Lightweight Cheetah goes easy on fuel
The new version Cheetah Marine 6.2m was designed to extract maximum performance from lower powered, less thirsty engines.
Hydrographic survey is just one of many potential uses for a new version of the venerable Cheetah Marine 6.2m catamaran.
The origianal Cheetah Marine 6.2m catamaran first arrived on the work boat market in 1990 and immediately created considerable interest. Since then the Cheetah 6m series has become the best selling small catamaran workboat in Europe, with nearly 200 delivered.
The 6.2m grew to 6.9m and then 7.6m when marine aluminium engine pods were made available. Commenting on the new updated version, Cheetah designer and partner Sean Strevens said, ‘As time has gone on, with fuel prices going up and up, it seemed appropriate to redesign the 6.2m in the light of all the experience we have gained over the past 20 years. We have learnt that a change of a few millimetres one way or the other can make a huge difference to the performance of the boat. We wanted to build a 6.2m LOA catamaran which would go really well with very low powered engines. The new 6.2m is therefore ideal for very economical local operations, such as surveying, patrol and water sampling. It retains all the advantages of the previous models, stability, space and shallow draft’.
By restricting the new 6.2m to a windscreen or a standard wheelhouse, the weight is kept to a minimum and thus economy is outstanding. Both the 6.9m LOA and the 6.9m with aluminium pods making it 7.6m LOA are still available for those needing more weight carrying capacity, a longer wheelhouse and more powerful engines. Deliveries of the existing range, including the popular towable 7.9m survey package, have been strong in 2010, with total Cheetah sales now approaching 300 catamarans.
Sea trials of the new 6.2m prototype have gone well. The latest new 10.2m Cheetah also underwent successful trials recently and will be delivered shortly. The yard continues to be extremely busy with Cheetahs being delivered to clients in Holland and Belgium as well as the UK.
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