering uses Dyneema cables rather than hydraulics, and with the wheels where they are, this is a surprisingly short cable run to minimise play and maximise feeling.

Winches are at deck level, too, so there’s more for crew to do if they want to get involved, and she comes at a surprisingly competitive price when you compare her to monohulls – the Excess 11 may cost more than boats of a similar length, but for the same space aboard you’d need to be looking at a boat at least five or 10ft longer.

So it was that I found myself motoring down the Hamble river at the bright orange wheel of an Excess 11. With both wheels set right aft and outboard you have a pretty unobstructed view directly forwards and outboard. Look through the glazing, and you then get a surprisingly clear view through the arcs obstructed by the saloon.

Step inboard slightly, still within reach of the wheel, and you can see round the support posts and straight out of the front of the boat. It takes a little getting used to as the tops of the windows were slightly below eye level (I’m 6ft 1in tall), but it’s similar to helming a deck-saloon monohull or even just ducking to leeward to look round a headsail.

Command and control with the Excess 11

As we motored along, I was reassured that I could control the boat from either side, thanks to the electronic throttles controlling the twin 29hp Yanmar inboards; this means command can be taken from either wheel.

While cats are directionally stable, you might notice that, as with many other cats, there’s no prop wash over the rudders. That’s because her rudders are ahead of the propellers – an arrangement that allows the engines to be pushed right aft, saving space for the aft cabins. Not an issue in a cat as you can drive it on the throttles like a tank – not that I’ve ever driven one of those, but I imagine it’s similar.

We didn’t get the sunniest of days – the clouds stubbornly obscured the sun all day and the temperature was remarkably low for mid summer – but at least we had a decent breeze. As you’d expect from a multihull, the main is large and powerful to help propel drive the extra hull, but a two-to-one halyard taken to the powered winch ahead of the starboard helm help us set sail.

On our test Excess 11, Sea Ventures’ stock boat, all lines other than a couple of halyards were led aft to clutches and a winch ahead of the starboard wheel, including both sheets for the overlapping jib. Most owners opt for the self-tacking jib, which simplifies things further.

With all lines taken to one side there’s a lot of rope in one place, which needs keeping tidy, though I can see that splitting controls to both sides would make some of them frustratingly hard to reach for the helm.

Underway, we faced a beat out of Southampton Water and around Bramble Bank into open water. Before I had a chance to remember that multihulls aren’t meant to tack well, I’d put her into a tack just as I would a monohull; she popped through easily and was off again almost instantly.

A slight bear away helped rebuild any lost momentum and we were back pointing up to 40º-43º off the apparent wind, giving us a compass tacking angle of 115º-120º – not bad for a cruising cat. When you take into account that we were doing over 7 knots upwind, upwind in a Force 4, in a 37-footer, on a completely even keel, that’s actually pretty impressive and probably almost a knot faster than you’d get from the same size monohull. Clearly, in a big seaway, the extra hull and potential slamming from the nacelle might see this drop off, but the Solent chop wasn’t anywhere near big enough to test this.

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Enjoyable helming

Steering from the windward helm, I loved being outboard and able to see forwards and to feel the wind in my face. The helm was light and responsive, and while you don’t get the feedback of the boat heeling and loading up, it was sensitive enough for me to feel the fore-and-aft balance of the sailplan – not something you’d get in your average heavy cruising cat. Seeing the genoa telltales wasn’t the easiest, so helming from leeward helped with this.

In terms of visibility, it was, if anything, better than when sailing to windward in a monohull, as the sail is above the line of sight from the hull, and the saloon windows remain conducive to looking through.

Bearing away and in a freshening breeze, we accelerated slightly to 7.5 knots on a close reach, but the real speed came from setting the 54m2 Code Zero, which was set and furled on the foldable bowsprit (this hinges away to reduce length when in harbour). We comfortably maintained speeds over 8 knots, with the occasional foray into the high nines and a max speed of 10.1 knots with the wake fizzing off the transoms as the wind gusted to the top end of the recommended windspeed for the Code Zero. The huge asymmetric is an option for lighter airs and deeper angles.

The sailplan crossover table for recommended wind ranges for each sail option by the helms was a useful addition; without heel angle you need to sail a cat more by numbers. Experienced owners might be willing to bend the rules, but even so, this looks and feels like a boat that can stand up to her canvas well. She’s not going to be planing, but surfs in double digits are well within her reach.

Handling the Code Zero was straight-forward – the headsail halyards are the only lines taken to port, plus the furling line for the Zero, and sheets are led to the winches either side, so you do need a couple of people to release and sheet in after a gybe. Furling the sail is probably the easier way to gybe in reality, though handling the winches is easy enough from the helm. If you did want two winches, you’d have to move up to the larger Excess 14.

The big plus of having the wheels and lines all on deck level with the cockpit is that it is easy for crew to lend a hand, helping them feel involved and making communication easier. It would also feel more secure in a seaway, while the proximity to the water makes the sailing experience more engaging.

Seats fold down behind the helm across the transom access giving two people somewhere comfy to sit and improving the sense of security at the wheel, also helped by the high bulwark outboard. Steps inboard of the wheels take you up onto the wide side decks.

On deck, much of the foredeck is trampoline to keep weight and potential sources of slamming well aft. The anchor mounts to a bow roller next to the forestay with the chain led aft to the vast nacelle lockers ahead of the saloon windows via a moulded channel, which keeps the chain flush underfoot. Most owners will opt for the second 300-litre water tank in this locker, as there’s easily space for it and crew will be happier with less strict water rationing.

All accommodation hatches are flush in the deck, and in each bow is a cavernous fo’c’sle locker for extra kit and sails. There’s an option for these lockers to be made into extra berths if you want capacity for 12 on board.

The Excess 11’s sociable cockpit

Living arrangements on board the Excess 11 are very practical, especially for a crew of six in the three-cabin layout most owners opt for. We found crew congregate at the back of the cockpit, where there are six seats across the stern, as well as the bench seat to port and an L-shaped seat around the cockpit table, giving plenty of space to relax.

The low boom means packing the sail can be done at waist height from the canopy without any additional climbing, so many owners opt for the hard-top cockpit canopy so that it can be walked on, as well as a place to mount solar panels. A folding canvas ‘targa’ top is also an option, however, if you want to let more light in.

Walk forwards through the sliding doors and you find yourself in a large open space around the saloon table, surrounded by an L-shaped settee against the forward bulkhead, with a couple of stools for extra seating. At the starboard end there is a nav station, though in reality navigation will be done on deck.

Against the aft and outboard sides to starboard is the L-shaped galley, with a fixed oven and two-burner gas hob, front-opening fridge, and a few lockers. To port of the entrance are another set of large lockers, ideal for stowing lifejackets and other sailing kit, or more food, and there’s also stowage under the saloon seats. It isn’t the world’s largest galley, but I had to keep on reminding myself this boat is just 37ft. It’s more than enough for a cruise of a week or two, or longer for a couple.

It’s down in the hulls that you really see the merit of the hulls’ volume. A marked flare above the waterline maximises space without adding drag, and the resulting chines keep spray down. Clever contours in the topsides also reduce the visual impact of big slab sides, while adding strength and volume.

To port, there are double cabins fore and aft, both with more-or-less square berths and a good-sized heads with separate shower compartment between them. Each enjoys a large hull window with opening port and a deckhead opening hatch, plus a couple of lockers and under-bed stowage spaces.

The starboard hull is the real selling point, however. How many 37-footers can offer almost the whole length for a single cabin? The owner’s ‘suite’ can be shut off from the rest of the boat with a sliding door across the stairs. There’s a locker and desk/dressing table at the bottom of the three steps, and a huge double berth aft, while the forward end is occupied by a big bathroom – nothing like the cramped heads you and I know – with a separate shower compartment, and more lockers.

The Excess 11 is built for resilience

In terms of maintenance, there’s very little you’ll need access to, other than the heads seacocks in the main hulls. Most of the systems are congregated in the large engine bays just aft of the wheels, accessed via deck panels that helpfully hinge aft, so you can access them without having to perch on the bathing platform.

On the whole, access is good, though the engines are mounted the ‘right way’ round with the sail drives aft, but this means that the alternator, impeller and water strainer are all tucked right forwards with no way of tackling them head on. The yard explained that if the engines were mounted the other way round, with the saildrives closer to the rudders, it would have made both rudder and propeller less efficient, though they acknowledged that it was something of a trade-off.

The other possible issue was that the Dyneema steering cables I so liked at the helm run immediately above the engine. While HMPE rope has a melting point of 150ºC, its maximum operating temperature, according to Southern Ropes, is 70ºC, where some engines will run at over 80ºC in normal operation.

In the event of an engine fire, you could well lose the steering cable, though the opposite wheel should continue to give you steerage with both rudders via the tie bar, or failing that, the emergency tiller. Other than this, I was impressed with the finish of the boat, which seemed to be of a good standard and with no obvious rough edges.

Structurally, the Excess 11 has been designed to be pretty bombproof. A cat doesn’t need ballast, so all of the weight can go into structural integrity. The keels are designed with extra GRP reinforced ‘shoes’ and for vertical load bearing so the boat can sit comfortably on the keels. These are moulded as part of the hull, filled with foam and capped with laminate, before the whole structure is vacuum-infused with resin.

There are no keel bolts to worry about, but they are designed so that if the keels suffered a large side impact, the keel would fail without damage to the watertight integrity of the hull, acting as a fuse, allowing the boat to sail on and seek repair, which seems eminently sensible to me.

Excess 11 specifications:

LOA: 11.42m / 37ft 6in
Hull length: 11.33m / 27ft 2in
Beam: 6.59m / 21ft 7in
Draught: 1.15m / 21ft 7in
Displacement: 9,000kg /19, 845 lb
Sail area: 77m2 / 829 sq ft (Pulse line 82m2 / 882 sq ft)
Disp/length: 173
SA/D Ratio: 18
Engine: 2 x 29hp Yanmar
Transmission: Saildrive
Water: 300L / 79gal (+300L optional)
Fuel: 400L / 103gal
Berths: 6-12
RCD Category: A8
Designer: VPLP
Builder: Beneteau
UK Agent: sea-ventures.co.uk

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