If you want a boat that a family of four could comfortably cruise on, but you also want outboard power, your choices are going to be limited. If you want that same boat to enjoy a range of well over 300 miles at cruising speed and a top-end hitting 30 mph, your choices will be even more limited. And if you also want that boat to come standard with a bow thruster for easy maneuvering, a solar charging system for easy recharging, and a Lewmar 1000 windlass for easy anchoring, well, your choices just became exceptionally limited. Oh, and you say you want a gorgeous teak interior, too? Lucky for you, Aspen Power Catamarans builds the Aspen C108.
The C108 is 37 feet, six inches long, boasts a 10-foot, eight-inch beam, and tips the scales at over five tons dry. Normally those specifications alone would mean you’d be doomed to rather epic inefficiency and relatively low range with gasoline powerplants, but the C108 maintains around two mpg at a 20-mph cruise with 300-plus mile abilities (including a 10-percent reserve) thanks to its entirely unique hull design. This boat is a “proa,” meaning that it’s a twin-hull catamaran, but those hulls aren’t exactly twins—one is 35-percent wider than the other. They’re designed to track straight, and the larger hull carries a 200-hp outboard while the narrower hull has 115 horses sitting on the transom. Weight gets reduced, hydrodynamic drag is reduced, and suddenly a mere 315 horses gets you that efficient cruise and a 30-mph top-end.
The unusual hull design does create a different environment belowdecks than you might find on other cruisers. The main deck’s saloon, galley, and helm are more or less the same as you might find on a monohull, with a galley to port and a large C-shaped Ultraleather settee and dinette to starboard. The staterooms, however, are arranged quite differently. The master is forward and spans the beam, with a king berth oriented athwartships, and access to the head aft in the starboard side (larger) hull. Aft of that there’s a completely separate private quarter-berth accessed via a hatch in the head’s aft bulkhead. There’s a second private quarter-berth carved out in the port hull, underneath the galley. That means a couple can enjoy the grandeur of a full stateroom with a king, and the kids can spend the night in their own private mini-cabins.
A perk we love on the C108 is that this is truly a do-everything cruiser. There’s a roof rack ready and waiting to haul those kayaks and an inflatable tender can sit on a cradle elevated over the outboards. There’s also a swim platform between the engines, and Aspen thoughtfully equips the cockpit with fishing rod holders and a raw water washdown. Those more focused on entertaining will appreciate the wet bar with a sink, Corian counter, and refrigerator, and perhaps opt to get the upgraded walnut cocktail bar with swivel stools, or maybe even the outdoor galley.
It should be obvious by now that the Aspen C108 is an incredibly well thought out boat with a number of features and attributes that range from unusual to one-of-a-kind. But we haven’t yet touched upon its construction, which is just as impressive. The boat is laid up with vinyl ester resin (the more expensive, less permeable type) and topped in ArmorCote ISO NPG gelcoat. Bulkheads are cored with Coosa composites and are watertight collision bulkheads; each compartment has its own bilge pump, for a total of eight. And the foam-filled bows are reinforced with Kevlar and carbon fiber.
That may sound like a bit of overkill when it comes to constructing a cruiser of this size and nature, but remember that the Aspen is built in Burlington, WA, and is intended to dwell happily in the Pacific Northwest. Here on the Bay when we run aground, it’s generally on mud or maybe shell, but out there it’s on big, jagged rocks. And when it comes to how strongly a boat is built, well, overkill is a good thing.
Will the C108 prove to be your ideal cruiser? That’s a call that only you can make. But we can say one thing for sure: if you need to find a boat that the whole family can enjoy in multiple ways, looking at an Aspen C108 certainly should not be proahibited.
By Lenny Rudow
Aspen C108 Specifications:
LOA: 37’6”
Beam: 10’8”
Draft (min.): 1’10”
Displacement (approx.): 10,840 lbs.
Fuel Capacity: 130 gal. (180 optional)
Transom deadrise: NA
Max HP: 400
Learn more: aspenpowercatamarans.com