Oyster Yachts unveils the C60, its first sailing catamaran in 53 years

Oyster Yachts has unveiled the C60, the first sailing catamaran the British builder has produced in its 53-year history. The company, long known for monohull bluewater cruisers built for offshore passage-making, developed the 64-foot cat with French naval architecture firm Berret-Racoupeau to meet what it calls a growing shift among sailors toward multihulls.

Why Oyster built its first catamaran

Oyster Yachts CEO Stefan Zimmermann Zschocke said the move follows years of listening to the brand's owners. "We have seen some move towards multihulls as their lives and ambitions have changed, and we have also heard from prospective owners who are drawn to Oyster but see a catamaran as the right yacht for them," he said in a statement.

The C60 is built for long-range cruising, and Oyster describes it as combining the stability and space of a multihull with the luxury of a motor yacht and the performance of a sailing yacht, packaged into a hull the company calls relatively compact for the category.

Interior and exterior living space runs to just under 1,200 square feet, according to Oyster, giving the C60 markedly more room for lounging and entertaining than a monohull of comparable length would typically offer aboard the same builder's range.

What the layout offers

Wide opening doors link the main salon to the aft deck, which carries fold-out platforms that expand into waterside terraces on either side. A single bar serves both the indoor salon and the aft deck, creating one continuous indoor-outdoor living area.

Additional lounging space comes from a recessed foredeck lounge at the bow and an elevated flybridge above the main deck, both intended for time spent outdoors rather than for navigation alone, Oyster says.

Below decks, the owner's suite is set apart from the guest and crew cabins for privacy, and it uses Oyster's signature triple Seascape windows, the brand's term for a glazing arrangement meant to flood the cabin with natural light.

The remaining three guest cabins each come with en suite bathrooms, a configuration Oyster positions as suited to extended voyages carried out with family or friends aboard rather than short coastal hops.

The engineering, still preliminary

Oyster envisions the C60 running on twin 110 hp engines with a mainsail area of roughly 1,300 square feet, though the company cautions these are preliminary specifications that may change as design and engineering work continues.

Top speed and range have not yet been disclosed. Oyster says the yacht's onboard capacity is substantial enough to support extended periods away from shore, and that up to three feet of bridgedeck clearance contributes to its offshore capability.

The builder positions the C60 as fit for everything from coastal cruising to extended ocean passages, language consistent with the bluewater focus that has defined Oyster's monohull lineup for more than five decades of production in Britain.

How the C60 compares with Oyster's other builds

A catamaran built around private-suite separation, waterside terraces and a flybridge lounge is a departure from the racing-oriented multihulls that have driven much of the category's recent growth, and from Oyster's own single-hull tradition. It reads instead as an entry into the high-end cruising-cat market that rival builders have expanded in recent years.

We have covered other brands making a first-ever move into unfamiliar territory this year, from Aston Martin building its first road-legal motorcycle to F.P. Journe unveiling his first classic chronograph. The C60 fits that same pattern of an established maker testing a genuinely new category rather than refining an existing one.

Readers comparing what a catamaran like this costs against the wider market can turn to our roundup of the most expensive yachts in the world, part of our broader scene coverage of collectible builds and record sales across yachts, cars, watches and memorabilia.

Oyster has not released pricing, a delivery timeline or confirmation of how many hulls it plans to build, and the current specifications remain subject to change as the C60 moves from design into engineering and construction.