N56ms
The Nordhavn 56MS features a roomy combination saloon and helm station. On a long passage, the lower galley, dinette and cabins, let the off-watch eat, sleep and relax without disturbing the watch at the helm.
Sailing craft are nothing new to PAE. They built more than 250 of the still highly regarded Mason sailboats. In fact, you might consider the Nordhavn 56MS the missing link between those Masons and Nordhavn trawlers. At one time PAE even built several of the original Nordhavn 46s with a small ketch rig designed to stabilize them and extend their range in downwind sailing. Traveling in the company of non-sail equipped Nordhavn 46s, these boats would sail faster and burn less fuel. The lesson wasn’t lost on PAE people. Over the years, Jeff Leishman and older brother Jim, co-founder and vicepresident of PAE, did several preliminary designs for a true long-range motorsailer, however, work on developing an extensive line of ocean-going trawler yachts kept their attention focused elsewhere. Then they went on the ATW (Around the World), taking a standard Nordhavn 40 on a globe-girdling circumnavigation. On that passage, they would often find 50
CIRCUMNAVIGATOR I 2010
themselves in downswell, downwind conditions, with the trade winds blowing 15 to 20 knots. “That would have been the boat to have for those conditions,” Jeff observes. “So we sort of revisited it.” The current design started as a 50-foot (15.2 meters) boat, but the need to optimize performance and interior volume ended up pushing it out to 56 feet (17 meters) LOA (length overall). “It’s big and comfortable,” notes Jim Leishman. “A lot of people didn’t think that a motorsailer was going to have as much interior volume or feel as big and substantial. That boat is a 95,000-pound (43,000 kilograms) boat. As it got built, every time we had to make a decision (about the boat) we made it in favor of giving it heavier scantlings and to build it more robust. It’s probably one of the stoutest, strongest production boats ever built. And it’s just enormously built. It’s the kind of boat that would just hold together when other boats wouldn’t. It’s also a very pretty boat,” Leishman adds. “You know, there
were people who speculated that it was not going to be. It’s exotic looking; it’s really beautiful, in my opinion, and most people feel that way.”
She can kick up her heels Now that she has some sea miles, the question is: can the pretty girl dance? “Performance was startling,” says Jim Leishman. “The goal was to get a boat that would be able to tack and go to windward a little bit. It was primarily going to be a boat that would sail in trade-wind conditions. You know, in 20 knots, aft of your beam. And the reality is that the boat sails far better than anybody had anticipated.” Much of the credit for the Nordhavn 56’s excellent handling qualities has to go to Jeff Leishman’s design. The fulldisplacement hull is narrower and tapers more than a trawler hull of the same length. Its cutaway keel and forefoot results in less whetted area than a fullkeel design, adding even more efficiency and making it more responsive to rudder www.circumnavigatormag.com