Second catamaran-walkthrough I have brought back from this year´s La Grande Motte boat show is the brand new Excess 13. Why? Well, this boat has long been anticipated and I can promise you that she is not your usual fill-in for the gap in the brand´s product range. I was really astonished to seeing such big progress for Excess in this, let´s call it, third generation of boats offered.
You may alreay know that I used to be a dealer for Excess since the brand´s inception in the year 2019. Back then, mighty Groupe Beneteau decided that they don´t want to let performance-oriented catamaran builder Nautitech free reign over the owner´s-focus market for sailing-oriented multihulls. The idea, to make a „fast sister“ for the Lagoon was born.
From VPLP to Marc Lombard
I´ve sold a couple of Excess 11 catamarans and had the pleasure to deliver these to my clients. In some I was traversing the (sometimes rather stormy) Bay of Biscay southward, some I took north through the English Channel to Germany. Indeed: Excess cats are vivid, lightfooted and fast cruising catamarans. Thanks to design bureaus like VPLP, the aim of offering a (more) performance-cat for a price of decent series production quality had soon be achieved.
For the new Excess 13 however, the shipyard decided to change the naval architects and entrust Marc Lombard Design Group with the new boat. They kept the concept of utilizing asymmetrical hulls, a feat that had been introduced with the Excess 14. With those, interior volume is maximized whilst a least wetted surface underwater is maintained. Also, leeway is said to being reduced and stability added.
As I roamed the pontoon first and tried to grasp a panoramic look from all angles onto the catamaran, it became clear that this new boat unmistakably is an Excess. The designers at Marc Lombard took the distinct lines which have been defined by the Excess 11 and re-invented on the 14 and refined the ideas. The outcome is a boat that surely incorporates the DNA of Excess, but takes it onto a new level.
Not only a completion of Excess´ product range
This is by far the biggest surprise for me when I saw the boat: It looks much more thought-through and mature than the Excess 14. As it bears all the new little details, like negative stem and slightly reverse bows or nice details, like the shape of the hull windows, it really stands on its own in so many respects. And she truly is a step forward in terms of practical use.
As a matter of fact, the Excess 13 nicels closes the gap between the 38-feet Excess 11, which in my eyes is indeed one of the best entry-level catamarans there are at this time, and the flagship, the Excess 14. The first two models, Excess 12 and 15 which were rushed out to market rather fast, therefore incorporating parts from Lagoon-catamarans, had already been phased out of the production (which is a good thing). The Excess 13 measures 12.99 by 7.29 meters in standard version. She will become a little longer with the performance bowsprit configuration (as shown in La Grande Motte), totally measuring 15.30 meters in length when fitted. That´s a staggering 50 feet length overall: Not a small boat at all!
Another nice new feature – and testament to the fact that here we have a totally new generation of Excess cats – are the folding transoms, or „sugarscoops“. These are not only practical, as they close the aft part of the boat which increases safety, escpecially when sailing with kids or animals. This feature also shortens the length of the boat which will make for a nice saving on demurrage.
Fast and fun catamaran sailing is in the DNA
So, let´s take a look at the bare numbers: Standing on top of the cabin roof and looking down upon the bows of both 13 and 14, one can clearly see that the flagship is indeed q quite bigger boat. Nevertheless, the 13 will be the perfect choice for many catamaran buyers I am sure as she really hits the sweet spot in terms of size – and price. A sail ready Excess 13 can be bought for some 500-600.000 Euros exVAT, which is a nice bargain on the bigger sister.
When you make a buying decision for an Excess – no matter which one – please opt for the „Pulse Line“-rigging option. This is something that should´nt be missing on your specificantions list. Upwind sail area will thus increase from 115 square meters to 124, which is mainly due to an approximately 1 m taller mast and the square top mainsail. If the Excess 13 has sailing capabilities analogue to the 14, she will be an outstanding lightwind performer!
The brand came into existence because other, more sportive catamaran builders had cultivated the aft-steering positions. This makes for a lower boom and increase of mainsail area, but also kind introduces active, fun and „monohull-like“ sailing. The helmsman becomes much more integrated into social life in the cockpit instead of being somewhat alone up there in the flybridge. As all lines and winches are located well within reach, reaction time is at a minimum.
If you like the aft-steering configuration of the Excess and Nautitech, or rather fancy the elevated helm position of a full or semi-flybridge, such as Outremer or Lagoon, is really up to you. You should definitely check both concepts (maybe during a charter week) before making up your mind. Also, check onboard operations, especially landing and berthing the catamaran with all (!) of the people later involved. Me, personally, I am definitely the aft-steering guy.
Sails handling on the Excess 13
Looking at the helmsman´s workplace: It is situated at the starboard steering station. The two main working winches operate all lines of the complete running rigging except for lightwind sail-sheets for Gennaker or Code 0 sails. All of those lines run through the impressive clavier of jammers.
As seen in the picture, at least one of these winches should be electric. Getting up the mainsail or reefing the Genoa will be a tedious task if done manually for sure. Excess offers this option, although, after looking and testing the foot-operated electric winches aboard the HH 44 I fancy this option. It enables the trimmer to work the ropes with both hands while pushing buttons to fire up the winches with his feet. If you could get this, do it! As for the mainsail fine trim, Excess offers another (also electric) winch on the aft transom of the bridge deck. It has a dual purpose.
You can either use it to swing around the massive boom that carries the huge square top mainsail. The mainsheet traveler is a very important instrument for sails trim, opting for this is in my eyes absolutely necessary. The secondary task of the electric winch back here is operation of the dinghy davits. Both ropes end in jammers just in front of the winch as well, though only one of them could be operated at a time.
More power is standard now
It was great news back in the day when Excess announced that the then-new Excess 14 would be available with an overlapping Genoa. Tests with this system on the Excess 11 were so successful, that it even became standard in the small one instead of the selftacking Jib. Same for the new Excess 13 – albeit with a small change.
Up until now, finetuning your Genoa on an Excess catamaran meant that the trimmer would have to go to leeward side, reach for the sheet car mounted on the roof of the bridgedeck and put it forward or aft by hand. This also meant that during this proceedings, the headsail would have been loosened to ease the pressure on the sheet. Especially in stormy weather with waves, or at night, not a particularly hazard-free undertaking. On the Excess 13 now, there is no need to do this anymore. The Genoa-sheets are lead through loopeyes which make a cockpit-operated 3D-trim-system for the headsail. Definitely a hige step forward!
All in all the new Excess 13 comes with a very sportive and performance oriented rigging. The 10.6 tons (light-)displacement will certainly be powered nicely by the 124 square meters of sail area, much more when a Gennaker or Code 0 joins the party on reaching and runnin points of sail. The sport-chique is underlines by the black anodized stanchions, pulpits and fittings. Looking at both the stainless steel and black-versions next to each other, it´s amazing how big of a difference this makes in terms of looks.
The Excess is a sportive brand meant to satisfy the need for speed, fun and active sailing for ordinary owners. She is not an outright extreme performer: Excess catamarans are built for quick and fun cruising. That said, practical options like the rigid bimini for the helm stations, optional enclosure for the cockpit and other details are on the options list as well. Again, especially when comparing these helm station-biminis with their predecessors on Excess 11 and 14, it´s a huge step forward in terms of beauty and design.
In the cockpit: Best of both worlds
The main area for both the crew and your guests (or your family members) on a catamaran is always the cockpit. For Excess, I know that special emphasis is set on designing this part of the boat. The 13 is no exception. There are cushions, sofas and areas to recline almost everywhere!
The aft bench over the complete width of the bridgedeck, the classy two-seater foldable stearing seats with nice backrests or the L-shaped settee around the cockpit table: Everyone will surely find a place to sit down, stretch out and relax. It was a rainy day during La Grande Motte show, but in this respect a nice coincidence: This way I could see with my own eyes and try out the properties of Excess´ new deck material. Cork.
The supplanting of Myanmar Teak and a strive to becoming more sustainable, many boatbuilders look for alternatives. I´ve posted a lot articles on this issue: Be it natural materials like Iroko, synthetic PVC-based decks like Evo or processed and modified natural materials like Limba-based „Tesumo“. Excess proposes Cork. And I must say, I like it! It feels great on bare foot, looks „fresh“ and not as uncanny as fake plastic Teak and dry fast, as I could see with my own eyes.
The cockpit are of the Excess 13 is large. The boat is rated CE-category A, for six to 12 people on lower categories. Even those 12, when in full charter-mode, will seek a place to enjoy a wonderful day on the water. If you plan to regularly invite more people on board, go for the extendable cockpit table. This way the 2/3-seater to starboard can be utilized as well.
There are some little nice details to be found in the cockpit as well. Such as the above seen little cabinet behind the main settee and the backside of the ship´s galley. Here, an adult can nicely stand up, maybe helping to dress up a table for dinner passing on food and tablewear. Also, when the catamaran is locked, windows and door is closed, here´s a nice place to stow away practical things needed in the cockpit without having to utilize the huge underseat-stowage in the aft sofa.
Another cool little thing are the „flaps“: Seen from afar, they only look like pure design elements to lengthen the black stripe of the coachroof. But there is a function to them as well. With a simple „click“, these flaps fold outside. The idea is to channel the headwind coming around the side of the bridgedeck into the cockpit. This can make for a natural stream of fresh air even in a hot summer´s day. Liked it!
Transition between „inside“ and „outside“
You may have read the previous article about the new Lagoon 38. Transition between „inside“ and „outside“ is one of the most important issues for interior designes of multihulls. Answering the question of „how can we make the interior feel like it is connected to the exterior?“ and to make the passage between both as fluent as possible is a prime objective. Excess employed Piaton Design for the new Excess 13 – a perfect move! You will see more of their nice work later.
As for the Excess 13, unlike other Catamarans, transition is rather „narrow“. There is a sliding door which makes the entrance and one sliding window, opening the space of the galley to flow into the cockpit. Thus, the openings are comparatively small, but on the other hand also practical, minimizing glass-surface.
On the bridgedeck: The saloon of the new Excess 13
Stepping into the salon of the boat, I am greeted and stunned by the sheer amount of natural light. It has also always been a feature of Excess catamarans to offer an unobstructed 360 degrees panoramic view in their boats. This traditions lives on in the new one: Windows are not angled to minimize reflections and refractions, Excess also abstains from utilizing tinted glass windows for the sake of better view for the helmsman from the rear.
The new 13 has a classy salon layout: Dinner area to the front righthand side, the whole backside of the boat, as already proven in 11 and 14, is reserved for the galley. The new dinner-area features an L-shaped seating arrangement. The table is slightly cut at its left side to allow for easy slide-in as the backrest is a bit bent. This makes for a nice little boundary from the adjining nav-corner.
This Excess 13 features the white lacquered furniture, which is a very nice combination of the standard Teak-like veeneered joinery and the Teak floor. The white surfaces reflect so much of the natural light and make the interior even more friendly. But of course, white joinery needs to be treated accordingly so that you can enjoy its spotless color for a long time. Look at the nice, simple and lightweight bench under the table:
That´s another nice little detail of Piaton Design´s work and a testament to the next generation approach of this catamaran. As much as I loved the simple poofs on the Excess 11 and 14, these were not very comfy nor „guest-approved“. This new bench has a simple design yet it looks much more valuable than the simple poof. With a screw fixed to the floor, it can rotate in and out (or move freely without fixing) to accomodate the guests.
Dedicated nav-station for the catamaran skipper
At last! Piaton Design solved the issue of the navigation station and skipper´s place for Excess once and for all! You know it: I´m a fan of a dedicated place for the Captain to sit down, do his weather routing, work the charts or make an entry into the ship´s log. Yet, both the Excess 11 and much more the Excess 14 were a little disappointing in this respect. Not so on the 13: As skipper, you get back your space – and it´s quite something!
The Captain´s chair is made in a similar style as the dinner bench next to it. It blends perfectly into the overall design. The chart table features stowage, perfect view over the bows, secondary displays and the VHF. If the skipper needs more space, he can easily take away the cushion of the dinner settee. Just look out for your left hand side: There´s the steep entry down into the guest´s hull. All in all, I really love both the exterior as well as the interior appearance of this boat. A real step forward.
Cooking aboard the Excess 13
Of no less importance as the inside/outside-effect for a catamaran is the ship´s galley. A cat, much more than a monohull, is a boat for conoisseurs and people enjoying the sunny side of life. Cooking, preparing meals, is of utmost importance and a great occasion for any day onboard life. Where the galley´s size of the Excess 11 was too small in terms of stowage, the shipyard had to come up with surplus hanging cupboards and storage all over the place.
On the Excess 14, of course, the volume of the boat makes for much more stowage. The Excess 13 sits somewhere in the middle, but tending more towards the 14. Three stove burner and oven are places to the left hand side of the kitches whereas the single sink faces directly backwards. Plenty of drawers and space in the L-shaped floor-unit as well as in the fridge-unit vis-a-vis, no need (as of now) to obstruct the nice free view through the windows with new hanging cupboards.
A problem might be the fridge and freezer capcity. The Excess 13 offers only one fridge unit with 130 liters. No upgrade option (at least not seen on the ducments I´ve obtained) for additional cooling capacity, let alone a freezer. I think that customers demand will quickly make dealers and shipyard rethink this approach: This is the setup of the Excess 11 and even on this small boat, 130 liters have been considered too less. Let´s go down and check out the cabins.
Your suite is ready: The owner´s hull
Again, the Excess 13 is available in two layouts. „Owners“ with a dedicated hull for the owners and two guest cabins, and a 4-cabin version for bigger families, co-ownerships and of cource, utilization in charter. The boat on diplay was of course the owner´s version. When the Excess 13 had been announced, the community was in a flurry of excitement. Excess´ specialty is the online „Excess Lab“, a dedicated forum-style website where owners and fans can post questions and suggestions – the shipyard reacts and utilizes the informations provided there. What „we“ all were asking for in the Excess 13 was not a smaller 14, but a bigger 11. This wish, for the most part, had become true. Except for one, at least for me – the beds.
I absolutely love (!) the Excess 11 beds! Measuring over 2 meters to both sides, these beds can be used sleeping in the direction of travel or traversely to it. This makes it very comfortable, when the boat is slightly heeling. Well. My pleads haven´t been answered. As some of the yard´s representatives tell me, extensive panels had been conducted by Excess to determine details of the boat. One of which was dedicated to beds. And apparently, the island bed-faction gained the upper hand.
I also „miss“ a bit the nicely low hull windows of the Excess 11: Aboard this boat, when laying down in bed, these were positioned in a way so that you could peek out of them. This isn´t possible anymore in the Excess 13. Although level of natural light is pretty high, that´s something I had insisted for in designing this new catamaran. Anyway, we are mostly unconscious down here, right? So why bother so much!
Lessons learned from the Excess 14
One thing Piaton Design got very, very right aboard the new Excess 13 is the rest of the owner´s hull. As much interior space the 14 offers, as much as „disappointing“ was the vield of luxury for that boat´s owner´s hull. Especially the forward section with the silly walk-in closet and the narrow bathroom. I released compressed air out of my lungs when going down here in the 13 für the first time – here, it is much, much better!
First of all, the „boat office“ – I don´t know how they make it – but appears much more open, friendly and lush than on the 14. It´s an inviting atmosphere. With the small rotated tilted to the left, you are now sitting facing the ship´s sailing direction with a nice little opening porthole roght next to you. This saves space and you don´t have to sit facing the open saloon with your backside. The large shelf-configuration on the boat´s side may be used for verius purposes. I like it.
Much more I like the fact that the Excess 13 has now a small „wardrobe“ and a huge bathroom in the bow section. This was and still is in my point of view the biggest downside in the 14. The wardrobe features a nice big hanging locker and again many shelves and cupboards for your clothes. Adjoining – with a nice multi-purpose swing-door, the owenr´s bathroom.
The Excess 11 has the biggest bathroom for catamarans her size. It´s still amazing to see the faces of people who enter these for the first time. It´s a similar feeling aboard the Excess 13. A nice amount of natural light can enter through the bow hull windows and skylight hatches. To the right hand side, the electric WC is located, vis-a-vis a separated sink („his“ and „hers“) with a central drain. I find that Excess has a lot of wooden elements in the bathroom, which helps it appear more valuable and luxurious than just displaying bare gelcoat surfaces.
The shower is large enough to house two people enjoying a shower together. Also something you barely see on other boats. All in all, I really like the work of Piaton Design in the owner´s hull of the new 13. Although missing a full-size bed á la Excess 11 in the rear, the layout and partitioning works just fine for me, making this a cozy, at home and also kind of luxurious place. Well done!
A new concept for a shared/non-shared guest bathroom
Similarly, the task for the designers in the guest´s hull could have been, to retain large cabins and bed sizes by also making sure that each guest will at least have their own dedicated WC. The shared bathroom for bot guest cabins on the Excess 11 was a no go for the 13, such as the twin en-suite bathrooms for each guest on 14. So, how to solve this problem? Let´s start with some good news here:
The forward guest cabin in the Excess 13 features „my“ full-width beds! This is how you do it! As the rear guest cabin has a similar island-bed configuration as the owner´s, the third cabin now comes up with my beloved berths. I find, this instantly changes the perception of the whole room, right? For me, I´d always prefer this design over any island beds! So, I am happy to see this. But what about thebathrooms? Well, Piaton came up with a solution, I´m not quite sure as of now if I like it or find it … rather strange.
Yes, indeed: Every guest cabin has its own dedicated WC, which is enterted through different doors. What Piaton came up with was the idea to split the toilets, but keep sharing the shower. This rather unusual configuration is unseen, at least for me. So in reality, both swinging doors into the central shared shower must be closed. This way, maximum privacy, least amount of olfactory or noise interference is (hopefully) provided for. When one wants to take a shower, you can enter on your side, lock the shower-door to your neighbor and proceed. Be sure to unlock when finished.
It´s clearly a very clever use of the somewhat limited volume to make sure that maximum amenities are available for both cabins. But in the extreme, as seen in the picture above, technically, it is possible to have a „session“ down here with open shower-doors, directly looking into the face of your cabin neigbor … A funny notion and maybe working for friends and families. If this is acceptable for charter-crews, we will see.
How does the new Excess 13 sail?
Yeah, well, that´s the question, right? Unfortunately the layout of the La Grande Motte show prohibited any sea trials, although I´d loved to sail with her. Especially in light wind conditions where her bigger sister ship blew away my mind with very, very good performance in literally no wind. I will cease any opportunity to try out the Excess 13 under sails if there opens up one in the future, promised!
So in the end, I am satisfied: Excess managed to propose a boat that not just lives up to the expectations. The new 13 is clearly a big step forward for the brand, a new benchmark in terms of design, especially for her interior design. Piaton was an excellent choice, propelling the boat significantly. The sail plan, the clever layout for the running rigging, the sugarscoops and many more details certainly make it a very interesting alternative if you seek a sportive, yet comfortable cruising catamaran. Facing the current high prices for yachts, the decent series production quality and impressive after sales service of Groupe Beneteau may as well attract new buyers who would normally tend to higher brands. And now: Where and when can I sail her?
You might as well be interested in these articles:
Speculations aboaut the new Excess 13
The trick of asymmetric hulls
Excess 14 seatrials: No wind-performance and moderate winds