Boat Reviews

Sometimes a boat catches your imagination immediately. Sometimes you have to sail the boat to appreciate it. I didn’t find anything revolutionary during my dockside inspection of the new Elan 384. The open transom made it easy to board. The deck was user-friendly, with good walkways and cabintop access. The optional teak decks made a secure nonskid surface, and grabrails fell to hand easily when

Groupe Beneteau is the largest sailboat manufacturer in the world. It comprises four separate companies—Beneteau, Jeanneau, Lagoon, and CNB—that operate independently but share economies of scale. At first glance, Beneteau and Jeanneau may appear to be competing for the same buyers, but in reality each line is designed to fill wide (and separate) swaths in the marketplace. Jeanneau has had great

The idea behind the new 28-foot Esse 850 is what many sportboat builders strive for: Build a fast, easy-to-handle, trailerable, one-design racer/daysailer that can be sailed shorthanded. And make sure it’s drop-dead gorgeous.After a successful launch in Europe, where the Umberto Felci design was named one of the European Yachts of the Year, it appears the 850 turns the

Ever since Rod Johnstone built Ragtime, which ended up being the J/24 prototype in 1974, J Boats has produced boats that are fun to race as well as comfortable and manageable enough for family cruising. The new 30-foot J/92s fits that design brief perfectly. The J/92 has been very successful on racecourses in Europe and the U.S., and the J/92s is intended to be a more stable,

At first glance the Nautitech 40 seems to have solved the conundrum all large cruising-cat designers face—how to draw a boat that’s spacious on the inside and sleek and sexy on the outside. Nautitech’s answer is to unify the topsides by seamlessly blending the coachroof into the hard cockpit roof. As with all designs, a compromise was required. Instead of having a single helm station on the back

It’s easy to see why the Optimist is the boat of choice for the youngest sailors, but what’s not so clear is where those still-young sailors go when they’ve outgrown the Opti. Designer Jim Taylor and Precision Boatworks have addressed the need for a transition boat between the Opti and larger, more powerful boats like the Laser or the 420 with the new Transit 380. It’s a stable

I made it a point to spend time below during my sail aboard the Catalina Morgan 440. With many brand-loyal Catalina owners getting beyond career age, the company’s first deck-saloon offering was conceived as a vacation home for some and a retirement home for others. The “house” really matters.The main cabin, with a galley convenient to the cockpit, is astonishingly big

Wollongong, Australia, is a beautiful spot you’ve possibly never heard of. Backed by mountains south of Sydney and fronting the Tasman Sea, Wollongong is home to Seawind Catamarans, whose newest offering reinterprets the open accommodations of its popular Seawind 1000 into something larger, comfier, and better suited to offshore duty. The new 1160, at 38 feet, sails at the

You have to admire Hugo Le Breton for setting the bar high with his new SIG 45. His goal was simple and ambitious: to combine the high-performance design elements of an ocean-racing multihull with the style of a contemporary cruising monohull. The result is a 45-foot racer-cruiser that comfortably accommodates six and can hit top speeds of over 20 knots. The SIG 45 features