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The SAIL Top 10 Best Boats

SAIL’s Best Boats 2014: Gunboat

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.

SAIL’s Best Boats 2014: RS Cat 16

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!

SAIL’s Best Boats 2014: Paine 14

After 40 years of sailing his beloved Herreshoff 12 1/2 Petunia, designer Chuck Paine figured he knew what he had to do to improve what many aficionados call “the perfect boat.” His new Paine 14, now being built by French & Webb in Belfast, Maine, is 10 percent smaller than the old 12 1/2 and 40 percent lighter, with modern appendages and much of its underbody cut away.

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Ever since Russian naval architect Vlad Murnikov burst onto the scene with his Whitbread racer Fazisi back in 1989—a time when Russia was still the Soviet Union—his designs have defied the norm.

Blue Jacket 40: a Fin-keeled, Twin-wheeled Performance Cruiser

We sail the Blue Jacket 40, a fin-keeled, twin-wheeled performance cruiser from Island Packet Yachts If you were asked to sum up any boat you sailed in just two words, it’s a fair bet that some of them wouldn’t be “family-friendly.” Thankfully, the phrase that stuck in my mind after our test sail of the new Blue Jacket 40 was this: sailor-friendly. Given the boat’s unusual but impeccable design pedigree, it could hardly have been anything else.

SAIL’s Best Boats 2017: J/112e

Best Performance Boat over 30ft The third in J/Boats’s “E” series, in which the “E” stands for elegance and evolution, you’d think the J/112e would

SAIL 2013 Best Boats Nominees

A strong lineup of new boats from domestic and foreign builders will be on display at the Newport International Boat show in September and the U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis in October. SAIL’s judging team will be inspecting them closely for the 2013 Best Boats awards.

Best Boats 2013: J/70

There’s nothing more disappointing than test sailing a high-octane sport boat in a drifter. But that wasn’t a problem with the new 22ft, 9in J/70. For our sail trial we had a steady 20-knot southerly, gusting over 25 knots and kicking up a sharp chop off Bristol, Rhode Island.

Draft Dodger

Britain’s boatbuilding industry is a shadow of what it was back in the 1970s and 80s, but a handful of boutique yards still thrives around its shores. One such is Northshore Yachts, whose Southerly range has survived four decades of the boom-and-bust cycles that saw once-mighty production brands tumble.

New Boats Debut at Fall Shows

It’s fall, and boat show season is upon us. It kicked off on the East Coast with the Newport International Boat Show, in France with the Grand Pavois de La Rochelle, and in England with the Southampton Boat Show. A jetlagged Peter Nielsen visited all three in one week. Here’s what he saw…

Photo: Zuzana Prochazka

Tahiti Revisited

After a long absence, one sailor finds herself sailing the waters of her youth and contemplating years of change in all its forms.

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May Issue Preview

Spring is in the air and warmer weather is right around the corner. Get ready for the season with SAIL’s adventure issue! Through the Eyes

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Caught in a Squall on a Daysail

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

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DIY: Fixing a Diesel Engine

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,

Photo: Lydia Mullan

Part 2: The Doldrums to Belém

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

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From the Editor: Team Spirit

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

Black Foils (NZL) and DS Automobiles France collided just seconds into the race. Photo by Felix Diemer for SailGP

Racing Collisions Raise Questions

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

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