SAIL’s Best Boats 2016
November 17, 2015
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
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
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 have it all.
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.
The Mini Class has long served as a feeder into the wild world of singlehanded offshore racing, offering huge adventure in a 21-foot package that emphasizes performance over all else. However, while this works well for the hard-core, 20- and 30-something crowd, Minis are cramped, highly strung raceboats that oftentimes stretch the definition of the term “enjoyable sailing.”
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.
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.
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 to expect from this high-end Danish builder.
Gunboat catamarans are known for their sleek lines and speed. Owners take pride in sailing their boats, and the engines are used primarily for maneuvering and intermittent auxiliary propulsion-; they are rarely used for extended motoring.
Talk about timing! No sooner does Oracle Team USA stage a comeback for the ages than the veteran UK sportboat and dinghy builder RS unveils a performance beach cat with wave-piercing bows just like those on an AC72!
I wrote recently about my ongoing project to redesign the mast and sailplan on our family boat, a 1971 OE 36 called Spica. I’ve agonized
New England’s season kick off for racers returns this March.
I’m not patient, laid-back, or compliant so when I hear the expression “age gracefully” all my hairs stand up. It’s unlikely for me to go
Editor-in-Chief Lydia Mullan reflects on her work anniversary with SAIL.
Another issue is off to the printer and on the way to your house! March is our offshore issue, so there are plenty of adventures,
The critically endangered right whale has been a focal point for conservation efforts for decades, and with boat strikes being one of the major threats
Ditch the Squeaky Rope Look at the illustration and guess which rope kept me awake one night. It was, of course, the skinny one. The
A new Scandinavian deckhouse cruiser is coming to America.
Laterr tonight, Quentin Debois is expected to become the fastest person to sail a Mini Transat 6.50 solo, east to west across the Atlantic. The
While most people are shopping for cradles and bottles when expecting a baby, I was deep into researching an area that I thought was much
