SAILING THE SEAWIND 1370 (owners review)

We are out to sea with our friends Nick and Teresa on their very first passage on their brand new SeaWind 1370 catamaran and they have spent the last two years of their lives documenting the build of this boat because it's a brand new design which has created a lot of hype and a lot of expectation which begs the question does it live up to the hype like is it the dream boat that they hoped it would be which is exactly what we are finding out on this passage. Got the action camera, I'm going for it. I love how we're inside filming from the safety in here but laughing. Well day two, day one did not go so well for me. I was out, I got a bug and right before we moved off from the dock I had basically got rid of everything in my body and I was pretty busy passing out almost so I just laid back here in the cockpit the whole time. Pretty much the whole day. It was a meeting of winds, super rough day. Today's a little bit more of the same but not quite as bad. We're heading straight towards the island of Koh Tao. We are in Thailand sailing straight south. How do you feel about the sounds the boat's making? Well she's solid right, she's pretty quiet. Yeah I mean we're getting used to the sound because it's a new boat otherwise like even if it's... We're doing four knots now. Yeah like coming in salt water. We are officially sailing, the wind finally clocked around and we've got a nice good angle so we are 66 degrees apparent wind and we are cranking along at 8.2, 8.3 knots. East aid has really calmed down so it's nice and comfortable now and yeah it feels really good, really good. Oh and yes we can see Koh Tao straight ahead. Land ho! Any day, it doesn't matter how crappy the day is, it's better than yesterday. I know exactly, it was a great day. I thought it was a great sail. I thought the boat did amazing, I thought the crew did amazing. We had fabulous co-captains. I don't know what anybody else is complaining about. Man I wanted to fly this so bad on the passage so we could get Ruby Rose sailing but the conditions were a little too sporting. It's a brand new drone, this is the DJI Air 3 and it's our first flight so we didn't want to risk that out at sea. We're gonna go check out this island instead. We've been using the Mini 3 Pro because it's tiny and it's been the best for our backpacking adventures over the past year. Okay complete, that's a good spot. Nice and clear. Now if I can just land it there. But now that we're getting closer to moving aboard our new boat we need something beefier for sailing. It's supposed to go up real fast. Well I'm not going up yet, it's supposed to be better for filming like close objects and people because of the zoom lens so I'm going to do those first. Okay. So when DJI reached out about this new Air 3 we were stoked because it has some serious upgrades. It's practically a Mavic but with a much friendlier price tag and Nick and Teresa are due for a new drone too so we're all keen on testing out these new features. So one thing about being able to zoom is it like compresses the background. Now I'm showing me like full wide, there's the two time zoom and there's the three times. Hold up, turns out I did it wrong. So when you want the telephoto lens I actually have to stop recording, switch it to the telephoto then hit record again and I wasn't doing that. I was simply clicking the button as we were still recording which means I was using the digital zoom not the actual lens. So the one times is the regular lens. We click the three that goes to the telephoto lens right but we can only record in one mode or the other because the other one goes away. So there's three times telephoto, stop, we'll go back to the regular lens one time, start recording, it goes away. Now here's what happened. I just saw that and I go okay I want to go zoom in, would click the button, there's two times, there's three times but that's digital zoom not the actual telephoto lens. So the quality difference is quite significant. Anyway that was me coming at you from the future. Just felt like I needed to clarify that because this is the challenging situation like you want to get us sitting here but you can't freaking do that without nicking something and then drowning the drone. So now we're like way the freak out there but it looks like we're super quiet. You got a runaway BC. Yeah we do. Runaway regular. That's amazing. Yeah so let's see what we can do here like as if we're peeking at us from in here so we can get even closer which looks totally like we're in the danger zone. It looks like you're about to crash the drone. Yeah and it looks uncomfortable from the screen because you're like oh but it's you're not like. And you do get some of the field. Yeah it definitely compresses the background. Yeah. So the drone is that far away maybe 10-15 feet from the boat. I think the funny thing is the drone's flying and we're all staring at this little remote. We're like not even looking at the drone. We're like everyone's like what are you looking at? That's gonna be great drone footage. Great drone footage. Hold on I'm gonna get you going up. Well no I was going in. Look I'm not all about the like super fast speeds very often quite honestly. I like the cinematic mode. That's my favorite. You want like those slow controlled movements. That's what keeps it from being all jerky. Okay boss. I can do what you want me to do on for a test. Can you see how fast it goes? Ready. Okay now we're actually in port mode. Holy cow that's fast. The best new feature of this drone is the sensor. It is larger. It has 10-bit color HLG and D-log M. Basically what all that means is it's easier to color correct. You've got a lot more latitude and the images so when you're shooting a white boat on a dark blue sea you can bring it back instead of it just like blowing out or making the sea super dark. So it is really nice to have 10-bit color and that really good D-log color space. Can you actually see the screen? You're in full sun. Yeah I totally and I have polarized sunglasses on and it doesn't uh kill the screen. Oh that's cool. Yeah yeah. You're not just saying that right? You can see it? No I've been flying this whole time. You know what you're shooting? You can see the screen. I can see the screen. So we just bought what's this called love? Uh RC2. Yeah okay so we bought one of these because I it drains my phone and we use our phone for so many things especially when we're out and about. So anyway I wanted the dedicated screen and remote control just for the drone so now that we've had that one I don't know if there has actually been an improvement but it feels like it is brighter and easier to see the screen than our last. Oh interesting. Yeah so that's cool. This one has obstacle avoidance. Omni directional. Omni directional. I know I've crashed inside the factory. I think Nick's studies crashed inside the factory. Yeah so whenever you're going sideways and you can't see that beam so now technically I wouldn't have that issue anymore because it would see it and so I've got it on bypass at the moment or you can set it to break or you can obviously turn it off so as I start to get closer it's telling me where it's coming from. Yeah so it beeps at you. You're making me nervous. It's moving itself away from it. Oh it is okay. Don't try to crash it over the water. But it did it kept it kept slowly hovering you saw that to like keep itself off the rails it I'll go stand over there. Your funeral. You want me to go for you? Not me just the boat. All right so now we're officially low battery because we've been mucking about so we do need to land it. Okay we'll see how this works. Obstacle avoidance is on. Yep well it's on bypass. Yeah so it should fly away from obstacles. Might be too sensitive to land here. This could be very handy. I like that because all I did was just down so I didn't control where it was coming. It really does move itself away. It's pretty cool. I dig that. That's no I'm not gonna do that. So now that we've all had coffee and breakfast and we've had two days of passage making and bashing up this boat now we need to actually talk to you about this boat and show you around. So this is as we've said the Seawind as I'm looking down at the logo Seawind 1370. I don't want to get it wrong. So this is Ruby Rose 2 and she is an owner's version 44 feet. We've got 45 40 30 70 whatever that is in freedom units. Do conversion on screen now. Okay now that we all know the length of this boat you can go to Ruby Rose and see all the specs there. They've documented the entire build of this. They're going to be doing full tours so I'm going to kind of just run through this quickly because you can find so much more information over on their channel. So they do have the owner's version which means they've got one entire hull dedicated to just them with a nice workstation for Teresa for editing because let's be honest she does most of the work around here. Just kidding but it is kind of true. Nice big head and bathroom and then of course that nice big walk-around bed which I know is a big deal for them whenever they were building this boat and looking to buy a catamaran and I know that because well they stayed with us on our catamaran and we had walk-around beds in their cabin. Probably I didn't have much to do with it but it does give you that nice you can get all the way around the bed makes it easier to make it all that sort of things. Then of course we've got a nice big salon, galley, cockpit and then two guest cabins and a shared head shower bathroom whatever you want to call that and then a forward v-berth as well so that's kind of one extra little sleeping quarters and of course a workshop which we'll get into later. So DJI also just launched a brand new Osmo which is the Osmo 4. This is the 3 so it's the older version. The new one has the exact same sensor that 1 slash 1.3 inch sensor that's supposed to be better in low light. Basically the idea is do we need to upgrade or not? Good luck. I have no idea it's the same shot or not. I don't know we should be good enough we should be able to tell the difference between them just try to as long as it's generally. Yeah okay here we go. It's a very dark corner. Whoa there's a huge difference we're getting way less grain and a lot more detail out of the drone. Okay test complete. Up on deck they have right around 2200 watts of solar on this massive cabin top which is quite lovely. Then we've we've got they've got three sails forward which is a jib, a code sail and then they have a spinnaker. We've got the nice big square top main which looks beautiful and of course a big lounge area up front built right into the deck. Two lovely princess seats up front for spotting coral heads or just being a princess and watching the dolphins whenever they show up which they did not for us this time. We still have time. I'm gonna be very disappointed in you Thailand dolphins if you do not come say hello to me before we leave. So that's the two cent tour but now let's get into the nitty gritty of it because that's what i really want to know is after this passage how do you feel about your boat? Is it everything that you hoped it would be? Did it live up to your expectations because now it's not hypothetical anymore you've actually had two days of passage making. Yeah and i think you have to understand and remember what we came from. We came from like a 38 foot monohull so this has been a huge step up but also it's a very different way of sailing it's a different way of living on the boat we've kind of come across issues that we it didn't even register that they would be an issue like for example like not being able to see the sails from i mean you can you've got like a window here but you can't you don't have as much visibility as you do on a monohull of course so just that connection is different it's different and like we were gusting like 26 knots the other day and i'm just like sitting there and then Nick's like we have to put the third reefing line in i'm like we do what's the problem oh it's just that new way of learning how to sail and of course like living on this boat is a whole different ball game like completely we didn't even have a freezer on our old boat so wow we've got all the things on this it's very exciting i mean i love monohull sailing but when you're living on a boat then you start rethinking things a little bit and this is just so much more comfortable one of the biggest questions we got from our patrons when we told them that we were going to be here on board is what met exceeded or failed expectations overall the boat has definitely met our expectations for sure but there are definitely certain elements of the design that we were very particular about we did a catamaran review series and we reviewed i'd want to say like 19 catamarans and we saw all sorts of different designs so something that was really important to us was the helm position as you and i have discussed there is no there's no perfect there's no perfect helm so it's a compromise it's what is important to you we wanted to be able to sit at the helm and be protected from the elements we wanted good visibility so that we could keep watch effectively and we wanted the helm to be connected to the living space so that it wasn't you know you get the flybridge helms where you're just really all by yourself up there so that was kind of the three main things and and you also opted for a twin helm design now that you have it how do you feel about it it's great what it means is that for example if it's raining and you've got some rain coming in here i mean we've got side clears but you can just move over to the other helm same like the sun obviously in close quarters when you're maneuvering you can decide which home you're at which one suits you best you can control the engines from both helms you can control the autopilot from both helms and also it's just nice for us both to sit in i mean we have spent quite a bit of time sitting together at our lovely big helm seats love seats but it's nice to have our own perch and we can both see everything so yeah love it and then okay so what's another like love it exceeded expectations okay so the whole open plan living concept was really important on the sea winds uh all of their designs they have these huge like safari windows big ford opening hatches and that coupled with the trifold door which i think is also pretty um like unique to seawind you end up with this huge big living space where you get the cockpit and the saloon in the alley all this area just essentially one big space but also as we can experience right now you get this beautiful breeze coming through and it's so nice so then what is one thing that maybe didn't meet your expectations or something you just didn't expect at all well i'm a short human it's like i can't reach i can't actually reach that at all i can yeah two fingers i can go on my tiptoes but then i'm like hanging like this yeah so that doesn't work for me and so i don't have many i've got this um like rub rail here but in the cockpit it's kind of like right what am i holding on to right now so yeah that doesn't work for me that's useless to me but if you are tall and we've had a lot of tall guys in particular say like what's the head height like then this is great for you thank you i need those like on a bus like those little kind of like things that you hold on the straps yeah yeah and the other thing when we were doing our reviews one thing that i really really wanted was an interior nav station that i could sit at when the weather's not very nice or you're doing a night watch for example and you don't want to go outside but again short human hang on how do i even wait to see i'm still learning how this boat works i you've had like three whole days on board i know get it together we moved on five days ago yeah maybe six days ago like it's been a hectic time i can't i can barely like see over you've got six inches of raising that seat yeah i can right but then you're sitting in a bar stool yeah exactly and then my legs are dangling so it's not as the visibility from the nav station is not as good for me as a five foot two person um as i was hoping as nick said i can raise the seat but then my legs are dangling so it's not like super comfortable so a stool or a stool for your foot rest oh yeah like oh i've got this thing i could maybe like sit sideways there you go be raised up yeah or even put your feet on the sofa there if nick lets me no make a class for there salty feet on the sofa yeah i mean contrarily that i have no problem with that at all at five foot nine uh 176 i can see yeah more than comfortably over there so we saw you sitting there and your visual yeah so you nick visually i'm fine so if i was myself into that seat this was my i liked i loved like just leaning right here and i can tell your head is much higher yeah my eyes are just probably exactly between those two yeah it's a height dependent thing and this unfortunately is something we can do about in your um diminutive stature that was the main thing for me the like thing that i i got on board with the first time i was okay there's just a couple of little things that don't work for me personally um yet yet so it's short people problems that need to be solved exactly yeah which is that's fair enough like we're gonna have i don't even know how many of us yeah yeah there'll be yeah it's a booster seats and a booster seat and a little uh so now it's next turn so nick what was a couple of your hits and misses so it hits visibility from this point the helm station there was a lot of questions on the internet about how much that post in the middle of the saloon would impede visibility we haven't found that to be a problem i think that sailing you should be moving around a boat not sit in a static position i think with these windows down then you have really good visibility when you're sailing it is slightly more problematic when you are close quarters now the four of us had to anchor for the first time and a couple of things become apparent number one when i'm at this helm even with the windows open i can hear nothing with the windows closed i can hear there's zero there's zero so we are going to have to invest in some relationship saving headphones um headsets headsets to get those sorted out i found that when we were kind of trying to maneuver the boat into this anchorage at night we actually i was just sat on the coaming just steering with my foot and then that that kind of obviates it but these windows especially at sea you can't have them open i think that's something we did realize is how much spray comes through in weather so everything does have to be closed you do have to move around to see the sails there's a window there so i can see the set of the main sail but also just sticking my head up like a meerkat above the coach if i can see everything there is a slight issue in unfurling the sails and knowing how the sail is furling and not furling and we've had a problem with that which is why our screecher is stuck in a locker because we had to go and untangle something tomorrow uh so there are some we have to just learn it's it's it's a learning experience as to how we best make sure that we're aware of everything going on the boat on ruby rose we just had just almost an open cockpit so we could see everything it was never an issue now there are blind spots essentially caused by the fact we've got a bloody great hard top here so we need to work out a way of doing that and we can't just take the skill set we had on a monohull and port it straight to a catamaran it just doesn't work so it's more like getting used to i think the the visibility that you now have because you are also a lot more exposed yes in ruby rose so it is nice that whatever i mean we were beating into it we were comfortable as all get out because nobody was getting like beat up by the wind so it is nice but yeah you it's just you have to maneuver around it it's just i think it's it is a learning it's learning and i i think i said this before i remember tasha hacker when she was doing something once on an anti-crossing saying this feels a little bit like cheating like everything here just seems like it's cheating a little bit like we put you push a button and something the sail goes like you push another button and ice comes out from somewhere you push a third button and like you know you get a cup of tea it really is it's pretty it it seems very easy and half of the things in this cockpit yeah easy yes half of the things in the saloon are velcroed and even though in two days of getting hammered not a lot went flying yeah whereas in ruby rose this would just look like a washing machine i think you get so used to being uncomfortable sometimes out at sea that when you are comfortable then that's why it feels like cheating because you're thinking oh i'm not supposed to be this comfortable right like that then it's not sailing if i'm actually comfortable yeah right the performance is good i don't have any problems um yeah i'm pretty happy with this and the other thing is as a platform for living our friends were in this anchorage two days ago and moved because it was so rolly we're just like all right um a few days yeah no problem a little bit of swell from all the dive boats okay so then what's a big hit for you then like what's something that you're like this is what i wanted and it absolutely hit my expectations or exceeded well workshop is one thing we're going to talk about yeah well let's do it quick down there so one thing that i desperately wanted and we stole this shamelessly from the maverick 440 dedicated workshop i think it's we poached a lot of things from different boats i think that's what we all do that's why we go to boat shows and look and see what all the ideas are and see when we're very good like what do you want i'm like this is like my red line i really do need a workshop because if you ever watched the videos on ruby rose there was always saloon turned upside down so seawind created this we worked really hard with them to get what we wanted so it's actually the seventh berth so it's a it's four peak berth right now it's my luggage storage yep and yeah yeah unpopular child but you know whatever it is but essentially you pull this cushion off and you're left with this area and then this folds back into here the doors open and then you have dedicated storage bins down there for tools there's a vice that will clamp here and in here there's tool storage and then importantly we have gpos there for tools and i also wanted uh twin lights so that you don't ever cast shadows anywhere it's because having one light it's sometimes a little detail work because i worked as a dental surgeon for 20 years you need to put your elbows down to do fine motor work we've said actually at that and yeah i'm just curious like what's that look like so basically because it moves around you just sit like this you've got articulating lights that come here and here and then i can just sit and work on whatever i need to so i can tell you're just like nope i need to get up in there i need all the lights give me give me the give me the forceps and if you're halfway through a project and you're like okay enough today i need to get back to this tomorrow you can then close it all back up your mess is covered and then you pick it up the next day so it kind of compartmentalizes metaphorically and literally the work that you're doing so yeah we're pretty happy with that and doesn't take over your whole salon or yes and that was important table which is what always ends up happening it was always about making zones about having a work zone having on in the other hole having an editing workstation with gpos and you're starting to speak another language because i'm like what's a gpo oh a plug socket yeah yeah general purpose outlet not american yeah okay a freedom socket i know exactly what that is 110 volts of like something that no one else in the world uses one last thing that nick wants to talk about and again i think this has a lot to do with them coming from a monohull to now a catamaran so what's your your last little it's not a gripe it's just a concession we have to make and that is the kind of stark white look of this boat compared to say our old monohull which was all wood it looked like you know the inside of a timber workshop in this catamaran the deck mold actually has the furniture bases built into it so there's a lot of i think that simply we over the course of the next five years of ownership will need to just personalize it personalize it with mats and things that actually just make it less stark you know some photographs of theresa obviously like on the walls so yeah we'll break it all up and get that but yeah at the moment it's don't show the nude photos in the bedroom no those big laminated things no but at the moment it's uh it's yeah it's it just needs um some some personalization for me i love the big open airy bright feel yeah of it i think it's just it's so different for the two of you from your last home to this home that brings me to some of the things that we have liked from being on this boat um sort of like little hits and misses for us which we've already talked a lot about but one that i really enjoyed is this floor in here so it not just being you know your typical fiberglass deck they put what do you call this um i don't know it's just like a match marine vinyl formatting marine vinyl formatting okay not very sexy otherwise but it kind of has this like linen um woven texture to it so super grippy on your feet even when your feet are super salty and whatever else you come in here you don't have that slippery feeling i never feel like i'm gonna fall it's really nice moving around in here it gives you a lot of grip underfoot and it's cushy so it feels comfortable you don't get as much of that like fatigue from standing on a hard surface and then uh i'm gonna have to look at my list because i of course the floor i've already discussed the helm position i'm not going to repeat all of that because nick and theresa have already kind of said all the things that i thought about it as well it's like a 80 20 split right like 80 percent of the time absolutely perfect exactly what you want there's 20 of the time where you're like dang i wish i had slightly better visibility here or i wish that i could communicate better with whoever's up front and speaking of up front that's my other big hit it's all in the renders they were going to have this seating up front it's kind of like that happy place in between like the comfort cruiser with all the loungy spaces and i thought is that really going to be that comfortable it absolutely is i'm a huge fan of those little cushions up front i think that was a great call on making that a little lounge space i dig it and i have a couple things yes for me the two biggest things were we were beating up wind maybe 20 knots of wind head on straight into the waves and we weren't getting that big bridge deck shutter on our boat whenever we would hit a big wave and sometimes it would just and it would slow us down this one didn't seem to do that so the bridge deck clearance must be really good or the design underneath must be really good and they had two 57 yamars that are definitely an upgrade and we were able to move at eight knots the whole time against the wind against the wave so that was impressive okay lunch lunch don't you feel so posh right now no i feel like a twat there's nine million people yep at the beach and you don't really want to take your thingy up to the beach where people are trying to swim and relax and hang out so we're anchoring it out here and swimming in it's like pool water in here it's incredible oh it's so nice it's so clear and so beautiful this is definitely the best water we've seen in thailand so far this is a genius idea a very adventurous ride i already got mine that was just too fast no it's totally fine look one bowl choco that that in your face you need it well i had a lovely lunch in town a very exciting ride into town and back out of town this is totally safe totally safe not only you in the back of a truck but you're up on a bench on the top of the bed at least in texas we would like sit in the bed like down in the bed this is just look out for low flying stuff yeah i don't even know if we were really in town we just went to an area on the island i'm not really sure teresa was in charge of that and i didn't pay much attention i was just along for the nice ride and it was nice right anyway we got back and now everybody's kind of just been working nick's been doing projects on the boat theresa's been editing jason's been editing i've been hammering away at commentary and other things on the internet you know general stuff like that and of course now we've got our evening rain that is settling in this seems to be the pattern we experienced when we arrived and now here we are it's beautiful during the day and then the the rain shows up at night and we got nick making dinner for us tonight he's in an oblivion over there sorry yeah i was completely distracted by trying to get a piece of mango i'll vomit you what are we having for uh dinner tonight uh i'm gonna knock up some aubergine pasta with maybe some mozzarella some pecorino garlic tomatoes maybe bake it not quite served with beer and weed it'll be a first for me i've never had that kind of garnish before are you ready for sundowner time and not that we can see the sun but yeah i mean let's fly the drone in the rain let's see what happens i didn't mean to suggest that yeah it's still spitting out there hopefully it goes away and we can do like a sunset or at least a nighttime shot because they have underwater lights and um that drone is supposed to do really well in low light scenery so maybe we'll get something i'm trying to like go through quickly because we're gonna only be on this boat for a couple more days so i'm like i gotta watch all the footage i gotta figure out if i miss anything oh my god you want me to change your flights that's why i'm sweating they're getting used to crew exactly this was our contribution to the new boat which we plan on enjoying also while we're here a little bit of a selfish gift you're welcome along with some music on it there you go there goes the sun we were all really hoping for that night he's in plug is in i only got about half a tank of gas left in that so unless you want to row ashore keep it to a short joyride we are about to go to sea and we have not tested the drone like the follow me settings and well we haven't really done any of the tracking stuff so we thought it's so beautiful right now we might be able to fly it when we're sailing we might as well practice first in the tender this tender is going to be supreme for flying the drone you're going to be so comfortable the only thing that's missing is a bimini that would also make it very hard to catch and land the drone all right starting up we've kind of been joking about this tender you know nick's like oh i feel like a twat you know and i'm like it is a big obnoxious dinghy but at the same exact time you know it is always such things like your dinghy is your car we've talked about this a lot and let me go back on the other side very windy yeah it's gonna be a challenging day for the drone good day for sailing uh but it's like the dinghy is your car and you have to kind of make the decision between like do you want something big and comfortable or do you want something light and nimble because like you can't have it all right they will never be dragging this up on the beach it's just going to be too heavy and too complicated but cruising and diving and snorkeling and getting you know nice long distances around over to where all the provisions are and everything else they're going to be nice and cush for that so it'll be interesting to hear what they think about it in a year so i've just clicked and dragged so we'll do active track tap go and the aircraft will follow the subject automatically so let's let's give it a test i'll start slow right now it's showing straight down because that's where we are and it's turning around i like this okay yeah should i pick it up yeah go for it easy boy so you're flying right now yeah the drone's flying itself i'm just sitting back and relaxing should i do a hard turn and see what it does oh god okay yeah give it a go i'm ready to stop just in case so far so good come on little drone show me what you got still working no drama yet and testing complete i give it a nine out of ten one point deducted for my user error on taking so freaking long to figure out how to use the telephoto lens but overall with new speeds the sensors and lenses this is no doubt the best drone for sailing and exploring all right i'm swapping out batteries because we're going to do some photos real quick before you leave this anchorage and i want to talk about this battery pack this is a very smart charger so of course it does the normal stuff where you can turn it on charge an action camera or the remote or your telephone but what's really interesting about this one power on you hold it and then what it does is it takes the most charged battery so this one had three bars and it uses the lowest battery to move the power from this battery into this battery so it uses these depleted batteries to charge up one battery and that comes in handy because we don't like to take it to less than 30 percent when we're flying especially on the boat more like 50 so we end up with a lot of batteries that aren't fully charged so if we can dump the power from these into this one it's cool anyway pretty the active track has been tested photos have been taken and now nick and theresa need our help with sorting out a sale issue up front so we need to be good crew and sign up so that we can be focused for them so thank you so much for watching and we will see you next sunday