Sunreef 50 Sail NEXT ( Eco-Option )

The Sunreef 50 Sail NEXT is the smallest catamaran Sunreef builds, and the one most likely to be handled by an owner rather than a crew. Sunreef publishes an overall length of 15.2 m (50 ft) on a 9.1 m (30 ft) beam, which is an unusually wide platform for the length and is where the boat's 167 m² of living space comes from.

The rig is a 80 m² mainsail with a 79 m² genoa. Tankage is 800 l of water and 1,000 l of fuel. Every one of those figures is Sunreef's own, taken from the specification block on the model page.

The 50 is the one model in the sailing range that Sunreef has not yet restyled under its NEXT design programme — the range page lists it simply as "Sunreef 50" where the 60, 70, 80 and 100 all carry the NEXT suffix.

Sunreef publishes no speed figure for the 50 Sail NEXT — no top end, no cruise, no range. That is true of every model in the range, not just this one, so the performance rows on this page are empty rather than estimated.

What the yard does document is the propulsion. The classic version runs 2 × 80 hp diesels. The Eco version replaces them with electric motors fed by a battery bank, with hydrogeneration recovering power from the propellers under sail and solar panels topping the bank up at anchor. Sunreef does not publish a motor output or a battery capacity for the 50 specifically.

Draft is not published either. If shallow-water access is central to your plan, ask Sunreef for the figure in writing before you sign — on a boat this beamy it is the number that decides which anchorages you can use.

Sunreef builds every catamaran to order, so the 50's interior is a starting point rather than a fixed layout. The published living space is 167 m², spread across the two hulls, the saloon and the cockpit.

The wide 9.1 m beam is what makes the volume work. On a conventional 50-foot monohull the saloon is a corridor; here it is a room with sightlines out both sides. Hull layouts are chosen at order — owners typically take a full-hull master on one side and guest cabins on the other, or three or four symmetrical cabins if the boat will see charter use.

Sunreef does not publish a cabin or head count for the 50, which is consistent with a fully bespoke build. Get the layout drawn and signed before you commit.

The 50 Eco sits at the bottom of Sunreef's sailing range and at the top of the production catamaran market it competes against. Boats from the volume yards at this length are built to a price and a repeatable layout; the Sunreef is built to order in Gdansk, in-house, with the same engineering department that draws the 100.

That is the trade. You pay for bespoke work and you wait for it. What you get is a boat nobody else has and a solar-electric drivetrain the volume builders are still treating as an option package.

Within the Sunreef range itself the 50 is the value proposition — the one that does not assume a professional crew.

Buy the 50 Sail NEXT if you want a genuinely custom catamaran and you intend to be the one driving it. It is the most owner-operable boat Sunreef makes, and the beam-to-length ratio gives you living space that embarrasses monohulls twenty feet longer.

Look further up the range if silent, indefinite anchoring is the point of the purchase. Solar output scales with roof area, and the 50 does not have the surfaces the 70 and 80 do. Look elsewhere entirely if you need published performance data before you buy — Sunreef does not provide it at any length.