Staley Weidman tours a globe-ready 2012 Sunreef 82 DD stacked with dive gear, twin wind generators, and a full carbon rig.
Some catamarans are built for weekends. Houbara, a 2012 Sunreef 82 Double Deck, was clearly built for horizons. Guided through the yacht by Staley Weidman of The Catamaran Company, the walkthrough reveals a boat that pairs Sunreef’s craftsmanship with the kind of purposeful outfitting that only shows up on serious long-range cruisers.
An Aft Deck That Thinks Like a Dive Boat
The stern platform is more than a lounge zone. Tucked into the transom is a dedicated stowage bay for six dive bottles, secured so they don’t rattle at sea, plumbed to an onboard dive compressor via a concealed hose. When it’s closed up, none of it is visible. Even more unusual, Staley points out a hidden compartment that swallows a full-size jet ski — something he says he’s never seen integrated so cleanly on a catamaran. The dinghy davits handle the tender easily, and you can load dive tanks straight in without cluttering the deck.
Cockpit, Flybridge, and the Details That Add Up
The main cockpit is expansive: enormous sun-lounging pads, a large dining table in excellent condition, a small planted garden with bromeliads, and enclosure covers that can button the whole space up in weather. The teak has been recently sanded and reads as near-perfect. A spiral staircase — with slide-over covers to keep rain out of the lower cockpit — leads to the flybridge.
Up top, the dining table folds in half to reshape the seating area, and the starboard side carries a molded-in bar module with a propane grill, sink, fridge, and ice maker. The helm has full instrumentation: chart plotter, radar, AIS, autopilot, wind, engine multifunction display, plus dual bow thrusters (one per hull, independently operable) and two windlass controls — the primary for a heavier-gauge chain, the secondary for a lighter anchor, with a dedicated shallow-water depth gauge for setting the hook.
Sail handling is fully electric. Five Harken winches — including a Harken 80 two-speed electric — handle the mainsheet traveler, halyards, reef lines, and lazy jacks, while push-button electric furlers manage the gennaker, genoa, and staysail. Twin Cummins diesels round out the propulsion, and a full inside lower helm mirrors the flybridge controls for weather-day passages.
Built for Autonomy
Behind the flybridge lounge, Houbara carries the hallmarks of a boat set up to stay away from the dock. Eight solar panels are split across port and starboard, joined by two wind generators — an unusual pairing at this size. A satellite TV dome and a mini V-SAT for offshore internet and telephony sit alongside them. The rig itself is a statement: a massive solid carbon fiber Park Avenue-style canoe boom, full carbon mast with LED illumination on the leading edge, and Kevlar/aramid shrouds in clean condition.
Eighteen underwater lights ring the hulls — inboard, aft, along the sides, and even two in the bow shining inward beneath the trampolines — creating the halo effect visible in the evening shots from Las Palmas. The paint, an Awlgrip-style metallic, was redone last year in La Ciotat, France, and the retractable cleats (a €5,000-apiece upgrade Staley notes from his own current Sunreef 80 build) appear throughout.
Forward and Below
Walking forward, the deck is tidy: 12-volt mooring capstans concealed port and starboard, frameless flush hatches, refreshed non-skid, Spectra lifelines, twin anchor windlasses with remote and handheld control, and huge trampoline areas flanking the bowsprit. The martingale and stainless hardware show no signs of the corrosion often found on older cats.
The showstopper below is the full-width owner’s cabin spanning the forward beam — 34 feet of it — complete with a jacuzzi and forward-looking views that, as Staley puts it, are simply spectacular.
A Rare Bird
Sunreef didn’t build many 82 Double Decks, and Houbara is a one-off in specification and outfit. On the current market, that scarcity shows:
| Sunreef 82 DD Market | Figure |
|---|---|
| Active listings | 1 |
| Asking price | $2,990,000 |