Jeanneau’s line of Sun Odyssey family cruising boats has been at the core of its identity as a mass-production boatbuilder for several decades now. In introducing this latest iteration of the SO brand, which at 44ft is right in the strike zone of many buyers, Jeanneau has ...read more
On a light-wind day that saw Race 1 thrown out when neither team made it to the finish within the 25-minute time limit, Emirates Team New Zealand fulfilled pre-regatta expectations by becoming the official challenger for the America’s Cup. The 5 – 2 win over Sweden’s Artemis ...read more
They say good things come in small packages, and the Bavaria Open 40 catamaran is a good example of that. At just 40ft, this cat combines a practical layout with easy sailhandling and a good turn of speed. The result is a boat that is a joy to sail. Read the full review ...read more
Systems Gunboat G4, J/88e, Balance 451 Few are consistently willing to push the technology envelope and accept the (often considerable) risks that this entails. In the mass production marketplace, Groupe Beneteau stands out. In the high-end custom marketplace it is Gunboat, ...read more
Performance Multihull under 30ft Whisper Foiling Cat At approximately 1445 on October 13, 2015, the day after the Annapolis sailboat show, history was made when the increasingly creaky and cranky 195lb, 51-year-old executive editor of this magazine experienced full-foiling ...read more
Performance Monohull under 30ft Fareast 28R Who hasn’t at some point dreamed of being a rock-star grand prix racer? Alas, the cost of this kind of sailing has meant that for most sailors it has remained just that, a dream—until now. With its new 28R, veteran Chinese builder ...read more
Daysailer Corsair Pulse 600 It was heartening to see a whole crop of new daysailers at this year’s fall shows, including boats with one, two or three hulls. But in the end the judges decided the real standout in the group was the Corsair Pulse 600. The Pulse 600 is a 20ft ...read more
Small Cruiser Dragonfly 25 The newest and smallest member of this range of well-crafted folding trimarans from Denmark’s Quorning Boats impressed our judges with both its design and its build quality. With its standard rotating aluminum mast and carefully configured amas with ...read more
Cruising monohull 31-40ft Marlow-Hunter 31 Marlow-Hunter has long been known as an innovator in the marine industry, and the new Marlow-Hunter 31 is keeping that tradition alive with a mix of interesting features, large and small. Topsides, the most noticeable of these is a ...read more
Performance Boat over 30ft Gunboat G4 When looking for a boat to take top honors in their Performance Boat over 30ft category, SAIL’s judges didn’t have to look very hard. Since she made her very public debut this year at the Les Voiles de St Barth regatta, Timbalero III, the ...read more
Cruising Multihull 41-50ft Bali 4.3 Not so long ago, cruising catamarans were unique simply by their existence, but no more. With such a selection of cats available, we now look for innovative features, efficient hulls, good use of space and easily handled rigs. The Bali 4.3, a ...read more
Cruising Multihull 31-40ft Bavaria Open 40 Known for its monohulls, Bavaria recently acquired French catamaran builder Nautitech and enters the multihull market with the new Open 40, a boat that has been making some serious waves at the many boat shows where it appeared this ...read more
Cruising Monohull 41-50ft Italia13.98 According to Italia Yachts, the goal with the 13.98 was to create a “luxury cruiser” in which performance is a part of the “luxury equation,” and the company has lived up to that ambition and then some. Above decks, the Italia 13.98 boasts ...read more
Flagship Jeanneau64 The French builder’s new flagship is much more than just a scaled-up version of its smaller boats. Jeanneau’s production maestro Erik Stromberg spent years plotting the creation of this boat with yacht designer Philippe Briand and interior-design maven ...read more
By Nigel Calder, Christopher White, Adam Cort, Charles J. Doane, Zuzana Prochazka & Tom Dove Every year’s Best Boats competition brings at least a few surprises, but the class of 2016 has provided more than any other. For one thing, multihulls have figured more prominently than ...read more
A coastal cruiser, an offshore racing machine, a performance bluewater cruiser? The sleek, elegantly minimalist Dazcat 1195 is certainly all those things, but it is also a great little light-air daysailer—no small feat, given its size and overall design brief. For our test sail ...read more
It would be hard to imagine a greater diversity of modern design styles than those comprising the SAIL Magazine Best Boats class of 2015. From a cutting-edge carbon cat to an aluminum sloop expressly designed to nudge aside icebergs, the winners of this year’s Best Boats contest ...read more
A few months ago, SAIL ran a story in which we considered exactly what it is that makes for a great small boat. And as fate would have it, the Topaz Argo from the UK’s Topper International meets an awful lot of the standards we came up with. Fast, well mannered, easy to sail and ...read more
We don’t often have ties in our Best Boats competition, but with two very different and equally exciting boats in the 30ft-and-under performance category, we just couldn’t go with a single winner. The first of the two is the C&C 30. If you’ve been racing sailboats for a while, ...read more
Quorning Boats of Denmark has been absent from American boat shows for several years, and it’s good to have them back, especially with something as special as the new Dragonfly 32. A refined, swift trimaran that reminds us how elegant a performance multihull can be, this boat ...read more
Danish builder X-Yachts has long been renowned for its elegant, sweet-sailing racer-cruisers. Some builders of such yachts try to tweak them more toward the cruising side of the equation by simply adding weight and wood trim in the accommodation spaces. But X-Yachts started with ...read more
After a lifetime of roaming the planet aboard a series of boats named Aventura, bluewater-sailing guru and author Jimmy Cornell turned to French builder Garcia Yachts to develop the boat of his dreams. His latest Aventura, hull #1 in Garcia’s new line of adventure cruisers, is ...read more
We had little trouble choosing the Gunfleet 58 as the SAIL Flagship for 2015. A thoughtfully designed, carefully constructed and beautifully detailed vessel, this is what a modern luxury sailing yacht should be. Designer Tony Castro gave the boat an efficient hull form with a ...read more
Step aboard the Xp 44 and the first thing you might find yourself wondering is: what’s not to love? This mid-40-foot racer-cruiser is designed to deliver decades of racing and cruising pleasure while offering a wealth of the kind of design features sailors have long since come ...read more
