Four big cruising cats with graceful lines, a focus on sailing dynamics and cruising ammenities that put the world's oceans at your fingertips.

Maraya, the first of the M series was designed with relatively deep fixed keels as the owner’s preference, mainly to achieve good windward performance without the complication of daggerboards and the associated control systems.

For the Oasis design shallow draft was a high priority in the design brief, preferably no more than about 1.3 meters draught, and if we limited the rudder to the same depth then the keel would provide good protection for the rudder in case of a grounding.

On getting down to the specifics of the design it turned out that to achieve this I would have to use a rudder blade of significantly lower aspect ratio than I would normally use.

I was able to improve on the situation by moving the rudder further aft and adding another 150mm to the keel draught. To optimise the efficiency of the keel I put a hollow in the keel planform, making the keel waterlines finer at the top than bottom thereby helping to promote undisturbed flow over the keel surface and minimising tip loss. The keel form will be further optimized by adding an end plate to the bottom. 

Daggerboards are an option for the Maraya, Maniche and Mariella models in the M series

If the helm is aft, or if it is set low behind the cabin bulkhead then you want the organizers and winches down at deck level. If the winches are higher than about waist level then the ergonomics are terrible, and if you need to lead most of the control lines down to the deck from the cabin top then you have more hardware, more friction in the lines and more potential for clutter.

So ideally decisions about the helm station design and the mast position need to be made together to be ergonomically effective and efficient in operation.

While Maraya had the mast on deck, two factors have influenced our thinking toward a preference for placing the mast on the cabin top for the M Series cats. The first is the raised helm station which makes it relatively simple to lead halyards and sheet lines directly from the mast base to the winches immediately forward of the helm station with a minimum of hardware required for redirecting the lines.

The second factor is sail configuration. We want the highest possible proportion of the sail area to be in the headsails because the headsails can be managed much more easily than the main using furlers. This is a significant factor on larger multihulls, especially of they are being sailed short handed.

We could introduce a third factor and that is that moving the centre of effort in the rig aft allows the boat to be driven harder in fresh conditions. This is a significant factor in the design of racing boats but it can be of benefit to cruising boats as well. 

Maraya was originally Raku 66, but she didn't really belong in the Raku lineup. The styling is discernibly different, the configuration of the rig is different and she's in a larger size range than any of the Raku cats.

Two of the other M Series names, Mariella and Marliese come from two of my favourite songs. 

Maniche is the nickname given to the character of Romaine by (character) Pierre Arditi in the Classic 1980's drama Melo by French film maker Alain Resnais. I chose the name for no reason other than  the film, the actors and the dialogue have resonated with me over a number of decades.