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