Hull Design and Naval Architecture
The lines of the 5X were drawn by VPLP, the architects Multihulls World describes as the fastest office on the water. That provenance matters: VPLP built their reputation on high-performance multihull programs, and the brief they received from Outremer was unambiguous. The result is a hull that observers immediately recognized as a beautiful object — elegant in form and built for speed. At a time when most production catamarans in the sixty-foot range were converting their floor area into audacious accommodation, the 5X's VPLP pedigree signaled a different set of priorities from the waterline up.
The Performance Cruising Proposition
The multihulls that were seen as crazy machines in the eighties met a generation that liked two-figure speeds and stable platforms as their daily fare. The 5X was Outremer's production answer to that shift — not an exceptional one-off prototype like the Magic Cat, and not restricted to a confidential family the way Gunboat had been, but a series-built catamaran available to buyers who wanted the performance equation taken seriously at this length.
The Marketing Niche
Outremer openly acknowledged that positioning the 5X this way was a risky marketing move. The majority of buyers in the sixty-foot catamaran segment expected the platform's wide beam and generous bridgedeck to be converted into audacious accommodation, and the commercial success of that formula had made it nearly the only formula. Building instead around speed meant deliberately trading away volume that competitors would have filled with cabins and lounges. That the builder pursued the niche anyway — and did so with a production boat rather than a one-off — was the central editorial observation that Multihulls World led with when the 5X first appeared.
The Verdict
The Outremer 5X occupies a rare position in the production catamaran world: a sixty-foot cruising platform designed from the keel up by one of offshore sailing's most accomplished naval architecture firms, with performance rather than accommodation as the organizing principle. It was described at launch as a challenge to the entire multihull community, and the pedigree behind that claim is real.
Pros
- VPLP naval architecture brings a genuine high-performance heritage to a production hull
- "Fast first" philosophy applied consistently at the design stage, not retrofitted
- Positions the owner in a segment where performance expectations are high and most competitors are shaped primarily by accommodation priorities
Cons
- The performance-versus-space trade-off is real; buyers expecting resort-style interiors at this length will find the brief was written against them
- As Outremer acknowledged, the niche is commercially risky
