Amel 50, MAMITA

Broker’s Comments

Amel Yachts are a phenomenon, designed and built for shorthanded, safe, and capable bluewater cruising. For this reason, every Amel features a safe, sheltered, and protected pilothouse/cockpit, allowing the crew to remain within this area while at sea. All sail handling, engine control, retractable bow thruster, and navigation gear are managed from here. The helmsman’s chair is height-adjustable, and the pilothouse windows are wraparound plexiglass. The centre section, along with the aft, side sections, and deckhead, can be opened in favourable conditions.

MAMITA was the first Amel 50, built in 2017 to designs by Berrett-Racoupeau. Since then, around 100 sister ships have been delivered. The Amel 50 is the perfect size for shorthanded bluewater sailing, and with three sleeping cabins, it offers excellent accommodation for guests as well.

MAMITA features a white topsides livery, a beautiful light oak interior, and white-painted spars, along with fully push-button sailing. She is fully equipped for long-term cruising. Her owners initially used her in the UK before sailing through the Mediterranean to the Balearics. When COVID struck, MAMITA returned to the UK, then to Scotland, before heading back to the warmth of the Eastern Mediterranean. She has proven to be a comfortable and safe passagemaker, as well as a delightful platform for living well.

MAMITA has been carefully maintained through life and is offered in full cruising trim.

Owner’s Comments

For many years, whilst owning smaller yachts, we always hugely admired Amels. Amel’s reputation for building very high quality and well-equipped bluewater yachts built for safe and easy handling by a couple in all conditions is unsurpassed. Amel have been in business for around 60 years and are a prospering yard that has recently been extended, and there is a long wait list for their yachts.

For our retirement, we were considering the Amel 55 but felt the size and ketch rig were too big for us. In 2017, Amel made a switch in philosophy to a more modern hull design, styling and single mast rig and we were hooked. We placed an order for number one of the new Amel 50 with a very extensive extras specification.

Amel 50 #001 was a special build for Amel, the first of her kind and we watched as she was built slowly and carefully by Amel, who wanted to get everything exactly right for all the yachting public scrutiny that was to follow. It has been pleasing to see the Amel 50 go on to win Yacht of the Year in 2018. Production ramped up and there are now more than 100 Amel 50s on the water. Amel followed the Amel 50 with Amel 60, the same concept as the very successful 50. They now only produce the 50 and 60 and the waiting list is long.

As Amel 50 #001, Amel showed MAMITA at a number of boat shows as well as for demonstration sails during her first months and we took ownership from Amel in mid-2018. We sailed her home to the UK, and after cruising in home waters we left for the Mediterranean in 2019. My wife and I had a wonderful cruise visiting many ports and arrived near Barcelona in the Autumn. In 2020, we sailed to the Balearics. During COVID, MAMITA sailed back to west coast of Scotland then to the South UK coast. We wanted to finish our ‘COVID interrupted’ Mediterranean itinerary, so in 2023 we had a professional delivery crew sail her from Plymouth direct to the Ionian in Greece, where she has been based ever since. We have had enormous fun there with children, grandchildren, and various friends.
MAMITA is a perfect boat for us, sheer safety, and luxury. She has looked after us in some very harsh weather conditions, when we have been safely protected in a warm, sheltered wheelhouse, with all sail handling operated from the helm station. She is easy for the two of us to berth with her very powerful 8hp bow thruster. In the heat of the Mediterranean, we can always be cool using her powerful air-conditioning and the watermaker means we always have plenty of freshwater without needing to take on water in a marina. In our view, she is the ultimate liveaboard bluewater yacht for a couple.

After twenty years of sailing, we have made some brilliant memories, and so now with mixed feelings we are moving on to another phase in our lives. We have an expanding entourage of grandchildren and other commitments in the UK and a new holiday home.

Thus, we now offer MAMITA to new owners and hope that that they will love her as much as we have. MAMITA has been lightly used compared to many other yachts of her type, but always very well maintained with an annual lift out and all required service work carried out. Anything in doubt has always been repaired or replaced. We think she is in very good shape for many more adventures. She is very highly specified with lots of extras, spares, and equipment.

For prospective owners, Amel 50 have a very active private Facebook group for questions and chat, and the Amel customer service for advice and parts is excellent, managed from their factory in La Rochelle and via support bases in the South of France and in the Caribbean.