POGO CATS: TS42 AND TS5

They have nothing to do with the shipyard that makes Pogo, but they are to catamarans what Pogo are to monohulls. You get my drift? Meaning light, very fast and designed to offer maximum performance at the lowest cost while offering a simple but efficient cruising interior.

I made a post about the TS 42 when it arrived to the market 4 years ago, at the time they thought that a fast 42ft cat, much faster and less expensive than Outremer or Catana, would have a market, a bit like Pogo has regarding  performance boats.

Well, to my disappointment and certainly to theirs, it was not the case. Very few boats were made but one of them become famous, used for extensive racing making almost all the big classics, on the two sides of the Atlantic, with very good results and I have to say, a bit to my surprise it never capsized and that says very well about the crew quality because a very light 42ft catamaran sailed near the limits  is a tricky machine and for cruising it should be sailed very conservatively and even so it would be a very fast sailboat.

Now the builder, Marsuadon composites, more known as a racing boat shipyard, has also the TS 5, a big brother, a 50ft cat that I think is going to be more successful than the TS 42. The larger boat offers a much bigger stability and that makes it a less radical sailboat, more adapted to fast cruising.

I like a lot the design of both boats, by Cristophe Barreau, a specialist in cats, the designer of the several Outremer and Catana. He has a different approach on this design that is more performance oriented not only in what regards windage but in other parameters that are crucial for performance.

If we compare it with the Outremer 45 (same designer) we can see that the TS42 even if smaller (13.06 - 13.77) has more beam (7.39 - 7.1) and beam is fundamental for stability and sail power on a cat.

The difference in weight is just huge, the Outremer 45 displaces 8.7T and the TS42 5.8T, but it is not reflected on the sail area: 110m2   for the Outremer, 106nm2  for the TS 42. This means that the TS42 while being much lighter and having a not very different sail area is much more aggressive and faster. Think of Pogo in what regards monohulls.

Continuing to use the Outremer 45 as comparison, now with the larger TS5, we can see that it is much bigger (15.24 - 13.77), much beamier (8.6 - 7.1) that it has much more sail area (148m2 - 106m2) but less weight, displacing less 100kg (8.6T - 8.7T).

Got the picture? these boats are rockets, nothing to do with the performance of Outremer or Catana and the interiors are not similar, kind of Pogo like interiors, light, functional but nothing with the luxury (and weight) of Outremer or Catana interiors.

TS42

To get an idea about the comparative performance with other cats, namely Catana or Outremer, have a look at the post about this year ARC. Both, a TS42 and a TS5 made the ARC, the TS5 was the first boat to arrive beating a VOR 65 and the TS42 was the second cat to arrive beating all the bigger Outremer and Catana. The one that  arrived closer but at a considerable distance was a new Outremer 5X  (60ft).

 https://interestingsailboats.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-huge-250-sailboats-transat-2019-arc.html

TS 42

Regarding price, think about Pogo again, fast performance boats are necessarily expensive because they have to be light and strong and that does not come cheap, but in this case they offer the best performance for the price and are as inexpensive as they can be. They are not carbon boats but infusion sandwich cored boats (PVC) built as race boats.

Of course the dilema of the catamarans is that they are length for length much more expensive than monohulls and while the TS42 at 418 000€, without VAT, is less expensive than the Pogo 594 000 the TS5 costs just a bit more, 649 000€, a  price that I find amazing, just a bit more expensive than the Outremer 45 and much less than the Outremer 51.

As you know all these prices are standard without equipment, transport or taxes, so a normally equipped boat is considerably more expensive. If  I someday win the lottery the TS5 will be on the short list of boats I would like to have. It is not only the out of this world performance it is a beautiful boat, a thing that I cannot say about most cats.

If you want to try one of these rockets you can find some of them for charter. It will be  a different experience for sure one that can change the way you see cats or sailing 😎