Nigel Calder’s New Outbound Build - the next ‘Nada’

I am having a new Outbound 44 built!

As part of Sail magazine’s ‘Best Boats’ judging team, I saw my first Outbound when it made its debut at the Annapolis boat show in 2001 or 2002. I was immediately drawn to it. It’s a quintessential offshore cruising monohull from the drawing board of the brilliant Carl Schumacher, who tragically died of a heart attack at age 52 shortly after the first Outbounds were launched.

By the time the Outbound took shape on Carl’s drawing board he had designed a wide array of boats including race winners (Carl was an enthusiastic racer), cruising boats, and dayboats. He had a keen eye for aesthetics. The Outbound 44/46 is a synthesis of all he had learned: a comfortable sea boat with excellent sailing characteristics and classic good looks. The interior has a time-proven layout that optimizes every last cubic inch of volume. The cockpit is ergonomically designed for sail handling in the roughest conditions.

"A comfortable sea boat with excellent sailing characteristics and classic good looks. The interior has a time-proven layout that optimizes every last cubic inch of volume. The cockpit is ergonomically designed for sail handling in the roughest conditions."

The feature that most clearly states: “This is a no compromises offshore cruising boat” is the ‘tool room’. Can you imagine any modern designer sacrificing what could be a third cabin to optimize the systems layout and functionality? I loved it, but at the time Terrie and I had two teenage children and wanted a three-cabin layout so that when they got older they would continue to sail with us along with their partners.

Fast forward 20+ years. The children have long since flown the coop. Our three-cabin boat was becoming too much work for our aging bodies and our somewhat arthritic joints. With extreme reluctance, this year I sold our beloved ‘Nada’ and began looking for a replacement that will give us the same quality cruising experience with less work and physical discomfort. I inspected a number of secondhand boats that might have fit the bill (and we made an offer on one). Then I went to the Annapolis boat show and stepped aboard an Outbound 46. There was immediately never any doubt about what the new boat would be.

"I went to the Annapolis boat show and stepped aboard an Outbound 46. There was immediately never any doubt about what the new boat would be."

And now the tool room is a huge asset! For the past two decades I have been involved in multi-year R&D projects that have resulted in qualitative improvements in how we generate and manage onboard energy. My new Outbound model will incorporate all the latest and best of these technologies, including some which have just been released this year and others on which we are putting the final touches as I write this. The ‘tool room’ provides the perfect space to optimize the installation and showcase an outstanding energy creation and management system. This system will provide the comforts of home, including electric cooking (no hauling propane cylinders back and forth) without having a generator on the boat.

This will be Terrie’s and my last boat. Just as the Outbound 44/46 synthesizes so much that Carl Schumacher learned, so too the new ‘Nada’ will synthesize so much that Terrie and I have learned over the course of almost 50 years of cruising in four, and now five, boats that we have either built or had built for us.

It is going to be an exciting few months waiting for the build process to complete and ‘Nada’ to be delivered!

Nigel Calder, November 2025