DH550 Catamaran Video

Today I saw a rather nice walk-through video of the DH550 "Cheetah", posted by Wiley Sharp. This boat was custom-built for her owner by Peter Lane in Trinidad, to a gorgeous standard. She has beautiful veneered finishes throughout, unusual for multihulls. Click on the link to watch the video.

The layout of "Cheetah" is a bit different from our standard layout, modified by her architect owner to suit his needs. The normal arrangement is four equal cabins, two in each hull with a large shared heads with shower between the two.

The other big difference between "Cheetah" and the other boats built to the DH550 design is in the powering. "Cheetah" has a pair of electric drives powered by large battery banks charged by solar panels backed up by a diesel generator. Each of the other boats has a pair of 50hp diesel motors.

DH550 "Cheetah" on launch day.

"Cheetah" and most of the other boats have daggerboards but the design includes a cruising keel option, as fitted to "Friends Forever". The drawings also show the option of dual steering, one inside the saloon as used on "Cheetah", and the other in the forward cockpit. The two wheels share a common shaft that passes through the bulkhead that separates the two.

DH550 "Friends Forever" under sail.

Cheetah was built from scratch, using plans only. There is a company in UK, Exocetus Marine, that has developed a very comprehensive CNC kit that includes all plywood components that go into the boat, to speed up construction of amateur and professional projects. Boats are being built in Australia, Germany and South Africa using their kits.

DH550 being built from an Exocetus kit in South Africa.

More recently we have introduced the DH550 Charter, with interior layout more suited to charter service, as well as aft elevated cockpit for helming and all sail handling.

See more info on these and our other designs on our main website or our mobile website.