What's the similarity between a gourmet hamburger and a HopYacht 30?

Every once in a while at the HopYacht factory we order lunch from a local deli just down the road. A few weeks back, in between bites into a giant burger, Oscar Dill our procurement and project manager asked us all what we thought the similarity was between a gourmet hamburger and a HopYacht 30?

Our initial reaction was to wait for the punchline, but quickly realised he was being serious! "Great taste between two buns and great design taste between two hulls?” A bit of a stretch, but a clever response from one of the team.  “Easy to eat and easy to sail?” someone else added … equally quick off the mark.

But Oscar shook his head and responded, “it's simple, they are both fully loaded!”  After a mixture of groans and laughs, we picked up on his idea of a fully loaded HopYacht and looking back over the past 18 months we have certainly pushed hard to load more into the design and overall finishes on the boat.

HopYacht 004 is currently in Fort Lauderdale USA and HopYacht 005 is about to arrive in France and will be on display at the La Rochelle Boat Show. Both these boats are fully loaded with new features. Here's just a taste of what you can expect on our new menu!

• new interior upholstery options

• improved standing headroom in the shower

• new vanity unit design with built in magazine rack

• larger galley cupboard storage

• an onboard system to raise and lower the mast without needing a crane

• new awning design to fully enclose helm station in bad weather

YOUR INVITATION TO GET ONBOARD

If you’re keen to see a HopYacht 30 on the water and you can get to either Fort Lauderdale, USA or La Rochelle, France in the next two months, then get in touch today at hello@hopyacht.co.za and we'll make sure you have the fully loaded tour!

If cooking was an olympic sport, induction hobs would be considered cheating!

To decide which type of cooking hob to use on the HopYacht 30, we conducted a time trial comparing a standard gas cooker with an induction hob. The test was straightforward: we used identical pots filled with the same amount of water at room temperature, plus a stopwatch.

None of us at HopYacht had ever used an induction cooker before and the result was astonishing. Just over two minutes to reach boiling point on the gas hob and a blistering 70 seconds on the induction hob. Apparently if we had also tested a radiant electric cooktop, it would have come in last ... at well over two minutes.

So Induction wins gold,

Gas would win silver

and radiant electric

... a very sad bronze!

photo credit: Paris 2024 Organising Committee

As sailors we are all acutely aware of the dangers of a gas leak on board a yacht, however gas does have the advantage of being readily available and you can easily carry a couple of spare bottles. Electric cookers on the other hand are notoriously power hungry and without shore power you could drain the house batteries very quickly. Induction hobs are now the game changer!

With 1 600W of solar input and a 28.8 kWh of lithium ferro phosphate battery power, despite being a compact catamaran, you have enough energy onboard to cook breakfast, lunch and supper for an entire olympic team!

Induction hobs are also very efficient. Designed to heat just the pan and not the cooktop surface or surrounding area, very little heat escapes into the room. If you have used a gas cooker in the galley of a traditonal yacht on a hot day, you will know just how much heat a gas cooker generates!

And when you're feeling like you're ready to win the 100 metres, but need a coffee first, there is one other electrical appliance you could have onboard that will beat an induction hob to the finish line. We have power point ready and waiting for a Nespresso machine to be plugged in right next to the hob!

Here comes the rain again.

(apologies if the song sticks in your head!)

The two things we are never short of throughout the summer months in Cape Town, South Africa are sunshine and wind. However, between 2015 and 2018, Cape Town experienced a one-in-400-year drought which took our city to the brink of “day zero,” a point where over 4 million people in Cape Town would literally run out of water.

But not this winter!!! For the past 5 weeks, we have had what has felt like a never-ending series of cold fronts rolling in from the Atlantic, causing widespread flooding. And this has been the nudge we needed to rethink the design of our helm station enclosure.

Collaborating with the team at North Sails, the new enclosure is a combination of Weathermax cloth and 800 micron Crystal Kleer panels, we are now able to offer a weatherproof enclosure for the helm station, without compromising visibility.

On the inboard side, a zip-open window creates access to the winch and genoa sheets. On the outboard side a full length zip-up and roll-up door provides quick access to the side deck.

HopYacht 005 has been equipped with the new helm enclosure and will be on show at the La Rochelle Boat Show in France 1-6 October 2024.