Morrelli & Melvin
Morrelli & Melvin: Naval Architects of the Multihull World
The Founders
Morrelli & Melvin is a California-based naval architecture and engineering firm that has become, over more than three decades, one of the most influential forces in performance multihull design.
With a mix of bleeding-edge technology and an irreverent attitude, Gino Morrelli and Pete Melvin have spent more than two decades creating classic designs.
Gino Morrelli is the more instinctive, hands-on half of the partnership – a Southern California native whose passion for boats began in his own backyard. Gino started out working on race cars and boats in his family’s Southern California back yard as a teenager.
He built his first boat with his dad and brother, a 33-foot Crowther trimaran in high school. Soon after he started his first company, Climax Catamarans, designing and building 18-square meter cats. He has been entrenched in onshore and offshore race-boat construction efforts since the early 1980s, designing and managing the construction of a French 60-foot ocean racing catamaran, multiple Formula 40s, the 1988 Stars & Stripes America’s Cup catamaran, Bol D’or racers, Little America’s Cup C-Class cats, and many racing beach catamarans.
Pete Melvin brings a contrasting but complementary engineering precision to the partnership. Pete Melvin is the engineer – precise, measured and excited by all things technical. He is a trained aerospace engineer who spent five years at McDonnell Douglas, during which he also campaigned Tornados in the Olympics.
In 1988, along with his crew Pat Muglia, Melvin won the Tornado trials and represented the United States at the Olympic Games in Korea. Pete has been a champion sailboat racer since his youth and has won over 25 National Championships in a wide variety of dinghies, keelboats, and multihulls of all sizes. He has won three World Championships, including the 1997 and 2005 A-Class Catamaran World Championships. Morrelli Melvin
Pete Melvin manages the design office and participates in all levels of the design process. He is a graduate of Boston University with a degree in Aerospace Engineering, and formed Morrelli & Melvin in 1992.
History and Founding
Both Morrelli and Melvin have been passionate about sailing since childhood and started building their own boats early on. When they finally got to know each other, they both had considerable experience in the yachting industry, and together they decided to set up their own studio.
The firm was formally established in 1992 and has since grown into a full team of engineers, designers, and naval architects.
They are acknowledged leaders in sail and power multihull design and engineering – the only design and engineering team with two multihull America’s Cup winning design credits: Stars and Stripes in 1988, and Oracle/BMW in 2010.
Pete Melvin has twice been involved with rewriting America’s Cup rules: the AC72 rule used in the 2013 Cup, and the ACC rule released in June 2014 for the 2017 race. He even moved to New Zealand for two years to take up the position of principal naval architect developing foiling systems for the country’s Cup contender.
Landmark Designs
Stars & Stripes (1988):
One of the firm’s earliest landmark moments came before the partnership was even formally founded. Without the time to design a monohull to match the Australians’ in a Deed of Gift challenge for the America’s Cup, the Americans designed a catamaran.
San Diego Yacht Club was defending the America’s Cup and turned to the Sail America Design Team, which Gino joined alongside John Marshall, Bruce Nelson, Dave Hubbard, Duncan MacLane, Britton Chance Jr., and Bernard Nivelt. The team proved the extremes in size and power that could be achieved in catamarans.
PlayStation (125 ft)
Perhaps the most dramatic single design in the firm’s portfolio, PlayStation was a record-shattering 125-foot catamaran built for adventurer Steve Fossett.
“The boat had to be designed to allow one hull to flex up to 12 feet above the other, but be stiff enough to keep the 147-foot mast upright at the same time,” Morrelli noted.
The design won the Prix de L’Architecture Navale.
Gino raced extensively on Stars and Stripes ’88 with Dennis Conner and on Steve Fossett’s PlayStation, setting Atlantic W-E, 24-hour, and Round Britain/Ireland records, among many more.
NACRA 17 and Olympic designs: Notable designs also include the NACRA 17 cat that was raced in the 2016 Rio Olympics. The firm has been involved in developing multiple Olympic and grand prix multihull classes over the decades.
The Gunboats
One of the most celebrated chapters in the Morrelli & Melvin story is their work with Gunboat, the American brand (originally) that invented the genre of the high-performance luxury cruising catamaran.
The very first Morrelli and Melvin-designed Gunboat 62 marked the start of the adventure.
The launch of the first Gunboat marked the invention of a new sailing concept: the long-range high-performance but luxurious multihull, a combination made possible through borrowing the best raceboat technologies and materials.
The original Gunboat catamarans designed by Morrelli and Melvin were light and purist in form, with a relatively minimalistic internal fit-out.
In 2001 they designed a pair of 62-foot performance catamarans for Clint Clemens and Peter Johnstone. These two yachts were built by Harvey Yachts in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Gunboat 48 followed and proved popular. It was built from 2004 to 2009, again designed by Morrelli & Melvin. The 48s feature three queen berths, an office or fourth berth, and two heads. The living area is simple and well-ventilated, with the salon, helm, and galley all inside on the main deck, and a well-protected aft cockpit. The whole idea behind the design was simple handling for short-handed crews without compromising on performance.
From the 62 came the Gunboat 66. Customers wanted to add more interior volume and kit to the 62s, so the original Morrelli & Melvin design was lengthened to 66 feet and the Gunboat 66 was born.
Morrelli & Melvin fine-tuned the structures, rigs, and layouts to optimize this design from 2006 to 2012. These early Gunboat models established a template for performance catamaran design that the industry continues to follow today.
The HH Catamarans Partnership
After the Gunboat era, Morrelli & Melvin’s relationship with the Chinese builder Hudson Yacht Group (later HH Catamarans) produced a new generation of world-class performance cruising cats.
The connection between the two companies is not coincidental — Hudson Marine were involved in the manufacture of the Gunboat 60. The companies eventually went their separate ways, and HH Catamarans was born.
Selecting Morrelli & Melvin to be our naval architects was an easy decision,” said former HH CEO Paul Hakes. “With world-class cruising cats successfully lapping the globe, scores of racing victories and an immense knowledge of cutting-edge catamaran technology, sea keeping, high performance and safety, Morrelli & Melvin were the obvious choice.”
The HH66 became the flagship model. Hudson Yacht Group became a leader in performance luxury offshore catamaran design by combining innovative design from Morrelli & Melvin with raceboat build quality driven by veteran boat builder Paul Hakes and his team.
The HH55 broadened the range’s appeal by making the formula more accessible. Designed on the same performance foundation as the HH66, but yielding more manageability because of its size, the HH55 is built as a boat that is safe and easily handled by a couple for short-handed sailing.
Like the HH66, the HH55 has curved “C” daggerboards and T-foil rudders, giving greater performance and a smoother ride in waves. Later came the HH44 and HH52.
Morrelli & Melvin designs have won 20 Boat of the Year awards, including the 2018 Overall Boat of the Year from Sailing World Magazine, 2018 Best Boats – Catamaran from SAIL Magazine for the HH66, and Boat of the Year -– Multihull from Cruising World Magazine for the HH55.
The range has continued to expand. Now with a full range of yachts spanning 44 to 88 feet, all designed in partnership with Morrelli & Melvin.
Legacy
M&M designs have held multiple sailing World Records for fastest around the world, most miles sailed in 24 hours, Atlantic records, and Round Britain/Ireland records.
M&M designs have won World Championships in F40, F18, and A-Class classes, as well as Bol d’Or, Swiftsure, Ensenada, and TransPac race victories.
Their portfolio spans beach cats, Olympic dinghies, America’s Cup machines, charter fleet workhorses, and ocean-crossing supercats – a breadth matched by no other design office in the world.
From the purist, racing-inspired Gunboats of the early 2000s to the sophisticated carbon luxury of the HH range, Morrelli & Melvin have consistently defined what a performance catamaran can be.
