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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Sailing is both an art and a science, a sometimes-complicated pursuit that, once learned and mastered, can offer a lifetime of rewards. Sailing a catamaran well is an altogether different experience, as a light, fast cat can provide speeds and thrills that are simply unattainable on most monohulls.

As the founder and builder of the Xquisite line of bluewater catamarans, which can take their owners literally anywhere in the world, Tamas Hamor understands this fully. He also knows that taking command of a powerful cat requires a specialized skillset. How, he wondered, could he ramp up the experience level of potential Xquisite owners, while also exposing them to the unbound joys and singular satisfaction of commanding a superb sailing catamaran?

Enter the Xquisite 30 SportCat, the high-tech, beautifully executed answer to that seemingly simple question.

The 30-foot SportCat is a collaborative effort between Hamor and accomplished French naval architect François Perus, who conceived of the boat, and built its prototype, as his senior project while finishing his master’s degree in mechanical engineering. Perus is an engineer, but he’s also a devoted sailor, and he conceived of the SportCat as something he could moor off his family’s home on Brittany for fast, fun daysails, but with simple accommodations in the hulls for occasional camping cruising off the rugged French coastline. 

Hamor realized that the SportCat would also be the ideal teaching boat for his new owners, some of whom had little practical sailing experience. With a small fleet docked at Xquisite’s base in Freeport, Bahamas, the SportCat would offer direct, sporty feedback of pure, powerful sailing on a responsive platform in glorious Bahamian waters while they learned to operate their larger cruising cats. The SportCat would also serve as the ideal little race boat for small overnight regattas to the nearby Berry Islands, further enhancing its vast potential.

Also, as a trailerable boat that can also be stored and shipped in a standard shipping container, the SportCat is also a vessel attractive not only to other sailing schools and day-charter operations, but also to private owners who know how to sail but who seek to enjoy a next-level sailing experience. In other words, the little cat can serve many missions.

To accomplish all this, the SportCat had to be light but strong, and built with the best materials and building practices. The hulls of the cat are a vinylester laminate with a foam core that employs bulletproof carbon-fiber in high-load sections. The rotating wing mast, which permits the spar to pivot to optimize the apparent wind angle, is also constructed with carbon. The state-of-the-art 3Di North Sails maximize the performance in all wind strengths. Yet with all this leading-edge technology, the SportCat is also simply laid out with easily accessible rigging and sail controls. And driving the boat, with the long tiller extension providing fingertip steering control, is a sublime experience.

The Xquisite 30 SportCat started off as a straightforward project by a singular, passionate French sailor. It’s evolved into a catamaran that will introduce the sport to a willing audience in countless ways.

For more information on the Xquisite 30 Sportcat, visit 30sail.xquisiteyachts.com.

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Italia Yachts is on an impressive roll in the European ORC racing circuit with the builder’s 11.98 model winning its second consecutive ORC World Championship title this summer. Whatever the ORC sweet spot designer Matteo Polli discovered for this model continues to delier these dual-purpose yachts to the podium in fleets around the world. No doubt we can expect the same of the latest models from the highly respected Italian builder. For Sailing World’s upcoming 2024 Boat of the Year program, our judges will get a taste of this Italian excellence with the IY 14.98, a 53-foot stunner (44 feet at the waterline) with a stately 14 feet of beam.

It’s easy to see the Cossutti Yacht Design firm responsible for the 14.98 has a clear sense of what a dual-purpose race boat can and should be able to do. At first look, it may appear to be just another big crossover full of compromise, but a dive into the details reveals a design drawn for keener and competitive owners. It’s a sportboat that will earn respect among grand-prix IRC and ORC fleets around the world, the builder says. There are two models, however, the cruisy Bellissima and the racy Fuoriserie, but we’re talking Fouriserie. 

The hull design, Italia says, stands out with its deep V bow profile. Balanced volume throughout the boat is meant to give it a “softer wave-piercing movement.” A smooth tuck in the transom avoids the corner-digging problem common to modern wide-transom boats. This “reduced wetted surface and the high dynamic length,” Italia says, allows the boat to “reach considerable

speeds, even in light airs, typical of a pure racer, and making cruising more fun.”

“Each element of the construction,” they say, “is up to the highest quality standards and has been developed to guarantee to the owner a solid, performing, safe and long-lasting boat, for a true luxury sailing experience.”

Belowdecks, the preferred racing setup would be what the builder considers the “standard” version with the saloon accommodating a dining table, a U-shaped settee opposite a long settee and nav station. It’s a normal layout, but the furniture appears to be not overbuilt or excessively appointed. Of course, there is full galley, and the overall clean and Euro styled layout is conducive to the occasional abuse of a race team. There’s plenty of room to stow headsails on centerline or in aft cabins and kites can happily live in the forward cabin V-berth and the boat’s only head and shower unit. 

For the business of sail trim, six winches dot the deck where they should be: two cabin tops, two primaries and two mainsheet winches are spread around the expansive cockpit. There are three keel options, but the race keel draft is 9’10.” According to the US dealer, David Walter Yachts in Dania Beach, Florida, the boat’s ORCi all-purpose handicap rating is 484.1 and PHRF 6 on Chesapeake Bay. 

A look at the sail area numbers has the mainsail at 785.7 sq. ft, and the jib at 645.8 for a combined upwind power package of 1,431.5 sq. ft. Combined downwind sail area is 3,024.5 sq. ft. with the main and gennaker. With the Fuoriserie weighing in light at 23,150 Ibs., the 11.98 has a Sail-Area-to-Displacement Ratio of 28, which is plenty quick for what’s billed as a “luxury cruiser.”

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