The True Wind 32 presents an interesting amalgamation of features. It’s a 32-foot cat with a rigid open bridgedeck and is built to sail faster than wind speed in the right conditions, to provide the amenities of a pocket cruiser, and to be capable of easily folding up onto a street-legal trailer.During my test on Florida’s Biscayne Bay in 10 knots of breeze and flat water, we hit 8 knots on
The Chuck Paine-designed Cabo Rico 42 has an excellent reputation as a bluewater cruising boat. Its full underwater profile, sturdy good looks, and quality craftsmanship have helped instill confidence in offshore sailors for years, but only if they were willing to brave the elements in the aft cockpit. With the introduction of the Cabo Rico 42PH, offshore sailors can now order a 42 with a
The Grand Soleil 40, built by Cantiere del Pardo, is one of a gaggle of new 40-foot performance cruisers that purportedly strike a balance between elegant accommodations and grin-inducing performance. Many boats make this claim, so I tested one off Annapolis, Maryland, to find out for myself.On deckThe deck and cockpit are set up primarily for racing, but the layout is also
All my days on the water should be as perfect as the day we took a Dufour 34 out for a spin after the Miami Boat Show. We caught the back end of a February cold front that produced steady 12-to-15-knot northerly winds, sunny skies, and comfortable temperatures. As we motored out of the marina, it was obvious that I couldnt have scheduled this test any better. The smallest boat in the revamped,
The recent proliferation of large cruising catamarans has been well documented, but there is also an increasing number of smaller performance catamarans that offer modest living accommodations for go-fast racer/cruiser types. One of the most interesting of these is the Raider 30, a very sleek craft that was born four years ago in Australia and debuted in the U.S. early last year. There
The British are coming! The British are coming! Actually, it’s the British-built, Reichel/Pughdesigned Seaquest 36. After a successful launch and wins notched in races all over Europe, the Seaquest 36replete with narrow-chord bulb keel, high-octane sailplan, weight-saving interior, and impressive polar numbershas arrived. It’s a flat-out racing design concerned more with
The new X-40 is a chip off the old block. Flush with the success of the X-43 and X-46, X-Yachts designer Niels Jeppesen has drawn this new 40-footer to be as sexy, sturdy, comfortable, and responsive as its larger siblings. And it seems to have all the necessary ingredients. The cored hull is light and stiff, the sailplan has power to burn, and the hand-polished teak joinery is sure to turn some
After sailing two or three hundred boats, I thought there would be no utterly novel features for me to discover aboard the next one. I was mistaken. Boat designers are a creative lot, and when they’re engineers as well, the result can be a vessel loaded with innovative features. The Belgian-built Etap 37 is just such a package of pleasant surprises. Or maybe I shouldn’t be surprised; after all, a
Sparkman & Stephens has a reputation that other design firms would kill for. The list of classic S&S boats reads like a who’s who of notable designs of the twentieth century. With the new Stellar 53, S&S carries the tradition into the twenty-first century. Built in New Zealand, the hull features a fine entry, moderate overhangs, and a raised-saloon layout that should serve for speedy and
The Moorings’s collaboration with American multihull designers Morelli & Melvin and the South African builder Robertson & Caine has resulted in the Moorings 4000 40-foot catamaran. As you would expect from The Moorings, it’s an ultra-spacious cruising cat that is available for charter placement as well as via private sales. The large hardtop-protected cockpit features an outside dining area and
The 2022 Star Worlds featured six days of intense racing where the final and deciding gold medal win went to Diego Negri and Sergio Lambertenghi
Join Editor-in-Chief of PassageMaker Jeff Moser for a dive into 3D forward looking sonar technology with Bob Arrington and Matthew Zimmerman.
Brian Thompson could have become just another financial type on Wall Street, which would have been surprising enough in itself for a Brit who grew
In 1980, I owned a 26ft fiberglass ketch named Recycle, a full-keeled vessel with a 10 hp Honda outboard in a well behind the tiller.
For the past century—through a world war, 18 Olympics, and a pandemic—Star Class world champions have earned the honor of carrying a gold star on
With IMOCA 60s gaining more attention globally due to their inclusion as the principal class in The 2023 Ocean Race, events like Le Défi Azimut
Although they don’t generally make it into print, there’s often a backstory to the boat tests we do at SAIL: case in point my sail
Though they don’t reel off the miles like a performance-cruiser, I would argue that some of the purest, best sailing can be found aboard small
Now in its 43rd year, the Newport Classic Yacht Regatta presented by the International Yacht Restoration School (IYRS) brings together sailors who understand, support, and
While many sailors are said to be superstitious, I never had any qualms about casting off lines on a Friday or hanging a large stalk
