County Wicklow based yacht designer Mark Mills and Turkish boatbuilder MAT have announced their latest collaboration, the MAT1340, an IRC Racer-Cruiser.

This 44’ IRC special is the result of an extensive R&D phase aimed at optimising under IRC both inshore and offshore.

It has been increasingly clear that a new approach to IRC performance has become successful, especially offshore, and having devoted the R&D time to understand the features fully, Mills says he ended up with a solution significantly faster on corrected time than an aggressive ‘Mini-TP’ model.

MAT 1340 unveiled - this 44’ IRC special is the result of an extensive R&D phase aimed at optimising under IRC both inshore and offshore

These features of medium/light displacement, fin keel, moderate sail area, and the option of twin rudders enable reduced crew numbers especially offshore.

This is Mills' fourth project with MAT Yachts over 14 very productive years working together. Since he began working together MAT has become successful worldwide with their focus on high performance, cost-effective boat building, ensuring this new design has the best opportunity to succeed both inshore and offshore. Given the demand for both inshore and offshore racing, lengthy consideration has been given to both disciplines and the extensive options list allows an owner to spec the boat to their exact demands, whilst knowing this is a multi-discipline design.