PRESS RELEASE FROM CONTEST YACHTS OF THE NETHERLANDS
Contest 49CS & 50CS UPDATE
At Contest Yachts we’re excited to announce the completed technical launch of the beautiful 15-metre judel/vrolijk & co-drawn Contest 49CS. We say excited because this is the yard’s first aft cockpit, twin aft cabin sailing yacht in the fifty-foot range and introduces a completely new style and big scale to these cabins and general interior layout. This is a major step-change in family and friends cruising design.
Our history at this size is rich in fine centre cockpit yachts, and in this sphere, too, we are also nearing completion of the equally all-new Contest 50CS. Both 49CS and 50CS models will be offered with optional all-electric propulsion, and both will be given their World Premiere together at Boot Dusseldorf (DE), 21-29 January 2023, following an earlier first public previewing of the Contest 49CS at HISWA In-water Boat Show (NL), 31 August-4 September 2022. Selected media will be invited to test-sail the Contest 49CS from Medemblik in October.
In the Contest 49CS we have developed something new, different and yet reassuringly consistent with Contest credentials. A natural step up we’ve not had from the aft-cockpit Contest 42CS before, it’s equally a new step into the Contest range for sailors preferring their master suite forward and family or guest cabins in the back. And what cabins these are, they’re huge, on a scale never seen at this end of the 50ft sector. Yet still we have a very impressive tender garage, spacious aft deck, and loads of storage throughout the cabins which enjoy the latest design-styling from the Wetzels Brown Partners studio, introducing new super-ergonomic luxury furnishings from the clever sofa and recliner arrangement to joinery detailing including optional ribbed timber bulkheads.
With judel/vrolijk & co’s balancing of modern topside height and max beam carried well aft, we’ve achieved a twin aft cabin plan conventionally impossible, with extra tall standing headroom throughout, and the option of doubles or twin berths with walkway between. The space, lightness and featuring is innovative, as it is also in the forward owner’s suite and the new extra-width saloon with a whole new freshness and sea-practical sophistication. Yet better again in this new configuration we’ve also retained significant and genuinely advantageous features of our long-favoured and famed ‘centre cockpit’ arrangements, such as our renowned double-sided longitudinal galley. And in true Contest vein, there are of course options in final layout and plan. We are unique in achieving all this, and especially so with our equally unique full Lloyd’s Register certification.
Lloyd’s Register is extensively involved also in our move into all-electric propulsion as an option for these two new yachts, and the technology is now being developed with Torqeedo and BMW for first integration into a Contest 50CS set to splash in 2024.
It’s a clever system, all electric, with solar and in-water regenerating capabilities. For silent operation underway and at anchor, the system’s heart is a combination of 50kW Torqeedo Deep Blue 50 and super robust 42kWh BMWi3 battery packs, with regeneration from the propeller backed by integrated Watt&Sea hydro-generators and Solbian solar panels. Extending range to bluewater cruising capabilities, a powerful genset with 400-litre diesel feed then creates electricity fed into the battery bank sufficient to equal and even go beyond conventional diesel drivetrains.
A fascinating green initiative, and one already designed for swap-out to hydrogen when that technology becomes viable for yachting.
The first all-electric Contest 50CS will splash in 2024. In the meantime, enjoy early sight of the first Contest 49CS at HISWA In-Water Boat Show in late August/early September, and then both the 49CS and 50CS together at Boot Dusseldorf in January next year, 2023.
