Design and Construction
The 43 is defined by restraint. At 3.8 tonnes she is strikingly light, paired with ultra-slim hulls and deep daggerboards that give her the profile of a racing-derived cruiser more than a floating apartment. The original philosophy was, in the reviewer’s words, a spartan catamaran which is simple, light and safe, and the 43 wore that identity without compromise — radical and unapologetic in a market drifting toward creature comfort. Her useful load carrying capacity boiled down to 1,700 kg, a figure that underscores how little was sacrificed to ballast and furnishing in the name of sailing performance. The very first Outremer 40 models carried a very small coachroof, a detail that marks the early iteration of this minimalist deck architecture.
History and Lineage
The Outremer 40 opened the story in 1985, and the 43 followed as the evolved but still austere sister. Multihulls World notes the 43 was built until 2000, at which point it gave up its place to the already more civilized 42. That successor was a telling pivot: the 43’s departure closed the chapter on Danson’s uncompromising original philosophy. By contrast, the later Outremer 45 — quite a bit bigger and more liveable at 6.1 tonnes against the 43’s 3.8 — was judged to sit in a different category entirely, confirming the 43 as the last of a deliberately lean breed.
Rig and Handling
What the 43 lacks in domestic volume she returns in motion. The reviewer called her an ocean cruising boat that sails like a dream, a verdict rooted in those slim hulls and deep boards rather than any added machinery. Light weight and the daggerboard configuration let her track and point in a way the heavier later models traded away for livability. This is a multihull that rewards the sailor who values passage speed and sea-kindly behavior over enclosed space.
Accommodations
There is little to describe, and that is the point. The 43 is a spartan catamaran by design, simple and safe rather than appointed. Where the 45 expanded into a more liveable platform, the 43 held to a minimal interior consistent with her 1,700 kg payload and 3.8-tonne displacement. Buyers of the era understood they were acquiring a thoroughbred cruiser, not a coastal condominium.
The Verdict
The Outremer 40/43 is the purist’s Outremer: the last of the original line, light, radical, and built to sail oceans well. She is not for those who want a larger, more civilized deck saloon or a heavy payload margin, but for a sailor seeking the Danson ideal in its final form, she remains a benchmark.
Pros
- Final representative of the original Outremer spartan, light, safe philosophy
- Exceptionally light at 3.8 tonnes with slim hulls and deep daggerboards
- Reviewed as an ocean cruiser that sails like a dream
Cons
- Spartan accommodations with only 1,700 kg useful load capacity
- Superseded in 2000 by the more civilized 42; not as liveable as the later 45