Originally published in the Daily Herald on 26 February 2019.

Steve Bourne is the owner of Ineffable, a Rapido 60 performance cruising trimaran designed by Morrelli & Melvin. In this 2019 interview with the Daily Herald, Bourne describes why he chose the Rapido, his early experiences sailing the boat across the Atlantic and Caribbean, and how owning Ineffable opened up a new chapter in his sailing life.

The following article was written by Robert Luckock and published in the Daily Herald on 26 February 2019. It is reproduced here with permission.

Steve Bourne and Ineffable

Owner of the Rapido 60 trimaran Ineffable, Steve Bourne strikes one as being a happy-go-lucky guy. A quote from the late Heineken Regatta photographer Bob Greiser immediately comes to mind: “I’m in the cocktail hour of life,” Bob once said during one of many press boat outings. That could apply to Steve.

The 62-year-old Hong Kong-based award-winning architect and solar energy entrepreneur, unofficially retired, finds himself unwittingly entering a new phase of life, sailing around the world as much as possible – hence his arrival in the Caribbean and in St. Maarten for the first time.

The impetus for this decision came from the purchase of Ineffable, over which he is in raptures. The Morrelli & Melvin-designed Rapido 60 he purchased in Las Palmas, he exclaimed with gusto, is the “fastest, most comfortable production cruising trimaran in the world”.

Why Steve Bourne Chose the Rapido 60

“I’d never dreamed of doing this, to sail around the world. It wasn’t in my vocabulary,” Bourne explained.

“But I watched the videos and decided to buy the Rapido in May, 2018.

“That changed everything. I hadn’t even considered crossing oceans before, but this is a fast, stable platform. You can do 60-mile trips in four hours averaging 15 knots.”

Bourne was already an experienced sailor, having sailed a variety of boats throughout his life. But the Rapido 60 changed his expectations of what was possible.

“At about 15 knots, the hulls have 50 tons of lift compared to a TP52 which is about eight tons. You can imagine the power of the hulls.

“We did a nose dive into a huge wave and the hulls just popped out before we came out at the bottom doing 22 knots. No pitch pole at all – so safe. It’s designed for forward buoyancy.”

Sailing Ineffable Across the Atlantic and Caribbean

Bourne sailed the prototype Ineffable from Las Palmas to Barbados, where they did their first regatta. From there, they covered the 450 miles to St. Maarten in three days.

“She’s so much fun to sail,” he enthused. “We hate to be sitting at a mooring.

“This is the most well-balanced boat I’ve ever sailed.”

His crew, he said, are “picked up along the way”, although there are key crew members who have worked on the boat since the beginning.

Ineffable, by the way, means “too great or intense to be expressed in words” – a fitting name for the boat.

Living Aboard a Rapido 60

For Bourne, the Rapido isn’t simply a fast sailing platform. It is also a boat he can live aboard.

“And it’s a live aboard. My cabin is bigger than my room in Hong Kong. And I even sleep in the forward cabin going to windward.”

That combination of sailing performance and livability was clearly part of the attraction for Bourne as he contemplated spending increasing amounts of time at sea.

Racing Ineffable

Bourne and crew had fun at the Caribbean Multihull Regatta, where they finished fourth in Class A, losing to R-Six by six seconds.

They were entered for the Heineken Regatta (click here for results of Heineken Regatta in which Ineffable came second) but were not ready for the Caribbean 600. They also planned to compete in the BVI and Antigua Regattas.

Bourne’s one criticism of the first Multihull Regatta organisation was the “ambiguity” in the written sailing instructions and diagrams.

A Lifetime of Sailing

Bourne had been living in Hong Kong for 33 years and had sailed a variety of boats throughout his life.

His sailing résumé included a fourth in the British Nationals and sixth in the Worlds in 1979–80. He also had a sport boat, a Magic 25, similar to a Melges 24 but with three trapezes.

He had formerly been skipper of Free Fire, Roy Disney’s former MaxZ86 Pyewacket, which featured in the Heineken Regatta years ago.

So although the Rapido 60 was opening up a new kind of sailing for Bourne, he was far from being new to the sport.

Sailing Around the World

“I’ve left my girlfriend and my dog, a real sailing dog, back in Hong Kong to chase this dream which is becoming a reality,” he admitted.

“I was getting bored. My plan is to get the Caribbean done, then do the East side, then back to the Mediterranean, and I would love to go to the Baltic. I have many friends in Sweden.

“Then, I will come back and do the western islands above Venezuela, then across to Hawaii and New Zealand where the sister boat, Romanza, is. We can do some match racing with her there, then go up to Fiji and eventually Indonesia and Hong Kong.

“By that time, I’ll be ready for a rest,” he said breathlessly.

“I’m a Complete Nutter for Sailing”

Bourne’s plans may have sounded ambitious, but his enthusiasm for sailing was unmistakable.

“I’m a complete nutter for sailing as you can tell.”

About this article

This article was written by Robert Luckock and originally published in the Daily Herald on 26 February 2019.

The article reflects Steve Bourne’s experiences, plans and opinions at the time of the original interview.

Acknowledgements and related articles

1. The article above, “Ineffable’s Steve Bourne, ‘I’m a nutter for sailing’ ” by Robert Luckock was published in the Daily Herald on 26 February 2019 and is reproduced here with permission.
2. Sailing Ineffable across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean, by Steve Bourne, 17 January 2019, Triac Composites’ website
3. Results of St Maarten Heineken Regatta 2019
4. Rapido Trimarans’ videos
5. St. Maarten Heineken Regatta closes with a wall of sails, Daily Herald, 4 March 2019
6. Enquiries about Rapido Trimarans – email [email protected]
7. Journalist’s contact details: email Robert Luckock