Welcome to the world of Amel. I'm Toby
Hodges from the Yachting World, we are on board the new Amel 60 gently sailing
off Barcelona and it's a good time to have a look on board and show you why Amel have such a good reputation as thoroughbred bluewater cruisers and take
you safely and very comfortably around the planet on a yacht this size. From the
bow you'll see the chunky bow roller, room for a second anchor if you want,
this owner's chosen a second windlass, the optional electric code further there
just unraveling, extra extra sail, here we have sail locker with the chain
locker in there, watertight bulkhead around that crash box and a second watertight
bulkhead before the accommodation begins, this rope running along here and then up
to here is so you can make sure that this is dogs down shut from the interior. The genoa's being furled away and this here is the further staysail so the
boat comes with staysail and 100% genoa and then you can obviously add what
downwind sails you want but it's a very highly specced yacht as standard so
carbon mast comes with the boat aluminium boom and a big hydraulic package and the in-mast mainsail furler as well it's hydraulic moving aft so tucking track
forward staysail and the inboard tracks just noticed some traditional Amel features so the hardtop coach roof for the single steering station everything
done from in there without having to leave it, high solid handrails bulwark as standard this faux-teak deck, which they've always done is just a gel coat muolded in, so no teak needed, stowage everywhere on this yacht so under midships lockers under these of course lockers and a huge lazarette
under here as well, so you can see the size of this aft deck area as well, an
addition from the very popular 50 is this traveler and it's quite nice that's
just on a flat winder, electric winch so you can control that easily from the
center console position, the move to twin rudders, so this is a Berret-Racoupeau design like its smaller sister, the 50, the move to twin rudders has allowed them to do away with hydraulic steering, so you get a bit more feedback from the wire steering
controls, which comes from the wheel back along here to the top of the rudder
stock here, and we are sailing along and I'm
guessing about six or seven knots of breeze and certainly when I was on the helm we were doing about that as well so not bad going for a 30-tonne cruising yacht really, once again shows the benefit of having an off-wind furling sail, easy to set, gives you good extra horsepower. He's gonna show us how you tack the Amel 60 single-handedly. I'm asking the pilot to tack in 10 seconds, and I'm furling. So he's letting this generous sheet off, whilst furling the sail at the same time and the autopilot takes it through the turn. Traveler coming up, the sail is about seventy percent furled at the moment So from here you have the code furler, the genoa furler, the
traveler and the winch controls for the various sails as well. So here's one of
the most traditional Amel concepts, this central watertight engine room area
below the cockpit, it's huge so full access to work at the engine, big fuel separation
filters mounted on the aft bulkhead, the central sea chest for the engine and
genset, raw water intakes, manifolds there, watermaker, filters, easy to access watermaker itself, and I don't know if you can see this so
this is I can only just reach above my head here to give you an idea amount of
space and headroom and light and abilities working here, anything noisy and smelly anything that vibrates gets installed in here, so you
get no mess in the interior itself. Loads of storage in here, bearing in mind the dinghy will go on the davits, all your fenders and toys in here, you still get plenty of
ventilation through that forward coachroof window, so this is the main sheet winch
here and then moving in to the enormous interior designed by Mrs Racoupeau,
Olivia Racoupeau, his wife and full of the modern design styling that made the 50,
which launched three years ago, very popular, they've built 50 already, the
main differences in terms of layout with this one is that on the 60
compared to the 50 you get three double ensuite cabinets, so these two forward
cabins are near enough identical and they have loads of stowage, loads of
storage throughout the boat, raised lockers surrounding the berths will
lift on struts for more storage below, and you can probably see these drawers
below as well, and then there's another level below the actual berth for more
storage, huge hull port lights to wake up and look out of, and moving into heads compartment with
separate shower and that's that watertight bulkhead forward before the
sail locker, loads of headroom same format in the starboard forward cabin and
there moving back into the saloon you have a table that drops down to fill in
that whole area and yeah again similar layout to the 50, navstation narea at the
foot of the companionway, the tanks on this one have been put centrally so
rather than fore and aft, and offset water tanks are in the center of the
boat, and yeah the fuel tank you can see in the engine room as well again central,
decks step mast again, another Amel philosophy, keep the hull water tight. The bottom of the companionway steps floorboard lifts for bilge access, we've
got the starter batteries there and grey water sea chests, so all the grey water
leads into there, keep the smells out of the interior because the
bilge pump for that is in is in the engine room. Plenty of built-in stowage through this boat, very nice bar area as well, does
actually serve a practical purpose because it gives you something to grab
hold of while you're moving through this interior, because there's a
lot of beam in here as I mentioned a very highly-specced boat as standard. So
price of the boat base boat is €1.65m that comes with the Garvin rig for example lithium ion batteries, induction stove with those
lithium ion batteries and Miele goods throughout, you even get a free Dyson
Hoover. Big passageway galley loads of storage, loads of stowage throughout this boat and neat detail here, for example we have
perspex on the bottom so you can see what's in the drawer that you're
pulling out, walnut trim finish, oak trim is offered as well, see the switchboard
separated 230 on this side, 24 volt above the chart table there. Now the difference
on the 50 is the amount of inboard room you have, here in the galley full-size
domestic dishwasher and options of goods like wine cooler an icemaker in here as
well and washer/dryer down here, and then
moving out into the owner's cabin below the aft cockpit, not too shabby! Here you see the dogs for closing this door off, this is the third and fourth of
five watertight bulkheads, with that one sealed and another watertight pocket on
the aft, stowage absolutely everywhere, so for example this berth itself should
lift on struts, even indirect lighting under, look
at that, and a neat little feature we saw on the 50. Port light down to check
the propeller, in this case a full blade flexi fold, so you can see if it's got
weeded up or got a fishing line caught on it, and there are the poles there for the leeboards, which fit on the berth, so you're gonna have three boards across
the berth, more stowage obviously all around the berth and deep as well, so
this for example is right down into there, also a safe contained below this
berth under here, nice little desk area, more stowage, this blind comes down
electrically operated if I need it, connecting head compartment and shower area, immaculately done, very high standard of finish through this boat. This
60 spells the end of the Amel ketch, in our era anyway, so no longer doing
this 55 or 64, all sloop-rigged now but it's very much the modern Amel, very
impressive in the amount of stowage on deck and in the interior and also that
one person can certainly manage or short-handed crew can manage this
without needing a professional crew, so with this one has the stern thruster on
and a bow thruster on there, you park it easily all the sail controls without needing to get out on deck, so it sticks to the heritage of the boat and if it's anything like the 50, I'm sure it will be another big
success for the brand
