The schooner yacht America was a child star and a technological marvel. Arguably the most famous yacht ever built, she won the ­silver cup in August 1851, and now she represents the pinnacle of yacht racing.

The story of America’s design, build, and her first 16 weeks afloat are the stuff of legend, and for good reason: The schooner’s origin story is irresistible and watertight. The yacht was funded by New York’s wealthiest sportsmen and created specifically for international competition; an invitation to compete had been extended to the Americans from British yachtsmen based at Cowes, on England’s southern coast. The resultant design brief was ambitious: The new yacht must possess the ability to safely and swiftly cross the ocean but also to win nearshore races against yachts specifically built for that purpose. Her given name reflected the aspirations of her owners: America. About 100 feet long on deck, America was constructed on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the winter of 1850 and into 1851.

America’s design represented the latest—somewhat radical—ideas of how to create a fast racing yacht. Low to the water, lean, and carrying her maximum beam far forward of other racing yachts, she was rigged simply but ingeniously. A maximum of four sails meant that maneuvers could be executed quickly and by a relatively small crew. These sails were carried by a pair of dramatically raked masts. The engineless America featured state-of-the art sailing technology, including tightly woven cotton duck sails and lead ballast carried low and carefully molded to fit the shape of her hull. A tiller—more responsive than a wheel—could be fitted on for racing. 

In June 1851, just weeks after her launching, and with her racing sails stowed below, America bolted across the Atlantic—New York to La Havre—in just 19 days (a passenger-­carrying sailing ship of the era might complete the same route in 40 days). At Le Havre, her hull was painted black and, from there, she traveled to Cowes, England, to meet the British fleet. 

On August 22, 1851, America soundly defeated the cream of the British yachting fleet in a 53-mile race around the Isle of Wight. In the wake of this landmark victory, Queen Victoria walked her decks, and her owners were awarded a 27-inch-tall 134-ounce bottomless trophy made at Garrard’s, the Queen’s Crown Jeweler. Just 16 weeks after her launch, America was a legend. Her origin story is, to this day, familiar to sailors and aficionados of naval history and continues to be widely studied, written about, discussed, and analyzed in a near fetishized manner. However, what happened to America after the win at Cowes is a decidedly less-trafficked patch of water. America’s career post-Cowes is a more checkered narrative. After winning the cup, America was at the center of a decades-long run of ­adventure, neglect, rehabilitations, and hard sailing, always ­surrounded by ­colorful, passionate personalities. 

Recognizing an opportunity to cash in on their schooner at the top of the market—and harboring no sense of nostalgia or emotion—America’s American owners sold the schooner almost immediately after the race around the Isle of Wight. The new owner cut down her spars and added ballast. She would still be fast but never again as racy. America changed hands again and again. By 1854, just three years after her famous victory, she was abandoned on a mudbank at Cowes. Two years later, a shipwright bought her and began a restoration.

In July 1860, America was sold to a mysterious new owner who immediately put her in harm’s way. Her new owner sailed America back to North America, where the schooner was, apparently, sold into the Confederate navy, and for nearly a year, America officially served the rebel cause. In summer 1861, America carried a pair of Confederate officers across the Atlantic to Europe, and then returned to the southeast coast of North America, but only after entering at least one regatta in Europe. Through much of 1861 and into 1862, America appears to have been frequently in action on behalf of the rebel cause at the mouth the St. Johns River at Jacksonville in northeast Florida.

In spring 1862, as federal troops closed in on Jacksonville, America was pinned inside the St. Johns River at Jacksonville. Rather than risk the certain loss of the practically and symbolically valuable schooner, the rebels moved America 60 miles up the St. Johns and scuttled her in a shallow, muddy tributary—apparently with the intent of returning to refloat her at some later opportunity. Shortly thereafter, having secured the river and Jacksonville itself, US Navy sailors moved upriver, where they found and raised America. America then served on the federal blockade at Charleston and was directly involved in the capture and/or destruction of several rebel blockade runners. Finally, in May 1863, America received a reprieve. She was sent north to serve as a training vessel at the United States Naval Academy in Newport, Rhode Island.

In 1873, the federal government sold America to General Benjamin Butler, a colorful Massachusetts-based politician. Butler proved to be a strong patron of the now-iconic schooner, spending lavishly on her upkeep and sailing her extensively. Butler and America were among the spectator fleet at New York for multiple defenses of the America’s Cup in the late 19th century. After Butler’s death, in 1893, the aging wooden vessel was approaching 50 years and had been “ridden hard and put away wet.” By 1921, America was rotting at her slip in Boston and offered for sale. Much of her lead ballast had been stripped off and repurposed for military purposes during the Great War. When rumors circulated that a Portuguese syndicate was interested in purchasing her and converting her to a trading packet, a group of historic-minded sailors from Boston’s Eastern Yacht Club stepped in and purchased America. The group moved America to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, where she was ­presented to the Naval Academy. 

While Annapolis seemed to be a logical long-term home for the famous schooner, the Naval Academy did not have the ­facilities or manpower to maintain an aging wooden sailing vessel. She spent the next 20 years afloat in a slip on the brackish Severn River, serving as a photo backdrop for midshipmen and, sometimes, as a playground for local children. She was kept afloat but with a bare-minimum level of maintenance. Finally, in 1940, a move was made to restore the now 90-year-old schooner. While no official paper trail has been found connecting President Franklin Roosevelt to America’s rehabilitation, the effort was widely assumed at the time to have been endorsed by the president himself who, allegedly, envisioned America as a centerpiece of a new Navy museum at Washington. Plans were made to move America to nearby Annapolis Yacht Yard, with the facilities and staff capable of undertaking a proper rehabilitation. On a windy evening in December 1940, America floated on a king tide over the sill of the privately owned Annapolis Yacht Yard’s marine railway and was hauled ashore, according to one witness, “groaning and complaining.” She would not touch the water again.

As work was started on the America project, the Annapolis Yacht Yard’s leadership began an aggressive, effective push to secure contracts to build 110-foot wooden submarine chasers for the United States Navy and, later, to build 70-foot wooden motor torpedo boats for the British Navy and other allied navies under the auspices of the Lend-Lease Act. The facility became a vital military production partner, critical to the war effort. Meanwhile, America languished in the literal center of this activity. Some initial scoping work had been completed and a few sections replaced, but the demands of wartime shipbuilding overcame any serious rehabilitation effort. In late March 1942, a makeshift shed that had been built over America’s hull collapsed under the weight of a surprise snowstorm. After the shed collapse, any visions of a straightforward rehabilitation evaporated, no matter how powerful the project’s sponsor. A more permanent structure was constructed over the ruins, and, at the end of the war, with Roosevelt dead, America was unceremoniously broken up and the remains hauled to the Annapolis city dump. 

At the time of the breakup, a handful of historic-minded ­yachtsmen and museum officials bemoaned the loss, but there was no widespread outcry, and it is unfair to judge the decisions and actions that led to America’s breakup through a modern lens. America’s planned rehabilitation was interrupted by the attacks at Pearl Harbor and halted after the United States’ entry into the Second World War. The iconic America, her physical form likely well beyond “saving” after the shed collapse, was, ultimately, a victim of poor timing and most unfortunate circumstances.

Editor’s note: This article has been edited for style and clarity.

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With its long history producing good-looking fast cruisers, in recent years, Nautor Swan has consolidated its performance yachts into its ClubSwan range, spanning the giant 125-foot Skorpios and the 80-footer My Song to their fleets of ClubSwan 36s and 50s. All designs by Juan Kouyoumdjian, the latter saw 11 and 15 compete in their respective five-event annual championships (Nations Cup) in 2023 and are set to be joined by the ClubSwan 43 this year. But Nautor Swan has another new development: While its smallest boats have been the ClubSwan 36 (plus the original Swan 36 back in 1967), its latest launch is its smallest ever, the ClubSwan 28.

This new model is not surprising given that Swan is sailing’s most prolific premium brand, with more large performance sailing yachts in existence than any other manufacturer. Its range firmly extends into the superyacht stratosphere, so why not lure new owners into the fold, earlier, with a modest offering? Federico Michetti, head of sports activities and product manager at Nautor Swan, explains, “The concept of the 28 is to have an entry-level Swan that allows owners to enjoy the journey with Nautor and our events.” He expects that the 28 will entice younger sailors, even those new to sailing, into the ClubSwan realm.

Among race boats today, 28 to 30 feet is the cusp between sportboat and yacht, and the ClubSwan 28 is more the former, given its light weight (displacing sub-1,200 kg versus 1,600 kg and 1,800 for the more yachtlike Farr 280 and Cape 31, respectively); outboard engine rather than inboard; and low freeboard and minimal interior, accessed via the foredeck hatch. The ClubSwan 28 is neither an excessively high-end carbon race boat nor a high-­volume J/70, but rather somewhere between. “Our aim for it is to race well in 6 knots or 20. It is a powerful boat but not extreme,” Michetti says. 

Kouyoumdjian adds: “We incorporated everything that modern boats have to perform very well but didn’t go extreme on any of them.”

Fundamental to the boat’s ethos is simplicity, and for it to be fun to sail, but as Michetti puts it, “at the same time being safe, a boat that can fit the needs of everyone from ­beginner to expert.”

Aside from its performance, the best demonstration of this is that while most sportboat crews must hike and hike hard (it being so vital to stability on boats of this size), the 28 is a “legs-in” boat.

“We would like to avoid a ­hiking contest. It is much more social too; sailors can enjoy what is happening around them,” Michetti says. Everything is optimized for this—the sheerline and cockpit arrangement to make maximum use of the weight of the inward-facing crew, while keel draft and ballast make up righting moment lost due to no hiking and crew not moving fore and aft.

Compared with the ClubSwan 36’s advanced hull shape and fixed-keel/C-foil combination, the 28 is far more conservative. The hull has a low wetted surface area and rocker aft to minimize bow burying. Its modest 8-foot beam means it can be towed legally throughout Europe without having to be inclined. It also allows the boat and trailer combined to fit into a 40HQ container for shipping farther afield.

The hull shape is quite ­complex, with flared topsides at the stern, above a substantial chine. Going forward, the topsides turn vertical and then evolve into a deck chamfer ­forward of the mast. The bow has a slight reverse sheer and a retractable sprit.

The rig breaks new ground, but again, simplicity is the focus. Developed between Kouyoumdjian, Southern Spars’ Steve Wilson and mast-builder Axxon Composites, it is skifflike, with no backstay or runners, and with swept-back spreaders and a GNAV (inverted vang) to keep the cockpit clear. “Imagine a 49er rig that is set up by the headstay,” Kouyoumdjian says. “The prebend and the tension you have in that kind of rig usually comes from presetting the headstay and then you deal with it with the vang and cunningham. But we wanted something variable that could simulate what you could otherwise do with the runners.”

The solution is to have a ­permanently attached mast ­ram that can be operated while ­racing via a pump in the pit area. “It brings a lot of things together—not only the tension on the headstay, but also the tension on the rig,” Kouyoumdjian adds. “And when you tension the rig, you bend the mast.”

Therefore, powering up the rig comes with just two or three pumps and an inch of movement of the ram. “Everything on the rig is simple and has been done before many times successfully,” Kouyoumdjian says. “We added the mast up-and-down function. I imagine crews using it on medium-light days: When you get into a luff and you’d ease the runner, instead you’d drop the mast, or anticipating a puff, you’d pump it up. As soon as the wind gets to 10 to 12 knots, then you’d be maxed up, like you would be at ­maximum runner on a typical boat.”

The ClubSwan 28 will be a strict one-design class. Like the ClubSwan 36, it is being built in Cartagena, Spain, by Sinergia Racing Group. Tooling for the 28 is CNC milled to fine tolerances, and like most other boats in this size, it is a glass boat, built with vinylester resin, although naturally its mast, bowsprit and rudder are full carbon. The keel fin is stainless steel.

What appears to be a 1990s retro feature is the 28’s L-configuration keel, as featured on many vintage 1990 one-­designs and early VO60s. Aside from positioning bulb weight aft, this lengthens the keel’s leading edge by 15 to 20 percent, increasing its efficiency and improving, for example, lift to windward. Kouyoumdjian is enthusiastic about this and says that he would readily recommend L-keels on other race boats, but warns that the shape of the bulb’s front must be correct. To enable easy trailering, the keel can be raised, and the rudder assembly lifts out within its own box. A full derig, from water to motorway, is expected to take around three hours.

Production for the ClubSwan 28 will be modest, initially at least, with the yard in Cartagena expected to roll out two per month, with the ready-to-sail price forecast to be around 200,000 euros. The aim is to have international fleets, with boats built by local yards. After Europe, Michetti says, its focus will be the United States, although as yet there is no time frame for this. At the time of this writing, six 28s had been sold, with the first boat due for launch in late May, with all six expected to compete at the Rolex Swan Cup in Porto Cervo in September.

The advantage of the 28 is that the owner is buying into the ClubSwan world, with its established circuit, Michetti says. “If you are building a new class, people need to trust you. You need to create momentum, you need to have sponsors and find locations and organize regattas,” which the ClubSwan management already has, with its comprehensive circuit, mixing established regattas and ClubSwan’s own in the Med, UK, Baltic and US. Aside from enticing new sailors and teams into the ClubSwan family, Michetti also imagines that some teams with larger race boats might acquire a 28 for crew training.

There is currently no class crew-weight limit, which risks enticing larger muscle-bound types on board, but Michetti explains: “We want to avoid this crazy ‘saunas before the regatta’ thing” (in other classes, crews typically duck just below maximum weight at weigh-in). ClubSwan 28 crews will ­comprise four or five with a World Sailing Group 1 (amateur) owner-­driver and probably one mandatory female or youth crewmember.

For the 28 this year, there are a number of events, including a kick-off event from Nautor Swan’s base in Scarlino, Italy, in July, plus September’s Rolex Swan Cup and the Nations League 2024-ClubSwan 28 Invitational Sardinia Challenge, taking place in Villasimius, Sardinia, in early November. Given its trailerability, the ­likelihood is that the 28 will also race inland, for example, on Italy’s famous Lake Garda. Naturally, as numbers grow, there will also be the opportunity for the ClubSwan 28 to get its own start in the world’s top ­multiclass regattas.

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Pogo Structures continues its quest for innovation with the launch of the Pogo RC, a true “Mini Class 40,” a 33-foot monohull with a highly sophisticated high-tech construction in keeping with its know-how.

The successes of the design duo Bernard Nivelt and Sam Manuard and their new approach to the IRC gauge convinced Pogo Structures to launch the Pogo RC. This boat is innovative, simple, fun and planning, fast like the Pogo, but this time designed to defend its IRC rating.

The latest addition to the Pogo range features the latest hull shapes for the open classes: Mini, Class 40 and IMOCA. The sail area is large, but optimized for IRC, with a square-top mainsail.

The layout of the runners is designed so that, with a reef in the mainsail, the crew won’t have to worry about it. This makes jibing easier in strong winds. A detailed study has been carried out on the appendages, both for the keel and the rudders.

The layout of the vast cockpit, open to the stern and equipped with numerous winches, has been designed for rapid execution of maneuvers, whether solo, doublehanded or fully crewed.

The construction of the Pogo RC is in line with the “high-tech” technology of the Pogo 40s4, resulting from the experience of the Combrit shipyard in offshore racing for more than 30 years.

For the interior layout, simple but comfortable, sober solutions, without luxury or unnecessary accessories, have been specifically designed for racing. They include a forward cabin and a saloon in the central area. The chart table and galley are at the foot of the companionway.

The Pogo RC, approved in Category A, is designed for offshore races such as the Rolex Fastnet Race, the Transquadra or the Transat Cap-Martinique. It will also be at home in the the coastal races.

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There’s always one unknown with the Boat of the Year, and this year’s surprise entry was the Z24, a model from an Argentinian builder no one on the team had ever seen or heard of before. But there it sat at the US Sailboat Show in Annapolis, an eye-catching design that proved to be as exciting to sail as it was impressive at the dock.

The Z24 is an evolution of a line of keelboats designed for the shallow waters of the Rio de La Plata, simple boats ideal for the area’s sailing schools and local races. The schools want long bench seating and the removable padded backrests, and private owners want basic amenities like the sink, the quarter berth and the portable toilet. The racers, of course, want an asymmetric spinnaker package and a taller rig, and what the judges experienced is a utilitarian sportboat that could very well be an offspring of a J/24 and Melges 24. “I was really impressed with how it sailed both upwind and downwind,” Greg Stewart says. “It’s all simple because there’s not a lot of extra parts or lines on it. It would be a great little beer-can racer.”

For its test sail, in a 10- to 15-knot breeze and flat water, the three judges sailed upwind and downwind without ever leaving the comfort of the ­cockpit. “With all of us sitting legs-in and comfortable with the backrests, it wasn’t tippy and tracked really well,” Stewart says. “The rudder, which is plenty long and nicely shaped, had a great feel. I tried to force it to spin, but it wouldn’t. It’s well-balanced.”

At less than 3,000 pounds all up, the boat was light and responsive, Stewart adds, and 1,100 pounds of ballast in the 4-foot-7-inch lifting bulb keel provided plenty of stability. At the dock, the boat’s builder, Andres Mendez, demonstrated the efficiency of the winch system that nests over the companionway and lifts the keel flush to the hull in a matter of minutes. The carbon-skinned rudder is even easier, held captive in its casing with two quick-release skewers.

To ensure the integrity of the keel-box structure, the boat is built (in hand-laid polyester with PVC honeycomb coring in the deck only) in split halves and joined at the center seam with the keel box molded in place. “It’s not glued, and it’s not a secondary bond,” Mendez says. “Everything is laminated together, so it’s solid glass down the entire center seam—very strong and very stiff.”

Beneath the port cockpit bench seat is a deep locker to stow an outboard (electric), fenders, sails and accessories, and under the starboard bench is the full-length quarter-berth. The boat as tested had a mainsheet swivel mounted on a single floor post, which sailing schools prefer, but the ­cockpit design can accommodate a midship traveler that spans between the cockpit walls, or a floor-mounted traveler aft of the benches. The judges say the 8-to-1 backstay purchase was robust enough to effectively manipulate the rig. At the forward end of the cockpit are only two cabin-top winches and cam cleats. On the foredeck is a radiused self-tacking jib track and shallow anchor locker. The judges noted the molded nonskid pattern is excellent.  

The Z24’s superb sailing attributes aside, what appealed to all the judges was its simplicity, inside and out. “It’s all very low-maintenance,” Stewart says. “It’s definitely a hose off and walk away kind of boat, and my impression is that they spent a lot of time developing it and thinking about it to get it right, and that allowed them to keep it simple. The quality is great inside and out. Right away, when we got on it, I could see the gelcoat was really nice, and it had a sleek low-cabin profile that looked great. I could definitely recommend this boat to somebody looking for a well-priced daysailer that would be really easy to own.”

In 10 to 15 knots of wind, judge Mike Ingham was impressed with the responsiveness of the helm and the overall balance of the sail plan, a proportional mainsail, and small non-overlapping, self-tacking jib. The boat can accommodate larger jibs, Mendez tells the judges, with the installation of cabin-top tracks and a floating inhauler system. With the asymmetric spinnaker on furler and tacked to the prod, it was easy for the judges to deploy it, jibe it and roll it away without ever having to step foot on the foredeck.

“It had that recreational sportboat feel,” Ingham says. “It’s not going to jump up on plane instantly, but it’s plenty quick. They got some things right, geometrically, with the keel and rudder that make it a real pleasure to sail. It’s nicely balanced and tracked really well upwind. I was never fighting the helm. Downwind, it was plenty lively, and when a puff hit, it was just a slight bear away and it would accelerate immediately. As a recreational race boat and family daysailer, I think they nailed it.”

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Sailboat racing’s future is inextricably linked to the flow of new sailors who walk through the doors of community sailing centers and yacht clubs. These establishments do the yeoman’s work to attract and retain sailors young and old, and often the biggest challenge is securing boats that deliver a positive sailing experience but can take the abuse. For many such establishments, the saving grace has been the roto-molded trainer, of which RS Sailboats is the dominant builder. It does plastic—and does it extremely well—and the versatile Toura is its best yet.  

“This is a fantastic learn-to-sail boat because it checks so many boxes,” Mike Ingham says. “It sails amazingly well, can bounce off a dock or be dragged up a beach, and can fit a lot of people. What really strikes me is how stable and spacious it is, but somehow it performs so much better than I expected. When it comes to innovation, this boat moves the needle for me, no question about it.”

The Toura is the result of a decade’s worth of feedback from sailing programs using RS Sailing’s Quest, its most popular roto-molded trainer, of which there are more than 3,000 in use around the world. “The Quest is an excellent boat,” says RS Sailing’s Todd Riccardi, “but people kept asking for a bigger boat with a little more room.”

That’s a big ask of even the most advanced roto-molding technology because the bigger the boat, the more complex the structure must be in order to keep it stiff and durable yet as light as possible. The Toura might just be at the edge of what’s possible. RS uses what it describes as a three-layer laminate to get a durable shell—an inner layer, a foam core and an outer layer that are applied in stages. But the real structure is from skeletal-like spines that bisect the cockpit and give the boat its rigidity.

At 15 feet, and with a few inches over 6 feet of beam, the Toura is a substantial dinghy that Riccardi says can comfortably fit as many as six to eight adults and double that amount of kids. Inboard bench seating running the entire length of the boat is how it can fit so many passengers. While that might push the limits of its buoyancy, the judges agreed four large adults would have the right amount of room to casually race and learn the ropes.

RS Sailing has a well-earned reputation for developing and vetting its new boats before bringing them to market, and the Toura is no exception. The boat has many smart features that simplify the learning experience, from launching to capsizing to boathandling and sail trimming. To get the kick-up rudder on and off is a one-button operation. There’s a temporary forestay for safely raising the rig, an adjustable jib-stay purchase at the mast, a single-line mainsail reefing system, and a continuous spinnaker halyard. Riccardi says the boat’s considerable stability is capsize-prevention enough, but should it end up on its side, the square-top main and buoyancy in the bench seating keep it from turtling quickly. In the event of a capsize, however, aluminum grab handles are built into strakes that run along the bottom of the hull.

The judges, sailing two-up and three-up, never got anywhere near the point of capsize in the 10 knots of breeze for the test. With Greg Stewart and Chuck Allen first into the boat, they promptly set the spinnaker and took off. “It sails great, both upwind and downwind,” Stewart says. “It has a great feel to the helm, and I pressed it hard a few times and it never spun out. All the rigging was really nice, and the sail controls all worked. My one comment is that the 4-to-1 mainsheet gets pretty loaded because the main is pretty powerful and the cloth is good, so I’d be inclined to add a becket block to the mainsheet to get a bit more purchase.”

Allen put high scores in his notebook and says he was able to sit comfortably on the seat and use the spine as a foot brace. “We had it going pretty quick and found that with a little heel angle, the chine bites and the boat suddenly feels really stable. Great all-around performance, and with the high boom, the low centerboard trunk, and the vang on top of the boom, it was easy to get across the boat. Downwind with the spinnaker, it was awesome. Every control was easy to pull, and the nonskid had excellent grip.”

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“Classy.” That was the first word that came to mind for Boat of the Year judge Mike Ingham when he stepped aboard the formidable 40-foot trimaran from Dragonfly, an unexpected and welcome late entry to the competition in Annapolis. “It almost feels as if the boat is intentionally understated but overdelivered because once you start looking closer at the details and craftsmanship, it just keeps getting more impressive.”

Builder and company owner Jens Quorning, whose family has been building trimarans in southern Denmark since 1967, says the Dragonfly 40 is the biggest boat they now build and a worthy holder of the flagship title. “Building a boat of this scale is complicated,” he says of the folding trimaran. “It takes three years to develop a new design, and this is for owners looking for a bigger boat, with better performance, capable of more long-distance sailing.”

The result is a powerful trimaran aimed at experienced owners who appreciate the sheer pleasure of racing and cruising on three hulls. This is not your average production multihull. It is a powerful and luxurious sailing machine capable of knocking off fast miles in comfort. Slip down below and you’re immediately immersed in a master class of woodwork and joinery. There are berths for four, including a giant master under the cockpit, plenty of standing headroom, and a comfortable salon and galley arrangement that’s monohull-cozy. “We do not offer a big house on the water,” Quorning tells the judges. “But if you really want a fine and elegant yacht with double-digit sailing, this is what we do.”

For our tests, Dragonfly presented its Ultimate edition, the midrange version. An upscaled Performance model is an all-carbon version with a taller mast. And in the lightest wind of the week, sub-10 knots, the trimaran teased the judges with its potential. Still, in the light stuff, the boat delivered a winning experience.

“It was a dream to sail upwind and downwind, almost effortlessly,” Ingham says. “With the gennaker up, at about 100 degrees true, we were going faster than the wind, and with winch pods on each side of the steering wheel, everything was as ergonomic as you could possibly imagine. The electric winches made it a cinch to furl and unfurl the headsails through the tacks and jibes, and the sails trimmed in perfectly every time.”

The feather-light feel of the helm, Ingham adds, was as smooth as a balanced dinghy. “With tiny movements on the wheel, the boat would immediately respond, but I could also walk away from the helm for a few minutes and the boat would stay right on track. Crazy—I think it steered itself better than I did.”

That’s the trait of a good trimaran, Greg Stewart says. The Dragonfly 40 has a lot of buoyancy in the bows, and while the center hull is substantial, the tall trussed rig and square top mainsail provide plenty of power. “The biggest thing that struck me is how easily accessible everything is,” Stewart says. “Clearly, every detail is painstakingly thought out, and I can’t believe how beautifully built the interior is. It’s top-notch, from the glasswork to the paintwork inside and out. Down below, we were all blown away by the finish.”

There’s no denying the boat is expensive at upward of $1 million, but the test boat had quality race sails, a full electric-winch package, and a long list of high-spec extras. At nearly 15,000 pounds light, it’s a substantial boat—not trailerable, but foldable with Dragonfly’s trademark technique that Corning describes as mimicking parallel rules. The floats are 2 feet longer than the center hull, with buoyancy pushed well forward into the reversed bows, and the center hull is narrow at the waterline before sweeping upward to a high and hard chine. This pronounced hull shape allows for the generous amount of headroom, and high bench seats that flank a long centerline table, which can, of course, drop down to create a double-size berth.

Allen noted that the center hull’s wide side decks provide a secure pathway to the bow, rather than across the trampolines. He was also impressed with the ease of sailing the boat and the comfort belowdecks. “When we were doing 9 knots, I went below and there was silence. It’s comfortable and beautiful. It would be a blast to do some long point-to-point racing on it, doublehanded or with like a crew of four, max.”

Stewart agreed, adding that beyond its noteworthy gunkholing attributes, the engine is well aft on the center hull, allowing it to be motored safely into shallow anchorages. The daggerboard is mechanically raised into the trunk, and the rudder kicks up. “I also think it would be great for a distance race or rally type of event,” Stewart says. “Its performance and versatility are what appeal to me, but the build quality is what really sets it apart.”

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Die-hard racers and cruisers alike have strong opinions about what makes the ideal dual-purpose boat, a debate that has endured for as long as builders have been putting furniture into race boats. While it is true there’s no such thing as a perfect crossover, the Italia 14.98 comes pretty darn close as far as our Boat of the Year judges are concerned. This year’s Best Crossover, they say, is a beautifully styled and practical yacht that presented and sailed superbly.

Italia Yachts and its ever-­expanding lineup is a relatively new brand to the US market, but it is well-established in Europe, where other Italia models have been hoarding the ORC world titles of recent. There’s an undeniable winning pedigree here, and the Italia Yachts 14.98 continues the lineage.

While it’s a production boat, there’s nothing cookie-­cutter about this semi-custom Italian-built yacht. Artemis, the Italia 14.98 presented to the judges for Boat of the Year in Annapolis, is hull No. 7. It is owned by a highly experienced couple from Annapolis and expertly maintained. Even with a full season of racing and cruising under its hull, the boat was showroom-quality. The judges each noted it was impossible to discern it had been through the ringer a few times with a race crew, as well as a few summer cruises with the owner’s tribe and family dog.

The boat is accessorized with a lot of cruisy extras: air conditioning, anchors, alternators, a watermaker, and an array of electronics and communications systems, including a Starlink terminal. But 1,000 pounds or more of accessories didn’t seem to slow down the boat one bit on the breezy test sail.

“It’s a beautiful sailing boat,” was judge Mike Ingham’s assessment after two long sailing sessions—one a light-air drifter and a redo the next day in a puffy 15-knot breeze. “It felt great for a boat its size and so fully loaded. Even when the breeze was pretty light, it would just accelerate and go.”

The boat’s vacuum-infused construction, the judges noted, is custom-quality, and the interior finish is flawless. Even after a deluge of a rainstorm on the day of their dockside inspection, the bilge was bone-dry. To eliminate potential leak points and avoid a ceiling full of exposed fasteners, the boat’s winches, clutches and most deck hardware components are threaded into backing plates bonded into the deck.

Once under sail, the judges immediately appreciated the hull’s stiffness, a result of what the builder describes as essentially one monolithic structure. With a robust carbon keel grid, carbon longitudinal stringers, and Y-shaped chain plate stringers tied into the grid, the hull is plenty solid and light at nearly 25,000 pounds. Artemis is a slightly heavier Bellisima model of the 14.98, and sails with an ORCi rating of 484.1 and a PHRF Chesapeake rating of 6. (The Fuoriserie model is longer and lighter.)

“It definitely has a big-boat feel—nice and solid and stiff,” Greg Stewart says. “This boat’s ORC certificate has its limit of positive stability at 122.3 and its stability index at 130.5, so that’s really good. The Bermuda Race entry limit is 115, so this boat feels like it should—a good, stable and stiff platform. It felt really lively, even in the light stuff.”

The standard keel draft is 8 feet, 4 inches, with a torpedo bulb and stainless-steel fin, but shoal and deeper draft options are available. The standard rig is an aluminum Selden section with rod rigging, but a Hall Spars or Axxon Composites carbon rig is an option, as are “boomerang” carbon spreaders and EC6 rigging. 

The deck layout is straightforward and clean, with halyards and a control line running aft under channel covers. Reinforced tack points on the bow accommodate staysails, and there are longitudinal jib tracks with an inhauler system. Hidden under a foredeck plate is a trough for an optional self-tacking jib track.   

Judge Chuck Allen was mostly impressed with the 14.98’s performance upwind. His assessment is the boat “has a really nice groove. It is easy to access all the controls, and the winches are set up well for racing.”

Artemis has a six-winch configuration, but the cockpit accommodates an eight-winch setup should an owner opt to go with backstays. “It was presented with an A3 [spinnaker], which is a pretty small kite,” Allen says, “but it’s easy to jibe and get the boat to reset quickly. The boat responds instantly to crew weight movements too. We could really feel the difference as we moved people around.”

Stewart agreed, adding that the hull profile is both powerful and slippery, with some underwater magic that Italia’s designers have utilized and the ORC rule seems to favor. An unmistakable design trait of the Italia 14.98 that separates it from other wide and hard-chined transoms common today, Stewart says, is that it is “wide in the back end, but the corners are well-rounded. It has some rocker, so you don’t have big corners that dig and make all that turbulence. With this boat, you don’t hear anything back there, and the water releases beautifully.”

A quiet ride on deck means a peaceful ride below for off-watch crewmates and family members, who will no doubt enjoy the experience of knocking off fast sea miles surrounded by a bright and expansive interior that’s as easy to move about and live in at sea as it is at the dock. The family will enjoy the luxury as much as the race crew enjoys taking line honors—a true measure of a proper crossover.

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On a cool late-October morning in Annapolis, Maryland, Sailing World’s Boat of the Year judges stepped on board the gleaming red HH44 built by the Hudson Yacht Group in China. With them for the test sail was HH Catamarans president Seth Hynes and commissioning skipper Chris Bailet, who had tuned the rig and bent on the boat’s Dacron delivery sails. (The race sails were delayed in shipping.) It was their first time sailing the boat too, and like the judges, they were eager to see what it could do.

As the crew slipped dock lines and motored away in silence, the boat’s twin 10-kilowatt electric engines propelled the sleek catamaran through the mooring field in silence. If not for the sound of water gurgling from the transoms and the apparent wind blowing across the foredeck, the judges could barely tell they were underway.

The mainsail was then carefully hoisted inside the lazy jacks, and the halyard held firm with an innovative Karver KJ cone (a conical rope-holding device that acts like a restricter). They bore away and unfurled the non-overlapping jib, which snapped full, and the boat immediately accelerated. 

“Once we got going, it was 5, 6, 7 knots and then—boom—we’re right up to 10,” Stewart says. And with that they were laying tracks all over the Chesapeake Bay, making good pace on all points of sail, even without a reaching sail to deploy. (That too was stuck in transit.)

After two hours of straight-­lining, tacking, jibing, and enjoying the comforts of the interior in a 10- to 15-knot southerly and sharp Chesapeake chop, I extracted the judges from the boat and asked, “So?”

“Boat of the Year,” was veteran Boat of the Year judge Chuck Allen’s immediate response. “That thing is wicked.”

Greg Stewart and Mike Ingham confirmed with nods of approval and big grins. There was no need to debate any further: The HH44 had earned the first award of what will be more to come. This $2 million crossover catamaran is the performance sailor’s retirement race boat. [Editor’s note: The judges’ estimated price was based on an expected racing inventory and associated hardware, but according to HH Catamarans, the new 2024 pricing is as follows: The HH44-OC will start at $995K and is approximately $1.3m fully optioned with EcoDrive and sails). The HH44-SC will start at $1.45m and be approximately $1.6 million fully optioned with EcoDrive and sails.]

With a stated 37 of these 44-footers on order as of late October and a waiting list of three-plus years, HH44s will someday be scattered about in cruising grounds around the world, says Hynes. But it’s only a matter of time—and it will be sooner than later—before owners gather and give the racing thing a go.  

The HH44 is the smallest of the builder’s new lineage of hybrid-powered performance catamarans (there is a 52-footer in the works), so it is positioned as an entry point into big-cat sailing. This model does not require a professional captain or crew because simplicity and owner-operator considerations are prevalent throughout the boat, which is designed by young naval architect James Hakes, son of Paul Hakes, one of the company founders. Chinese entrepreneur Hudson Wang is the other “H” of HH Catamarans.

“It had a great groove upwind. The self-tacking jib was really easy to deal with, and for the mainsail it was just a few feet of ease on the mainsheet, adjust the powered traveler up to center, trim on and go.”

“James brought the hybrid idea with him, and Hudson was willing to take a risk and look at doing something kind of game-changing in the industry with our parallel-­hybrid approach,” Hynes says. Morrelli & Melvin was intimately involved in every performance aspect of the boat, from the appendages to the final hull profile.

“It’s a diesel engine with a shaft drive, and then independent of that is an electric motor with a belt to the shaft, so they’re really independent of each other,” Hynes explains.  

HH isn’t the first or only builder to use the system from Hybrid Marine, but Hake’s approach to the boat overall is inextricably linked to maximizing solar coverage, which means a clean roof and placing the helm stations down in the cockpit. To address the known challenges of cockpit steering in such catamarans, the steering wheels pivot inboard and outboard to allow for better forward visibility and communication with anyone on the foredeck dealing with sails, anchors or dock lines.

Placing the steering stations in the cockpit eliminates the tiered wedding-cake look of most big catamarans these days. More importantly, doing so allows them to lower the sail plan. “That allows for more sail area and less stress on the standing rigging,” Stewart says. “Plus, it looks so much better.”

There are 4,432 watts worth of solar panels piled onto the coach roof, which Hynes says has plenty of juice to get by off the grid, even in low-light conditions. “At full battery capacity, you can run the boat at full throttle using the two 10-kilowatt electric motors and get 7 knots of boatspeed for approximately two hours,” he says. “In light air, you can even keep your leeward electric motor running to build yourself some apparent wind. That’s what’s great about this system: You can sail quietly when no one else can sail at all.”

The port helm station is where a lot of the boathandling happens; there are powered halyard winches and a meticulous array of labeled jammers. Tails disappear into a deep trough forward of the pedestal. The wheels are sized just right, Stewart says. “Initially, I was steering from the weather wheel and I could see fine, and when I went to the leeward wheel, I could easily see the telltales. It had a great feel to the helm—light and responsive with no slop or tightness.”

In Allen’s sailing assessment of the HH44: “It had a great groove upwind. The self-tacking jib was really easy to deal with, and for the mainsail it was just a few feet of ease on the mainsheet, adjust the powered traveler up to center, trim on and go. There is some choreography to learn with the steering wheel, though. You have to move the wheel inboard to get better access to the sail and daggerboard controls during the tack. But once you’re done, you pop the wheel right back out to the outboard position. We didn’t have a screecher to really light it up downwind, but even with the Dacron jib and main, the boat took off. I was really impressed.”

One wish for Stewart would be a sliver of a coach roof window for quick sail-trim checks, but he understood the priority of using every inch of solar-panel coverage.

Not having a sail-trim window wasn’t an issue for Ingham, however. “Most of the time, you’ll trim it to your best guess, take a step outboard and up the stairs right next to the wheel, and check yourself on the trim. It’s all push buttons anyway, so you’re not having to reload a winch or anything like that every time you make an adjustment.”

Even as the morning’s fresh breeze abated, the boat continued to perform beyond expectations, Stewart says. “As we got down to 5 knots of wind, the boat was still quick through the tacks. We didn’t have to back the jib at all, and it sailed at good angles upwind. I was impressed with how well it tacked, and how well it tracked with only one daggerboard down.”

Stewart, a naval architect himself, also appreciated the boat’s modern styling and “sexy-looking profile,” especially the uncluttered interior. “It’s a nice departure from other similar-­size catamarans,” he says. “I like the styling—it caught my eye the very first time I saw the rendering. The transom angle and the reverse bow give it nice aesthetics and the buoyancy you need. The curved boards worked well and are integrated nicely on with the boat. Overall, it’s a great-looking package, and it would be a lot of fun to do some races on.”

“We will definitely end up racing in the Caribbean and doing some fun events for owners,” Bailet says. “The cool thing about this boat is you can take a smaller crew of friends and race competitively, and it isn’t going to cost you $50,000 in paid crew and housing. You can race this boat with three or four people, no problem. Doublehandling is pretty easy too, but if you really wanted to go banging around the buoys, with this boat it would be easy.”

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2023 Boat of the Year: Beneteau First 36

“Like a runaway, the Beneteau First 36 careens across a westerly-whipped Chesapeake Bay. The boat’s big-shouldered spinnaker and mainsail are silhouetted in the early October morning light. It’s making trees on the Eastern Shore as we peg the throttle down to keep chase in a 19-foot RIB. The four crewmembers on board are having a casual conversation—like no big deal—when a cold and meaty gust fills the spinnaker. The leech flickers, and the boat surges forward onto plane. Twin rudders zipper the slick streaming out from the transom as the helmsman, hands at 10 and 2 on the carbon steering wheel, effortlessly weaves the boat across waves tops. The boat is, as the saying goes, on rails.

“Wicked,” is how senior Boat of the Year judge Chuck Allen summarizes his experience when he steps off. “That boat is going to be hard to beat.”

Three days and 10 boats later, nothing comes close to usurping the Beneteau First 36 as the obvious and unanimous Boat of the Year, a boat that has been a long time coming and overdue. It’s a boat that will serve many masters.”

2022 Boat of the Year: Melges 15

Out yonder in the vast cornfields of Wisconsin, boatbuilders in Tyvek suits are infusing polyester glass hulls as fast as they can, buffing out one gleaming white dinghy nearly every 66 hours in a full-tilt routine to place the latest American-made dinghy into the hands of sailors clamoring to get a piece of the new great thing in small-craft sailing: the remarkably versatile Melges 15, our 2022 Boat of the Year. No longer shall youth and adult sailors be cast to their individual dinghy classes, and our judges agree. This one allows all ages to play together in one remarkable 15-footer.

“It’s stable, forgiving and accessible to a wide swath of physiques, a platform where you can learn to sail it and then transition quickly to racing,” says Eddie Cox, the youngster of Melges Performance Sailboats who’s been involved with the Melges 15’s development from inception to launch. “The boat fits a wide variety of sailors, and that’s what our goal was. It’s family-orientated sailing, which is important to us because that’s how Melges boats are.”

2020 Boat of the Year: Jeanneau Sun Fast 3300

“Beneath the red, white and blue vinyl wrap, the Sun Fast 3300 is a remarkable hull form, drafted by Jeanneau’s Daniel Andrieu and Guillaume Verdier, designer of the wicked 100-footer Comanche and a long list of fast boats. The hull shape can best be described as powerful, and most definitely designed for the big-deal races in Europe.

Jeanneau’s Mike Coe says the boat targets the shorthanded scene and might someday be considered a candidate for the 2024 Olympic offshore discipline, but in the meantime, the big event for new owners is the doublehanded Transquadra Race, from France to Martinique. In Europe, Coe says, it’s all about windy, downwind races, but for North America, the right boat has to get upwind, in light air too.”

2019 Boat of the Year: Figaro Beneteau 3

“There is no such thing as the right boat for everyone, but there is the right boat for the right time. For today’s fervent offshore racing soloists and doublehanded teammates, that boat — right here, right now — is the Figaro Beneteau 3.

This pint-sized ocean racer isn’t just another cruisy crossover from Beneteau, the powerhouse of production boatbuilding. There is zero intent of comfort below its low-slung deck, unless your idea of luxury is a white, wet and noisy fiberglass cavern. It’s not just a beastly Class 40 type, either.

For righting moment and power, it doesn’t rely on hundreds of pounds of seawater sloshing ballast tanks. For Figaro Beneteau 3, there are two unmistakable arcing carbon side foils projecting from slots in its topsides. The foils are no gimmick. Beneteau, nor Figaro face fanatics, don’t do gimmicks.”

2018 Boat of the Year: HH66

“It’s easy to become enamored with the luxury-level construction and cabinetry, but all the bells and whistles that will allow an owner to play off-grid are equally impressive. “This is the first boat we’ve seen in a long time where it was as good-looking at the dock as it sails,” says Tom Rich, a custom race-boat builder himself who can spot a shortcut or shoddy workmanship with one eye closed. “With the construction of this boat, I couldn’t find a single thing to complain about,” he says. “It’s really impressive what they’ve done with so many man-hours.”

The judges agree that a boat of this size and complexity demands a full-time boat captain, ideally one that’s involved in the build, the sailing and the upkeep. To race it will also require a few paid hands to get it around the track, and eight to 10 experienced hands, especially for races involving overnight action.

“We’ve made sure this design is race-ready,” says Morrelli. “The 66 is for an owner who wants to race and cruise, but it’s a big boat, and unless an owner has significant experience, they will need a pro or two to help.”

2017 Boat of the Year: Diam 24 One Design

“The hulls of the Diam 24 One Design may be white, but the boat is a black sheep in the sportboat flock. As an alternative to 20-something keelboat lookalikes, our 2017 Boat of the Year and Best Multihull is an overdue addition to the one-design menu.

The judges’ choice for overall winner was unanimous. “This is the first time in many years where a boat that looked really sexy at the dock actually outperformed everything on the water too,” says judge Tom Rich, a veteran boatbuilder. The sensation of wind and water rushing beneath the Diam’s trampoline is an experience that will leave first-timers wondering what took them so long to try a multihull.

“It’s designed to be technically accessible and not too complicated to sail,” says Duncan Ross, who represents the Diam 24 One Design’s French builder, ADH Inotec. “The systems are simple. It’s built for racers looking for something a little more exciting but [who] want strict one-design racing.”

The post Top Raceboats from Boat of the Year appeared first on Sailing World.

Like most things in life, innovation is born of either necessity or discovery, and for Tamas Hamor, founder of Xquisite Yachts, the necessity after 11 years of bluewater sailing with his wife was profound: on most production boats it’s nearly impossible to access mechanicals and even more difficult to get after-sales service. One experience in particular following a Pacific Ocean dismasting was the final straw that sent him into the boat building business: “It took months to get a rigging drawing from the manufacturer,” Hamor says. “It got to the point where we said there must be a better way to do this.”

Hamor’s solution was to launch his own brand with a focus on building boats with “the highest build quality and design, where every component, every tank and every pump is accessible and serviceable.” The result over the past 10 years has been a fast-growing line of ever larger award-winning cruising sail and power catamarans and a base of operations in the Bahamas where owners are trained on all aspects of their million-dollar yacht before being cast out to the big blue sea. The company’s base has since grown to be an Xquisite Yachts Charter operation and a sailing school as well.

And to the point of innovation through necessity once again, Hamor and his expanding team—with builders in South Africa, Portugal and Poland—have now launched their new Xquisite 30 Sportcat as a means to upskill owners on the nuances of big-cat sailing by schooling them in a fast and nimble package. In Freeport, it’s envisioned, Xquiste owners and guests will be able to island hop on the Sportcat to familiarize themselves with the feel of a catamaran. And someday in the near future, Hamor says, there will be a fleet of them in Freeport, with inter-island one-design poker racing and a school for the local kids to get up to speed.

It’s been long since the heyday of the slick and fast Stiletto Catamarans that a production builder has offered a sporty mid-sized day sailing catamaran. The industry focus is trimarans with basic cruising accommodations, but the Xquisite 30 Sportcat does not claim to be a liveaboard cruiser whatsoever. Sure, you could take it overnight and sleep on deck or in one of the two small aft cabins, but that’s not the point. Hamor says this boat is all about day sailing and experiencing the sensations and movements of a big cat at a much smaller scale.

“I don’t believe we’re going to sell a lot of them, but Xquisite is not about mass manufacturing anyways,” he says.

The Sportcat 30 model nominated for Sailing World’s upcoming Boat of the Year testing is a 2,000-pound shallow draft version with kick-up rudders and skegs. Homas says the boat can be built with retractable daggerboards for those who are keen to race it or sail it in deeper waters, but again, day sailing and catamaran skill development for Xquisite owners is the priority.

At $285,000 all-in the Sportcat 30 is an expensive day sailor, Homas admits, but he never wanted to build it on the cheap, reasoning the better it’s built the fewer service calls he’ll get. The sailplan is plenty powered up with a North Sails 3Di inventory (main, self-tacking jib, and gennaker) on a rotating carbon spar from French spar maker AG+ and all considerations were made to keep the carbon-reinforced vinylester infused platform as lightweight as possible. “It costs as much as it does because it’s built right and has everything on it—all the top equipment and sails,” Hamor says.

The boat’s modular trailer concept is designed to allow the boat to be assembled on land before slipping it down the ramp or into the hoist with a lifting bridle. The rig, Hamor, says, can be raised with two people easily. Disassembled, the entire operation is designed to be packed into a 40-foot container for shipping or off-season storage.

For propulsion, an outboard bracket on the aft beam will accommodate a gas or electric outboard, and Homas likes the new electric engines from Mercury—which at the moment would be his recommendation over a gas-powered option.

Would be owners apprehensive about assembling, launching and sailing the boat for the first time need not worry, Hamor says. “We can do the training right here in the Bahamas and ship the boat in the container to wherever you are in the world. Or we can fly in a team to assemble it and spend a few days getting the owner up to speed.”

Because that’s the level of service he wished he always had.

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