CONTEST 49/50CS, A NEW YACHT FROM A GREAT BRAND

A new Contest is always good news, a sign that the biggest Dutch shipyard is well and that the Dutch continue making great quality cruising boats. The first yachts, several centuries ago, were Dutch, (as well as the origin of the word Yacht) and the Dutch always had a big tradition in what regards builders and yacht designers.

49CS

But in the last decades many Dutch brands disappeared and even the Contest, once designed by a Dutch designer, are now designed by Judel & Vrolijk, a German cabinet (even if Rolf Vrolijk was born in Nederland).

This design comes in the same line as the 42CS, a good sailing boat with a very high-quality cruising interior, but I don't like this design as much as the one of the 42CS, even if I understand what makes Contest propose a design with these characteristics:  a very beamy boat, with a huge freeboard, huge interior volume and very high interior standing height.

50CS

In fact, it is ridiculous talking about standing height because those heights have nothing to do with standing, and are more typical of a house than a boat, even if I miss the point of having a Yacht interior that looks like an apartment interior, especially in what regards huge standing heights.

The reason why they seem to have opted for a lower B/D than the one in the other Contest is less understandable.  They tried to hide that with a published stability curve that, unlike all the others for the other yachts, has an interval between 90º and 135º (instead of 100º to 150º) to try to make it less evident that the AVS is lower than on the other Contest, that generally have it around 125º.

50CS

The 49/50CS AVS seems to be a bit less than 120º. A smaller AVS seems to be today a tendency in sailboat yachts over 45ft, much due to RCD that allows smaller AVS on a bigger yacht. High-quality brands resisted that, but they are now doing the same to lower costs. The Halberg Rassy 50 has an AVS of about 115º and the Amel 50 does not disclose it, but it should be much less than that.

49CS

Contest announced the 49CS as a new yacht, but it is basically the 50CS with a different interior layout and a slightly different cockpit arrangement. The 50CS offers a huge aft cabin, typical in center cockpits (even if this boat is a hybrid), while the 49CS offers two smaller aft cabins and a dinghy garage.

There is also a small aesthetical difference on the transom inclination, that results in the 50ft being slightly longer, but having the same deck length and LWL as the 49. The extra cms don't result in any significant useful interior space gain.

Above, the 50CS, below, the 49CS

I find the 49CS layout flawed by the lack of storage under the cockpit and by the lack of space for technical equipment (generator, water-maker, and so on). There is a big space for a dinghy garage but that space is necessarily a semi-wet compartment, not suitable for this type of equipment, and besides, if you have a dinghy there you will have space for little else.

This can be solved by having a single aft cabin on the 49CS, that can be bigger than any of the two, and by reserving the rest of the space, now occupied by the other cabin, for technical equipment.

On the cockpit, both boats have a similar solution with a deep protected central cockpit, separated from the helming station by two steps. This gives an unusually high helming position, offering little protection, and worst, very low uncomfortable side seats for helming the boat. The seats behind the wheels on the 50CS are also low and uncomfortable.

I don’t see any need of helming central seats on a boat that will be used almost all the time in auto-pilot, but I don’t like the low uncomfortable lateral seats, that are more useful than the central ones, and, without those, it is created a very nice aft deck space, very well suited for deck chairs and relaxation near the swimming platform. 

The yacht is built with the traditional Contest high quality, with a sandwich hull with monolithic, where it offers an advantage. They use vinylester resins on all laminates and an infusion vacuum process. The structural bulkheads are in sandwich composite, stratified to the hull and deck, and they use carbon fibers to reinforce the boat structure.

From the top: 50CS, 49CS, Swan 48,
 Swan 50 Club Racer, TP 52

Contest is one of the few traditional high-quality brands that have fully accompanied technical building yacht evolution, and the yachts are built with the best techniques available. If we compare with Hallberg-Rassy we will see that while HR still uses hand laminate while Contest uses vacuum infusion (and they started using it more than 20 years ago!).

Contest uses vinylster for all lamination, HR only on the outer layers, Contest uses sandwich structural bulkheads, HR does not say, and probably they are made of high-quality plywood, Contest uses Carbon for structural reinforcement, HR doesn't.

The only thing I prefer about the HR building is the PVC core. Contest does not say, on this, and other yachts, what is used as a core, but I suppose it is balsa, as it was before. Balsa has very good mechanical properties but it is prone to rot, if there is a water intrusion on the core, and in the last years almost all quality builders changed balsa for high-quality polyester foam.

Above 50CS, below 49CS

But it is also true that many boats still use balsa as core without problems, and that Contest has a very advanced building system: unlike in most yachts, the infusion system is a single shot one, including the outer layer, the core, and the inside layer. That allows for a more integral and better waterproof sandwich, not to mention the use of vinylester (a water-proof resin) everywhere.

Regarding interior quality, it is as good, or better, as the one on HR, but with a different style.

 Let’s look at what many here want to know, how about sailing performance?

Well, this is one of those very beamy boats with high freeboards and, from what I saw in the Hanse 460 comments, some think that does not have a negative impact on the sail performance, but it has.

Above HR 50, Below Amel 50

Just look at the shape (beam/length) of a Transpac 52, which was initially drawn for sailing mostly downwind (and that was considered beamy) and that proved to be a very fast racer, in almost all conditions. Look at the beam/length of a Swam 50, which has proven to be very fast (in real-time) while racing, and compare it with the B/L of the swan 48, which is a compromise between interior space and performance.

The Contest 49CS, the Halberg Rassy 50, and the Amel 50, are also a compromise between interior space and performance, but a much BIGGER compromise.

The Contest 49/50CS is not the only fat boat among these types of high-quality cruisers. Unfortunately, it seems to be a strong tendency. Amel and Halberg Rassy went for the same type of very beamy hulls with a high, or very high freeboard, to have the biggest possible interior. I am not saying that those sailboats sail badly, they are all designed by very competent NAs, but they have their sailing potential limited by the hull choice, especially in regards to light wind sailing and upwind sailing.

Halberg Rassy 44

These three yachts have similar hull lengths, being the longest the Amel (15.51m), and the smallest the C49CS (15.20). The HR and the Contest have not very different beams ( 4.90 - 5.00m), while the Amel 50, is narrower,  4.79m.

They have similar displacements, 21500kg for the Contest, 21000 for the HR, 20555 for the Amel, and they have similar SA/D, respectively 17.5, 17.6 and 17.1, offering the HR a sail maximized version with a substantial bigger 20 SA/D.

Amel 50

Apparently,  Amel, due to a smaller beam, should sail better upwind and in light wind (considering the HR with similar SA/D), but it is handicapped by the smallest B/D of them all (by far) 26%, and that with the shortest keel and the less beamy hull. 

The HR with a 35% B/D  (or the Contest) will be able to get much more power from heeling and will be more stiff, due to a bigger hull form stability.

Swan 48

With medium to stronger winds, the HR and the Contest, will sail better upwind than the Amel, and also better downwind with strong winds, while with light winds the Amel should be faster, but not faster than the HR version with a bigger SA/D. The Contest has also the stiffness that allows it to carry more sail area, but a version with maximized sail area is not announced.

On the Contest, sadly, they don’t give the ballast, but we can see on the published stability curve, that the AVS is a bit less than 120º, while the HR one is about 115º. Having both yachts similar keels, with similar drafts, the Contest B/D should not be less than the one on the HR.

Contest 49/50CS

If the HR with a 35% B/D has a 115º AVS we can only guess what would be the AVS on the Amel 50, which has much less draft and a much lower 26% B/D. Probably it would not be as low as we can imagine, because the very high freeboard and the high superstructure will contribute to increasing the AVS, but will not increase the RM at 80/90º, which will be much lower than on the HR or Contest. And the RM at big heel angles is as important or more than the AVS, in what regards to safety stability.

Surprisingly, the Contest 49CS at 1.053 million €, seems to cost a bit less than the HR 50 (1.160 million €) and understandably more than the Amel 50 (0.9 million €), all boats at the shipyard without taxes.

Contest 49/50CS

Of course, boat prices, equipped and with taxes, will be much higher and it is impossible to know the real price, and who will be more or less expensive, without having them equipped the same way because the standard equipment and prices of extras are different.

If you like sailing fast and want a quality luxury cruiser from a prestigious brand, for about the same price, have a Swan 48 instead, I mean, if your wife can live in a yacht with a beautiful high-quality boat-like interior.

Swan 48

https://interestingsailboats.blogspot.com/2019/10/swan-48-perfect-performance-cruiser.html

https://interestingsailboats.blogspot.com/2020/01/swan-48-dusseldorf-2020.html

If she requires a house-like interior, with the biggest possible interior volume and a huge standing height, then you will have to sacrifice sailing potential, and have one of these. I would then choose between the Contest and the Halberg Rassy.

https://interestingsailboats.blogspot.com/2021/03/hallberg-rassy-50-most-beautifull-hr.html