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!
15 years after the original First 30 debuted, this re-imagined update proves a winner.
When several members of our Florida sailing club, the West Coast Trailer Sailors Squadron, decided to get together for a group daysail on a recent
The morning our diesel engine experienced a runaway started like any other. We were headed out of Monterey Harbor on our 1979 Cheoy Lee 41,
Six sailors have been selected as 2026 inductees to the National Sailing Hall of Fame for their achievements, leadership, and enduring impact on the sport
Editor’s note—This is the second installment of a story that began in the March 2026 issue.Click here for part one. I’m dimly aware of the
In tomorrow’s e-newsletter, we conclude the story of my transatlantic crossing with the Women Wave Project. For part one, click here. In retrospect, the whole crossing
You’ve probably seen the clips online. During the first day of racing in SailGP’s New Zealand series, the worst crash in the league’s six seasons
Log the Glass These days with weather forecasts available wherever there is WiFi, it doesn’t do to forget the old ways. Last season I was
This weekend saw the fourth annual Northeast Ocean Racing Symposium (NORS), held at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts. The day of technical lectures and networking
Contributing Editor Christopher Birch’s much anticipated book The Four Seasons of Boat Maintenance is out now. Billed as “the maintenance manual that should have come
