hh catamarans president

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2024 Boat of the Year: HH44

• By Dave Reed
• December 18, 2023

On a cool late-October morning in Annapolis, Maryland, Sailing World ’s Boat of the Year judges stepped on board the gleaming red HH44 built by the Hudson Yacht Group in China. With them for the test sail was HH Catamarans president Seth Hynes and commissioning skipper Chris Bailet, who had tuned the rig and bent on the boat’s Dacron delivery sails. (The race sails were delayed in shipping.) It was their first time sailing the boat too, and like the judges, they were eager to see what it could do.

As the crew slipped dock lines and motored away in silence, the boat’s twin 10-kilowatt electric engines propelled the sleek catamaran through the mooring field in silence. If not for the sound of water gurgling from the transoms and the apparent wind blowing across the foredeck, the judges could barely tell they were underway.

The mainsail was then carefully hoisted inside the lazy jacks, and the halyard held firm with an innovative Karver KJ cone (a conical rope-holding device that acts like a restricter). They bore away and unfurled the non-overlapping jib, which snapped full, and the boat immediately accelerated. 

“Once we got going, it was 5, 6, 7 knots and then—boom—we’re right up to 10,” Stewart says. And with that they were laying tracks all over the Chesapeake Bay, making good pace on all points of sail, even without a reaching sail to deploy. (That too was stuck in transit.)

After two hours of straight-­lining, tacking, jibing, and enjoying the comforts of the interior in a 10- to 15-knot southerly and sharp Chesapeake chop, I extracted the judges from the boat and asked, “So?”

“Boat of the Year,” was veteran Boat of the Year judge Chuck Allen’s immediate response. “That thing is wicked.”

Greg Stewart and Mike Ingham confirmed with nods of approval and big grins. There was no need to debate any further: The HH44 had earned the first award of what will be more to come. This $2 million crossover catamaran is the performance sailor’s retirement race boat. [Editor’s note: The judges’ estimated price was based on an expected racing inventory and associated hardware, but according to HH Catamarans, the new 2024 pricing is as follows: The HH44-OC will start at $995K and is approximately $1.3m fully optioned with EcoDrive and sails). The HH44-SC will start at $1.45m and be approximately $1.6 million fully optioned with EcoDrive and sails.]

With a stated 37 of these 44-footers on order as of late October and a waiting list of three-plus years, HH44s will someday be scattered about in cruising grounds around the world, says Hynes. But it’s only a matter of time—and it will be sooner than later—before owners gather and give the racing thing a go.  

The HH44 is the smallest of the builder’s new lineage of hybrid-powered performance catamarans (there is a 52-footer in the works), so it is positioned as an entry point into big-cat sailing. This model does not require a professional captain or crew because simplicity and owner-operator considerations are prevalent throughout the boat, which is designed by young naval architect James Hakes, son of Paul Hakes, one of the company founders. Chinese entrepreneur Hudson Wang is the other “H” of HH Catamarans.

“It had a great groove upwind. The self-tacking jib was really easy to deal with, and for the mainsail it was just a few feet of ease on the mainsheet, adjust the powered traveler up to center, trim on and go.”

“James brought the hybrid idea with him, and Hudson was willing to take a risk and look at doing something kind of game-changing in the industry with our parallel-­hybrid approach,” Hynes says. Morrelli & Melvin was intimately involved in every performance aspect of the boat, from the appendages to the final hull profile.

“It’s a diesel engine with a shaft drive, and then independent of that is an electric motor with a belt to the shaft, so they’re really independent of each other,” Hynes explains.  

HH isn’t the first or only builder to use the system from Hybrid Marine, but Hake’s approach to the boat overall is inextricably linked to maximizing solar coverage, which means a clean roof and placing the helm stations down in the cockpit. To address the known challenges of cockpit steering in such catamarans, the steering wheels pivot inboard and outboard to allow for better forward visibility and communication with anyone on the foredeck dealing with sails, anchors or dock lines.

Placing the steering stations in the cockpit eliminates the tiered wedding-cake look of most big catamarans these days. More importantly, doing so allows them to lower the sail plan. “That allows for more sail area and less stress on the standing rigging,” Stewart says. “Plus, it looks so much better.”

There are 4,432 watts worth of solar panels piled onto the coach roof, which Hynes says has plenty of juice to get by off the grid, even in low-light conditions. “At full battery capacity, you can run the boat at full throttle using the two 10-kilowatt electric motors and get 7 knots of boatspeed for approximately two hours,” he says. “In light air, you can even keep your leeward electric motor running to build yourself some apparent wind. That’s what’s great about this system: You can sail quietly when no one else can sail at all.”

The port helm station is where a lot of the boathandling happens; there are powered halyard winches and a meticulous array of labeled jammers. Tails disappear into a deep trough forward of the pedestal. The wheels are sized just right, Stewart says. “Initially, I was steering from the weather wheel and I could see fine, and when I went to the leeward wheel, I could easily see the telltales. It had a great feel to the helm—light and responsive with no slop or tightness.”

In Allen’s sailing assessment of the HH44: “It had a great groove upwind. The self-tacking jib was really easy to deal with, and for the mainsail it was just a few feet of ease on the mainsheet, adjust the powered traveler up to center, trim on and go. There is some choreography to learn with the steering wheel, though. You have to move the wheel inboard to get better access to the sail and daggerboard controls during the tack. But once you’re done, you pop the wheel right back out to the outboard position. We didn’t have a screecher to really light it up downwind, but even with the Dacron jib and main, the boat took off. I was really impressed.”

One wish for Stewart would be a sliver of a coach roof window for quick sail-trim checks, but he understood the priority of using every inch of solar-panel coverage.

Not having a sail-trim window wasn’t an issue for Ingham, however. “Most of the time, you’ll trim it to your best guess, take a step outboard and up the stairs right next to the wheel, and check yourself on the trim. It’s all push buttons anyway, so you’re not having to reload a winch or anything like that every time you make an adjustment.”

Even as the morning’s fresh breeze abated, the boat continued to perform beyond expectations, Stewart says. “As we got down to 5 knots of wind, the boat was still quick through the tacks. We didn’t have to back the jib at all, and it sailed at good angles upwind. I was impressed with how well it tacked, and how well it tracked with only one daggerboard down.”

Stewart, a naval architect himself, also appreciated the boat’s modern styling and “sexy-looking profile,” especially the uncluttered interior. “It’s a nice departure from other similar-­size catamarans,” he says. “I like the styling—it caught my eye the very first time I saw the rendering. The transom angle and the reverse bow give it nice aesthetics and the buoyancy you need. The curved boards worked well and are integrated nicely on with the boat. Overall, it’s a great-looking package, and it would be a lot of fun to do some races on.”

“We will definitely end up racing in the Caribbean and doing some fun events for owners,” Bailet says. “The cool thing about this boat is you can take a smaller crew of friends and race competitively, and it isn’t going to cost you $50,000 in paid crew and housing. You can race this boat with three or four people, no problem. Doublehandling is pretty easy too, but if you really wanted to go banging around the buoys, with this boat it would be easy.”

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Seth Hynes | president, HH Catamarans

2024-02-14T16:11:00+00:00

Last November HH Catamarans picked up the coveted Breakthrough Launch of the Year award for its new HH44 at the 2023 Boat Builder Awards organised jointly by  IBI  and METSTRADE and held in association with Raymarine. We talked to company president Seth Hynes about the impact of the award and how the HH44 has transformed its business.

With an MBA from Oxford, Seth Hynes is also an experienced cruiser, known best for his popular YouTube channel (The Sailing Family). There he documented five years of full-time cruising on various catamarans, twice crossing the Pacific. Seth has built a career around the marketing and sale of luxury goods, which included partnering with Oracle Team USA in the America’s Cup.

The HH44 was praised by the BBA judges for creating a new niche in the crowded cat market. What makes it special?

We were very excited about the award, and frankly, appreciative that others were seeing what we see as the way forward, especially for cruising catamarans. We are ahead of the curve being early adopters of this new technology.

The HH44 is a hybrid electric propulsion boat. There are lots of people that have built hybrid electric boats before – what’s different about the HH44 is that it was conceived from the ground up. Most builders have taken existing designs and tried to ditch the diesel engine and put in a hybrid – but it doesn’t really work that way. For instance, you need all the solar that you can fit on the coach roof. If you have a bimini, or deck gear and lines over the roof you cannot fit enough solar panels. Engine placement is critical too. This system needs a shaft drive – you can’t just swap out a traditional diesel with saildrive – you need to design the boat with the engines a little bit more forward amidships – so you can have a shaft drive with hydro-regeneration system. To us it makes so much sense and we think inevitably the industry will move in this direction.

What’s the impact been like with consumers?

The HH44 is the first in our second generation of boats. Our first 66 was a breakthrough boat and we launched the 55, and then the 50 – they were all Boat of the Year boats and very interesting, but they had more appeal to a specialised, limited market – the price points were high, the production runs were low, it was a very customised operation. The HH44, however, has proved a tipping point for the brand and the company. We’ve had 37 customers buy the boat just based on renders alone. We’ve been recognised by the BBA and nominated for five or six Boat of the Years with two more pending – so a lot of people are recognising that this is the way forward. We’re going to adopt this concept to our whole line moving forward. Our new 52 follows the 44 concept and launches at Annapolis in October.

How has production been impacted by the glut of orders?

Before the H44 we only had one production facility in Xiamen, China. We’ve outgrown that facility now and we’ve seen our lead times extend out to three years. There’s been so much demand for the boat that we’ve now added a second facility – wholly operated by HH – in the Philippines. We’re moving all the 44 and 52 production there. Xiamen will be for the 50, 55 and our larger boats. That will bring our production time to within 2 years. It takes us about 20 months to build the boat because of the amount of labour hours we put into them. It’s a very high-quality build.

How do you define the typical HH customer?

They have typically done quite well and looking to retire. They feel they have one life to live and want to spend the next 5-10 years spending part or full time on a boat. The living space a cat supplies is very appealing, especially with a carbon epoxy boat that we are building. It means you can bring the weight down but still have the living space. You get the best of both worlds – a luxury apartment on the water but one that sails well. It’s a great combination. That’s our sweetspot – buyers who want comfort but also enjoy sailing.

We also get complete novices who are avoiding the mistake that I made when I bought my first cruising cat. A lot of people go to boat shows and they go on what we call ‘condomarans’ and it’s very appealing – the house on the water – but they’re not out on the water, seeing the boat sail, understanding why construction techniques and materials matter, why weight matters, while naval architecture and the design of the hull matters, and they very quickly realise that maybe they have made a mistake.

We train novice customers. We have several people who had never sailed before and have now sailed half-way around the world. That is exciting for us. 

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New distributor, new president and new designs for hh catamarans.

Sydney, Australia – 8 February 2021

HH Catamarans has named Multihull Central as the exclusive distributor for Australia and New Zealand as the up and coming brand of high performance catamarans releasing some innovative new designs and ramps up production for their new44 and 50foot models.

This comes as HH Catamarans also recruits Seth Hynes as President to help steer the company into its next stage of growth. Seth who has a marketing background in luxury goods, is well known from his popular YouTube channel ‘The Sailing Family’ which documented his family’s journey halfway around the world on a51 foot performance catamaran “Archer”.

“We chose Multihull Central to be our distributors due to their experience and knowledge of the performance catamaran segment of the industry,” comments Seth.

Multihull Central who distributes Seawind, Longreach, Outremer, Garcia and Corsair deliver dozens of new boats each year to customers in the Australasia region providing a one stop shop for performance cruisers, with accredited training, charters, delivery services and after sales support.

“We are thrilled to be involved with this super innovative company and the style of boats they are building,” comments Brent Vaughan, Managing Director of Multihull Central.

“Their commitment to performance, innovation, quality and environmental technology is impressive and a sign of the future of our industry.”

As the producer of some of the finest catamarans in the world, HH Catamarans is lead by CEO Paul Hakes, a highly respected New Zealand boat builder with a history building high end racing yachts from America’s Cup yachts to ocean racing cat Play station.

“At HH Catamarans our goal is to build the ultimate performance cruising catamaran with no compromises, ”explains Paul, “Using Carbon fibre construction, we can achieve top levels of performance while still providing a level of luxury simply not found on other boats in the market.

Formed in 2012 when Hakes joined forces with Hudson Yachts, the brand’s most impressive designs include a range from 44 feet to 88 feet including the HH66, a super high performance all carbon fibre build that went onto win the SAIL Magazine’s Boat of the Year and Best Multihull of the Year in 2018.

But the new 44 and 50 foot models are now also available in the Ocean Cruiser series providing a more cruising oriented package that is less technical to sail and more affordable than the carbon racing oriented HH versions, but with the same performance hull and DNA.

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How This Pioneering New Catamaran Builder Is Creating the ‘Ferrari of Sailing Cats’

Hh catamarans is building sleek, nimble and fast vessels., michael verdon, michael verdon's most recent stories.

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Multimillion-dollar sailing cats are a small but fiercely contested niche, mostly dominated by European brands. So it’s worth paying attention when an eight-year-old builder from China is considered a legitimate challenger to pedigreed French names such as Privilege and Lagoon .

HH Catamarans , with a line ranging from fast, wave-jumping 50-foot cruisers to 88-foot ocean yachts, has gained a loyal following in the US and Europe, in part because COO Paul Hakes—he’s one of the H’s in “HH”—is obsessed with mating upscale interiors to featherweight racing hulls.

Hakes assembled what he calls a “mini-UN” of expat experts at HH’s production headquarters in Xiamen, China. Naval architecture is done by the California-based firm Morelli & Melvin . The yachts are built by local labor: With an average of 40,000 man-hours per cat, the labor savings add up significantly, allowing HH to focus on superior performance through exotic materials and expensive carbon-fiber weaves. “We’re determined to make HH the Ferrari of sailing cats,” Hakes says.

HH Catamarans

Befitting that famed Italian marque, the HH55 and HH66 are sleek, nimble and beautiful vessels, though the HH88, with its exponentially larger interior and oceangoing hull, is more
 like a Mercedes-AMG G-Wagen. But to stick to automotive analogies, it’s worth mentioning that HH’s upstart nature makes it more like Lamborghini , founded to challenge Enzo Ferrari’s already successful brand—and we all know how that turned out.

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Nominee Spotlight: HH Catamarans HH44

• By Andrew Parkinson
• October 4, 2023

Over the past several years, Jason and Nikki Wynn have become an internet sensation of sorts, documenting their ‘round the world cruising endeavors on their sailing YouTube channel “Gone with the Wynns,” which has grown to over a half a million subscribers, becoming the third most popular (and growing) sailing channel on YouTube today. Beginning this fall, they’ll be broadcasting their adventures from the decks of a sweet new ride—the eco-conscious and carbon-reinforced HH44 by HH Catamarans.

Poised to appeal to early tech adopters, world cruisers and serious sailors alike, the HH44 is a disruptive new entry in the catamaran market, and it’s ready to make waves as a strong 2024 Boat of the Year contender at its US premiere in Annapolis.

This new model from HH Catamarans is available in two versions: OC (Ocean Cruising) and SC (Sports Cruising). The HH44-OC is a fast, comfortable, family-friendly cruiser that skews toward ease of operation for bluewater cruising. It shares the same hull and interior fit and finish quality as the sportier HH44-SC but features an aluminum mast, e-glass longeron, white gelcoat finish and mini-keels as standard instead of daggerboards. The HH44-SC integrates the very latest in race boat technology but remains equally as comfortable as a family cruiser. This is a “no-compromise-boat” with C-shaped carbon daggerboards, a carbon rig, a painted hull finish, emissions-free motoring, cutting-edge solar integration and an EcoDrive as standard equipment.

Designed for hybrid propulsion and solar power, the HH44 was conceived from the ground up to work with a parallel electric/diesel hybrid, a 4,232 watt solar array on the cabin top and hydro-regeneration while sailing. HH’s EcoDrive provides all the benefits of an electric boat: silent fume-free motoring at 7.5kts, instant torque for maneuvering, and hydro-regeneration while sailing, while also providing the reliability of trusty diesel engines as a backup. For technology shy owners, traditional standalone diesel engines with shaft drives are also offered.

The 4,232 watts of custom integrated solar come standard, as does an electric parallel hybrid with shaft drives, folding transoms, dual swing helm stations, forward opening salon windows, line tunnels, EVA foam decking and carbon fiber design detailing throughout.

Steer the boat from the outboard position with the wind in your hair and increased visibility of your sail plan. A fold-down helm seat stows out of the way or easily deploys when needed. Or, rotate the helm(s) inboard and steer from the protection of the three-seat sofa on the aft beam.

An angular cabin allows the two large, forward-facing windows to open fully from inside the 187 square-foot salon. Ceiling height is over 6’6” throughout. Comfort underfoot has been enhanced with non-skid EVA foam decking as standard.

Carbon and epoxy construction creates the strongest yacht possible without adding weight. All lines run under the deck to create an uncluttered walkway. Stanchions are 900mm tall for safety underway, and a continuous, unbroken toe rail runs the length of the deck with all hull and deck-joints fused and hidden.

An emphasis on craftsmanship and fit-and-finish is evident throughout, with foam core furniture and meticulous joinery, top of the line fixtures and Bosch electric appliances standard. Cabinet locks are cleverly hidden in the modern design and an optional pocket TV can deploy and spin to face the viewer. Optional RGB rope lighting throughout can be dimmed or change colors depending on your vision needs while night sailing or for setting the mood at anchor.

HH Catamarans HH44 Specifications

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