It was the opening day of racing last February in the sixth annual Caribbean Multihull Challenge and Rally on the island of St. Maarten, and I was in the thick of the action aboard a 50-foot French catamaran charging upwind. At least I thought I was. A fleet of diminutive but extremely quick trimarans started to pass us, their three-person crews adorned in helmets with the spray flying. It sort of reminded me of the classic Western film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where the protagonists are chased by a relentless posse and Butch asks Sundance, again and again, “Who are those guys?”
At the CMC, it turned out those dudes were sailing the fastest-growing one-design fleet in the islands, a nimble, blazingly quick 24-foot tri called a Diam 24. And man, they were having a blast. In an era when participation in sailboat racing is on the wane in many venues, the Diam 24 class on St. Maarten is an unqualified success story.
Built in France with infused fiberglass and a carbon-fiber core to a design by the VPLP naval architecture group—a consortium known for massive offshore trimarans such as the MOD 70—the Diam 24 is a small wonder that can be dismantled and shipped easily in a specially designed container. But the class owes its resounding popularity in St. Maarten to a singular, speed-obsessed French sailor named Pierre Altier, who skippers his own Diam 24 called Cry Baby.
After his first sail aboard the boat three years ago, Altier says: “I fell in love with this boat. Everyone says multihulls don’t go upwind that well, but the Diam points at a 45-degree angle at a speed of 14 knots, which is crazy for a boat this size.” In late 2021, Altier purchased Cry Baby and persuaded a couple of friends to join the fun, and all three boats were shipped to St. Maarten in a single container. The roots of success were planted.
But Altier, who runs a charter business in the islands, wanted more competition. He began lending the boat to friends and other local businesses to show them what it could do. “That was the key to get more people to join us,” he says. Before long, there were five Diams on the starting line for local events.
But Altier still wasn’t satisfied. He realized the numbers would grow if he owned several boats himself and chartered them out for regattas at reasonable rates, which is how the fleet grew to the 10 Diams racing in the CMC. At $700 a day for racing events, each of Altier’s three Diams is a bargain. Running rigging and a dolly for beach launching is $69,000 for a brand-new Diam with North Sails, which includes shipping to St. Maarten. In small-boat racing, it’s hard to imagine more bounce for the buck.
For Altier, there’s been only one drawback: For the first couple of years, nobody could touch Cry Baby on the racetrack. That’s no longer the case, as his fourth-place finish in the most recent CMC attests. “The competition has definitely ramped up,” he says. “I have a harder time than before to try and win. Better and better sailors were welcomed to come try and beat me, which is what happened.
“The word is getting out about how good the class is,” he adds. “And now we have multihull sailors from other classes coming to try out the Diam. It raises the level for everyone. For example, if you tune the boat better, we’re finding you can be 3 or 4 knots faster. It’s incredible. It’s been a real game-changer. And I’m very happy that the game is changing.”
So, Cry Baby is no longer the undisputed Diam 24 champion. Altier is spilling no tears.
