Windelo 50 Sailboat Review, Specs, and Listings

Design and Construction

The Windelo 50 stands out with sharp hulls, daggerboards, and a powerful rig wrapped in a sleek, sporty profile. Structurally, the hull and deck use basalt and PET foam sandwich rather than traditional fiberglass; the yard turned to volcanic basalt fiber in its woven rovings and to recycled PET as a core, with 45 percent of the catamaran structure in PVC and 55 percent in recycled PET anchor. The builder presents the recycled PET core as carrying half the carbon footprint of virgin PVC foam. Interior furniture is a lighter composite of two-layer FSC plywood over PET foam. A later deck and cabintop revision changed the profile and lengthened the hardtop, adding roughly 3.5 feet of solar space and lifting energy harvest by about 30 percent.

Rig and Handling

This is a fractional sloop carrying a 92-square-meter mainsail and 43-square-meter foresail, with upwind area near 184 square meters and a 161-square-meter gennaker available downwind. Daggerboards help her point, and the 35-inch bridge clearance is meant to minimize pounding to weather. Test sailors found her light, responsive, and efficient in light winds yet reassuring in heavy weather; in 15 knots true with a 2-foot chop she made 9 knots at 60 degrees apparent, held 6.2 knots pinched to 40 degrees under the self-tacking jib, and with a code zero did 10 knots at 110 degrees when the breeze puffed to 17. Owners report a transatlantic ARC passage touching 15 knots of boatspeed. She sails under canvas from just 4 knots of wind.

Accommodations

The open nacelle creates a central living space where galley, cockpit, and helm station flow together, with a watch berth, chart table, and multiple possible layouts. Windelo moved the helms forward into a fully enclosed cockpit with twin wheels about six feet apart, three winches, and line organizers in a center console that also houses the windlass. Skylights over each wheel give sightlines to the mainsail, and the forward cockpit can be buttoned up and separated from the salon by a glass door. The nav station sits to port, galley to starboard, and the owner's suite occupies the port hull with a large forward head, desk, and athwartship aft bed; the starboard hull holds a narrow forward cabin and a double aft. There is no traditional aft cockpit — the salon is the aft living space, joined aft by a narrow terrace and a lifting transom that carries the dinghy davits.

Known Issues

The enclosed helm layout trades aft visibility for weather protection. The bulkheads aft of each wheel are solid, so visibility back to the swim steps is nearly zero without a backup camera, and the bulkhead between the galley and starboard helm fully blocks the view aft. Getting onto the aft deck quickly to handle lines is not easy. One tester noted the anchor chain hanging below the longeron rather than riding in a well above it, an exposed lead path worth knowing on any individual hull.

Refits and Ownership

Early boats accessed the salon from the aft terrace through a garage-style door that lifted to the cabintop like a Bali; Windelo has since adopted traditional glass sliders. The deck revision deepened cockpit seats and extended hardtop solar footprint. The yard plans roughly 10 boats per year and was booking into 2027. Three packages — Adventure, Yachting, and Sport — are offered, the Sport adding a carbon mast and boom.

The Verdict

The Windelo 50 is a thoughtfully engineered catamaran that puts sustainable construction and enclosed forward helm ergonomics ahead of conventional aft-cockpit lounging. She is quick, light-fingered in breeze, and genuinely offshore-minded for shorthanded crews.

Pros

Basalt and recycled-PET structure with low claimed carbon footprint
Enclosed forward cockpit with centralized sail controls and excellent forward sightlines
Strong light-wind performance with daggerboards and self-tacking jib
Electric-hybrid propulsion with substantial lithium bank and walk-on solar

Cons