Sail - July 2018

JULY 2018

Leopard 50

A cruising cat that sails well and takes good

care of the crew By Chris Caswell

T

he Leopard 50 is replacing the popular Leopard 48, but this

constitutes an entirely new yacht, not just an upgrade of the

older boat. h e new 50 is 2t longer than the 48, and the beam

has been widened from 25t to 26t 5in. It is also available with

a l ybridge, and to minimize your suspense, it’s wonderful! Note that

Leopard makes a point of calling it a “lounge” rather than a l ybridge, and

the version with said lounge is therefore called the Leopard 50L. h ere’s

another version sans lounge called the 50P, for performance. Aside from

the lounge seating on the hardtop abat the helm, the only real dif erence

on the L version is that the boom has been raised a bit, so no unwary

guest gets whacked.

DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION

One thing that has always impressed me about Leopards is that they are

built tough. h e construction is aimed for the bareboat charter market,

where 50 skippers a year with varying abilities will inevitably put the boat

through the wringer because, well, it isn’t their boat.

h e starting point for the Leopard 50 is a vacuum-bagged and

isopthalic resin-infused E-glass hull with an end-grain balsa core. Ring

frames of carbon i ber add stif ness without weight gain, and the keels are

i lled with closed-cell poly foam to prevent water ingress.

People sometimes question the ability of a cruising cat like this in

of shore conditions, but many Leopards are delivered on their own

bottom from the Robertson & Caine yard in South Africa. We had the

delivery captain for this 50 aboard for our test sail, and he had spent 52

days crossing from South Africa to Brazil to Tortola to Florida. When the

wind was up and in the right direction, he said, he and his two-man crew

were banging of 17 knots on autopilot for days on end.

h at toughness extends to the interior as well, with the wood-grained

veneer having the pale look of whitewashed oak, as opposed to i nger-

print-prone varnish. Owners are going to revel in this bulletproof i nish,

with wipe-clean maintenance and no varnish cans in the locker.

ON DECK

My favorite spot on earlier Leopards was the forward cockpit, reached

through a door from the saloon. Introduced on the Leopard 44 in 2012, it’s

fun underway and ideal for a sundowner at anchor with a pleasant breeze.

h e at cockpit boasts an immense dinette with 9t settees that can hold

everyone in the anchorage for h anksgiving dinner or a roast pig. h e at

seatback also l ips forward to allow guests to contemplate the wake un-

derway, and a Kenyon grill is tucked into a console for charring burgers.

h e side decks are nice and wide and protected by double lifelines. I like

that the hatches are l ush with deep gutters for runof.

My new favorite spot aboard the Leopard 50L—which I’ll destroy all

nautical lingo in calling “h e Upstairs Lounge”—takes up most of the

i berglass hardtop. A settee wraps around on three sides with comfy

backrests on stainless posts and a i berglass table is equipped with com-

partments to corral your munchies in a breeze. h ere’s also an oversized

sunpad just forward next to the helm.

Speaking of the helm, this is a great oi ce for the skipper, who can

easily handle just about everything singlehanded. h e deck between

helm and mast looks like a Harken catalog, with every manner of turning

block, a trio of electric winches and a squadron of Spinlock stoppers for

halyards and sheets, the tails of which drop neatly into a canvas bin.

NEW BOATS

UPPER LOUNGE

FORWARD COCKPIT

INFUSED HULLS