Sailing World Magazine’s annual Boat of the Year tests are conducted in Annapolis, Maryland, following the US Sailboat Show. With independent judges exhaustively inspecting the boats on land and putting them through their paces on the water, this year’s fleet of new performance-sailing boats spanned from small dinghies to high-tech bluewater catamarans. Here’s the best of the best from our 2023 Boat of the Year nominees »

The Total Package

• Beneteau First 36 2023 Boat of the Year
• Stated purpose: Shorthanded racing, club racing, coastal cruising
• Crew: Solo to six
• Praise for: Build quality, deck layout, versatility
• Est. price as sailed: $345,000

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.

Beneteau initiated its First 36 project in 2019 by surveying a broad focus group of First “Point 7” owners and dealers about what they wanted in the marketplace, and the takeaways were: 1) Not another ­displacement boat—it had to plane. 2) They wanted a lounge, not a dining room. 3) They wanted their nav station back, and 4) for that, they were OK with having a smaller head.

Given the boat was to meet all three of its club racing, shorthanded and cruising demands, the brain trust assembled inside and outside of Beneteau focused on No. 1—keeping it light and fast. Naval architect Samuel Manuard, the new hot talent of the IMOCA 60 and Class 40 scenes, did the hull, keel and rig. Pure Structural Engineering took care of the structure, and the weight-obsessed glass slingers at Seascape’s factory in Slovenia ensured the boat came in at not a pound more than 10,580. At that weight, of course it’s going to plane.

The entire boat is ­vacuum-infused with CoreCell (hull) and PVC (bulkheads) from the deck down, inside and out, and everything, except the fridge, is somehow a piece of the structure puzzle.

“We are saving big weight there, as furniture is also part of the structure, and all of it glued together makes the boat extremely stiff and very light,” says Beneteau’s Tit Plevnik. “What is special is how calculated it is. In mass-production building, you can’t rely on precision, but we do. The boat is built to the same standard as a pure ­racing boat.”

“The moment I saw it, I knew it would be good. It’s a great-looking boat at the dock and even better with the sails up.”

—Greg Stewart

Built like a race boat, the judges all agree it sure sails like one. “It’s a big 36-footer,” says veteran BOTY judge and naval architect Greg Stewart. “It’s a full-ended boat that has a hint of a scow-type bow with a lot of buoyancy forward. Looking at the numbers, what they achieved with the weight and its placement is impressive—10,000 pounds for a 36-foot waterline length is a very good number. I could tell the minute we put the spinnaker up it was a slippery boat.”

Stewart set the day’s top speed at a tick over 18 knots and says: “I remember feeling the puff hit and load the rig, and the boat just scooted off with really nice steering. It felt like a Laser when you get it in that groove and it just levitates. With the dual rudders, which are pretty long, the boat has more of a power-steering feel upwind, so it lets you do a lot of things. There’s so much control, which is a good thing because you can drive out of situations, but at the same time, it’s easy to oversteer.”

Multiple cockpit mock-ups done at ­different heel angles produced a workspace that the judges could find no flaw with. “It’s all legit, easy and clean in the pit,” Allen says. “With the four of us in the ­cockpit, we had plenty of space to move around and were never into each other.

“I was doing a lot of trimming downwind,” Allen adds. “You can feel the boat take off. It was really stable and easy to handle. The thing is light and fast, and we did push it to try and wipe it out, but it was hard to do.”

All the judges praised the clever location of the primary winches on sloped coamings, which were easier to trim from than a traditional winch-on-the-coaming setup. “They’re at the perfect height,” says judge Dave Powlison, “and with them angled like that, you don’t have to crane your neck to see the sail, and the lead is virtually override-proof.”

Also noteworthy is the generous space between the high carbon wheels and the cockpit walls that allow the helmsman to slide forward without having to step up and around the wheel. The jib trimmer has easy access to the three-dimensional clue adjustment systems, and for the pit, there’s plenty of clutches, redirects and cleats to keep everything sorted and tidy.

The standard spar, and that on the demo boat, is a deck-stepped Z Spars aluminum section with Dyform wire rigging that carries 860 square feet of upwind sail area, which Stewart says is considerable for the displacement of the boat. The mast is well aft, which really stretches out the J dimension and opens the foredeck for a quiver of headsails—for this, you’ll find two tack points on the foredeck. There are four halyards total: one for a masthead gennaker, a 2-to-1 for a code sail, a fractional gennaker, and a 2-to-1 staysail. Allen, a semi-retired sailmaker, put an estimate for a complete race inventory at $60,000, which would put the boat on the racecourse for roughly $400,000. (Base boat is priced at $345,000.)

When the race is done, however, how about that interior?

Step down the wide companionway steps into a space of design simplicity and efficiency, some of which makes you say, “Duh, of course.”

For example, there’s no ­traditional L-shaped galley to port or starboard. There is, however, a tall and slender fridge smack in the middle of the boat (that you connect to the galley with a removable cutting board to complete the L). Walk on either side of it to get forward, past the proper nav station, the fold-down dinette table in the middle with roomy 6-foot berths on both sides, a jetliner-size head with a stowaway sink to starboard, and then a gigantic V-berth that benefits from all that volume in the bow. Back aft, under the cockpit, are large quarter berths as well that easily cruise-convert into storage space for water toys, like kites, wings and foils, all of which takes us back to survey result No. 2. This is where the post-race party begins and ends.

With the usual supply-chain delays, compounded with the build and design team’s obsessive and calculated approach to getting the Beneteau First 36 perfect at Hull No. 1, its debut got off to a later start than hoped. But with early boats landing at eager dealers worldwide, Plevnik says the goal is 32 boats per year for the next two years. The BOTY judges assure us it’ll be worth the wait and give you plenty of time to start planning what you can and will do with it.

The post Beneteau First 36, Sailing World 2023 Boat of the Year appeared first on Sailing World.

Sailing World Magazine’s annual Boat of the Year tests are conducted in Annapolis, Maryland, following the US Sailboat Show. With independent judges exhaustively inspecting the boats on land and putting them through their paces on the water, this year’s fleet of new performance-sailing boats spanned from small dinghies to high-tech bluewater catamarans. Here’s the best of the best from our 2023 Boat of the Year nominees »

The Family Flagship

• Stated purpose: Offshore performance, cruising yacht, club racer
• Crew: Two to eight
• Praise for: Powerful hull shape, high-quality build, versatility
• Est. price as sailed: approx. $900,000 to 1 million

The Johnstone family and their builders take their time to get it right. It’s what makes J Boats synonymous with proper and purposeful sailing boats, which now includes the J/45. For the many legacy J Boat owners, this sailboat is for you.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve come out with a boat this size,” says designer Alan Johnstone. “A lot of different trends have come along, and we’ve been paying attention and applying them in the sportboat range and in some of our smaller racer-cruisers.”

A good current-model comparison, says Jeff Johnstone, would be the company’s J/121e, which has been very successful on the offshore racing scene. “The J/45 has over a 40 percent ballast ratio, so that’s pretty substantial,” he says. “That means we can get away with a pretty sizable rig. Our markets are San Diego, Chicago and New England, where it doesn’t blow so hard, so we wanted to be able to actually sail in 5 knots of wind. With sails that work across the wind range, we have a more powerful hull that allows you to carry more sail area.”

The J/45 is a nod to J Boats’ raison d’être, Jeff explains. It’s a boat that is offshore-capable, and easy to campaign with friends and family in the club beer-can series and overnight races. “Look at the events that are prospering,” he says, “pursuit races and cruises—events you don’t need to have a pro crew on board.”

The boat is intended for shorthanded sailing, so there’s a traditional and simple approach to the deck layout, with everything leading to the pit, through-jammers to Harken cabin-top winches (one electrified), one set of coaming primaries, and a pair of winches for the split mainsheet that runs below deck and exits from a nicely sculpted deck fitting. With twin pedestals, the carbon wheels are high and angled outboard for excellent visibility.

“When I first saw it at the dock, I thought, This is a pretty cool race boat,” Powlison says. “When you step back and look at it, it has great-looking lines. When we got on, I immediately noted the sightline from the wheel. I could see across the entire boat all the way to the bow. It’s all really clean and has the attributes you’d expect to see on a proper race boat. When we went below, I was like, wow, it really is a boat I could live on for a while.”

The owner of the boat that was test-sailed has a young family of teens and uses the boat extensively for club racing and cruising in New England. So, the boat was laden with cruising extras, plus a retractable bow thruster, a hydraulic mast jack and an upgraded Hall carbon rig. A custom addition by the owner was the carbon furling boom, which was a project collaboration between North Sails and Hall. The owner is extremely happy with the furler, especially not having to make the family flake and stack 1,152 square feet of race-worthy sails on the family cruise.

“It’s great to see the owner already racing it and doing what it’s meant for,” Allen says. “I know J Boats has wanted to do this model for a long time, and this is now its flagship. All the mechanicals are accessible, all nicely done and perfectly clean. This is a big deal for them, and it being just north of a million, I think this boat will appeal to a new level of client.” [Eds. note: After publication Jeff Johnstone clarified the judge’s quoted price “as sailed”: “Base price is $695k with carbon rig, and a sail-away budget with extensive systems would be somewhere in the $900,000 to $1 million range.”

“I had full control through the jibes and tacks. My sense was that it just kept trucking through all the changes in the conditions.”

—Dave Powlison

Stewart has a keen eye for a fast hull and says the J/45 gets its appeal from its subtle curved sheer line and the long, low cabin top. “It’s got a nice hull form too; it’s wide aft, but not unnecessarily wide. Still, there’s good volume for the length.”

Enough of the looks. How does it sail in 10 to 15 knots and moderate chop?

“It was definitely fingertip steering,” Powlison says. “It was really easy to turn—I had full control through the jibes and tacks, and my sense was that it just kept trucking through all the changes in the conditions. I could easily follow the breeze, and for a boat this big, I felt it was very responsive on the helm.”

Allen did his fair share of upwind driving with an experienced crew for the rail weight and sail trim. The midrange breeze for the test sail, Allen says, was the boat’s sweet spot. “When we lock into a puff, the boat leans over just a bit, the helm loads up a touch, and then the boat takes off. At times it did feel a little underpowered in the lulls, but in the 12 to 14, getting to 8.5 was easy and it would just stay there. And even with all the cruising stuff on the boat, downwind was awesome. With the A2, the boat can happily get to 155 to 147 with a little rocked-over weather heel. It was fun.”

“It was good on the fingertip control as promised,” was Stewart’s assessment. “It’s light and responsive, and the wheels had zero play. The rudder had a lot of bite, and the boat was—as described by the designer—a stable and powerful boat.

“On top of that, it had great sails, was well-prepared, had good sailors on board, and showed perfectly to its potential.”

The post 2023 Boat of the Year Best Crossover: J/45 appeared first on Sailing World.

Sailing World Magazine’s annual Boat of the Year tests are conducted in Annapolis, Maryland, following the US Sailboat Show. With independent judges exhaustively inspecting the boats on land and putting them through their paces on the water, this year’s fleet of new performance-sailing boats spanned from small dinghies to high-tech bluewater catamarans. Here’s the best of the best from our 2023 Boat of the Year nominees »

The Power of Three

• Neel 43 2023 Best Multihull
• Stated purpose: Family cruising, casual pursuit racing
• Crew: Two to four
• Praise for: Easily handling, open interior layout, overall positive sailing experience
• Est. price as sailed: $600,000

In the sea of slab-sided catamarans that make up “multihull alley” in the US Sailboat Show, there’s a homogeneity that makes it almost impossible for one cat sailing condo to stand out among the others. (Gunboat and HH Catamarans being the high-ticket exceptions.)

Unique and mixed in among them, however, is the Neel 43 trimaran. From the dock perspective, it’s a big and imposing vessel. It’s also a proven bluewater performer that’s already won its share of hardware. While previous French-built Neel performance cruising tris have been overlooked by the racing set, that’s starting to change, as are opinions of multihulls. Ask the Texans in Galveston how many performance cruising multis are now doing their annual Harvest Moon Regatta—more than ever. And the Caribbean Multihull Challenge in St. Martin? It’s growing bigger by the year, and that’s because boats like the Neel 43 can be one heck of a ride and capable of being first to finish in a coastal overnighter.

“What surprised me is how much it sailed upwind like a monohull,” Allen says. “When you start flying the weather hull—when it’s just skimming the surface—the boat takes off. We didn’t have a ton of breeze for the test sail, but it was easy to see how you could really cover some ground with the right sail combination. I could see this boat being easily raced point-to-point by two people. With four crew on a coastal race, it would be a blast—go around the island and then park the thing and have a great night.”

Neel-Trimarans, explains Alex Sastre, the North American agent, was founded 20 years ago by Eric Brunel, founder of catamaran giant Fountaine Pajot. Neel now builds nearly 200 boats per year at its facilities in La Rochelle, France, and it’ll build plenty of these entry-level cruising tris.

The boat’s overall interior concept is to have one large and connected living space, visible from hull to hull. Step through the main salon sliding door and the living quarters are all right there before you with a near panoramic view. There’s an owners cabin in one hull, a guest cabin in the other, and a sunken V-berth forward. The layout is a striking change from similar-size catamarans, where cabins are down and low in the hulls. On the Neel 43, there’s a feeling of inclusion, like a loft apartment. It’s not necessarily better or worse in terms of owner privacy, the judges say. It’s just different. What the trimaran’s large center hull provides is a giant mechanical room below. Open a hatch and climb down a short ladder to an airy and brightly illuminated space with all the boat systems accessible.

The boat is primarily intended for family cruising, Sastre says, but it’s ultimately for a sailor who appreciates performance. “When you trim in the sails, the boat lurches forward,” he says, thrusting his hips forward, “like whoosh! It takes off!

“With four on a long-­distance race, it would be a blast [to] go around the island and then park the thing on a mooring and have a great night.”

—Chuck Allen

“A trimaran,” he adds, “is more stable than a catamaran and is faster than a catamaran, so sailing this boat is a lot of fun because helming it gives a feeling of great sensation. With the keel, mast and rudder on the center hull, trimming the amas is like a balancing act. It doesn’t heel too much, and it’s very stable. This is a platform for adventure.”

“It was the least multihull-like of all the multihulls we sailed,” Powlison says. “It handled like a monohull, and the third hull really makes a difference in being able turn the boat easily without stalling.”

The boat is an impressive build of vinylester and foam core, with nearly the entire hull built off with one mold. Neel touts use of eco-friendly and recyclable materials, and even cork is used as coring in some interior elements. Solar panels on the roof power the fridge and electronics.

With a displacement of nearly 9 tons, there’s a lot of boat that spans 24 feet at maximum beam. Looking bow on, it’s a formidable-looking craft that glides quietly across the water when there’s all of 1,100 square feet of upwind sail area on the carbon rig. With its roller-furling gennaker deployed, the boat really lights up, as it should, Allen says.

The single helm is up high to starboard with good visibility, the judges note, with all the reef and control lines spilling into the helm area and into sheet bags.

The Dyneema cable steering, Stewart says, was very responsive: “This is Hull No. 25, which is a good indication they’ve hit it right with the type of owner drawn to this type of boat. It definitely meets its purpose and does what it is supposed to. It’s stable and powerful, and accelerated well, even with the small jib. It felt far more nimble than other big multihulls we’ve sailed in the past. The way that it tacked easily is a really appealing trait for the type of racing an owner can do, like in the Caribbean, where the races are around islands and there can be a fair bit of tacking.”

First around the island means the first ­relaxing, and that’s what the Neel 43 is designed to do.

The post 2023 Boat of the Year Best Multihull: Neel 43 appeared first on Sailing World.

Sailing World Magazine’s annual Boat of the Year tests are conducted in Annapolis, Maryland, following the US Sailboat Show. With independent judges exhaustively inspecting the boats on land and putting them through their paces on the water, this year’s fleet of new performance-sailing boats spanned from small dinghies to high-tech bluewater catamarans. Here’s the best of the best from our 2023 Boat of the Year nominees »

The High-Pressure Ripper

• Tiwal 3R 2023 Best Dinghy
• Stated purpose: Recreational sailing, one-design and rally racing
• Crew: One to two
• Praise for: Performance, comfort, portability
• Est. price as sailed: $8,900

The surest way to grow sailing is to make it easy to get on the water with minimal hassle on a boat that is exhilarating to sail—and that’s exactly what the inflatable and ­powered-up Tiwal 3R does. Thousands of Tiwal fanatics around the world can’t be wrong; they love their zippy little crafts, and the Tiwal community has grown ever larger since its young French innovators launched the first model a decade ago. The Tiwal 3R is the continuing evolution of a great idea—with even better execution. Tiwal boats keep getting better, and this one is its best yet.

The “R” is for Race, and that’s because after two years of playing and adventure racing on the early-edition Tiwal 3s, keener owners started asking for more. But the engineering required to make Tiwal’s high-pressure inflatable hull and aluminum frame take on greater rig and structural loads that had them stumped for nearly two years, says Emmanuel Bertrand. They kept breaking it until they got it right.

At 10 feet and 121 pounds fully rigged, the magic of the Tiwal 3R is its portability, which would explain why the company says it sells so many in urban areas around the world. The sail, hull, blades, five-part composite spar and boom, and aluminum frame pack into two 5-foot duffel bags. To put it all together at whatever water’s edge takes about 30 minutes; it’s mere minutes if the boat is coming off the car top already pumped and assembled.

The PVC hull construction is identical to all other Tiwals, but the design for the 3R is a big improvement, with a more pronounced V-shape, a bit more rocker, and a reinforcement plate on the bottom near the transom, which gives it stiffness and a cleaner exit. “It’s difficult to get a hard corner on inflatables,” Stewart says, “so that’s a great solution to give it a nice sharp edge and a cleaner break so the water isn’t bubbling up over the back.”

When I got my weight in the right spot, the boat just took off. It’s quicker than quick.

—Chuck Allen

The gust-responsive rig and big sail, built with North Sails racing cloth, is what takes the boat a big step from the recreational sailor’s Tiwal 3 to the racing sailor’s 3R, Powlison says. “This is the same size sail as a Laser, 77 square feet, which is a lot of power. When you get the vang set right, it does make a big difference. It is an effective control that they got right.”

Powlison’s only desire was to be able to get the sail controls to run farther back on the rack, accepting, however, that this would unnecessarily complicate the setup.

Allen, who’s been a Tiwal fan since the original, is impressed once again. “You definitely get a lot more performance out of this thing,” he says after sailing the boat in 10 to 15 knots and flat water. “I got hit with a puff and was like, dang! This thing’s got some wheels. It’s much faster and stiffer. I’m 170 pounds and was able to stay out on the rack the entire time, even when it got light.”

Stewart’s assessment of the 3R is that it’s built for a slightly more advanced sailor. “This thing is higher tech, with a lot more control lines, so it’s a bit more boat to handle. That being said, I’m a big guy (the manufacturer’s stated maximum load on the wing is 242 pounds), and I was never sitting in water, so it will accommodate a wide range of people.”

Getting the purchase systems for the 4-to-1 cunningham and the two-part vang (all of which are doubled-ended) into the mast collar hardware was an engineering exercise, says creator Marion Excoffon. But the end result is a system of color-coded lines and color-matched Harken blocks that work effectively and smoothly to depower the sail. Once the control systems are assembled, they don’t need to be rerun. When rigging, simply slide the mast into the collar, hook up the mainsheet, attach the rudder, and cast off for a fast and sporty adventure.

“Every time I got a little puff, the boat zipped right along,” Allen says. “The foils are stiff and shaped well, so the boat goes upwind really nicely. The bow was stiff and wasn’t flopping in the chop. But the best part was reaching around in the big puffs, sitting at the back corner of the rack, with the boat just skimming. When I got my weight in the right spot, the boat just took off. It’s quicker than quick.”

The post 2023 Boat of the Year Best Dinghy: Tiwal 3R appeared first on Sailing World.

Sailing World Magazine’s annual Boat of the Year tests are conducted in Annapolis, Maryland, following the US Sailboat Show. With independent judges exhaustively inspecting the boats on land and putting them through their paces on the water, this year’s fleet of new performance-sailing boats spanned from small dinghies to high-tech bluewater catamarans. Here’s the best of the best from our 2023 Boat of the Year nominees »

Retro Redo

• Nacra 500 MK2 2023 Special Recognition
• Stated purpose: Entry-level beach-cat sailing
• Crew: One to four
• Praise for: Sailing experience, construction quality, value
• Est. price as sailed: $20,000

The Nacra 500 sailed onto the scene in 1998 as the 16-foot entry-level beach cat to rival the Hobie 16. With a sporty profile and ­powered-up rig, and no daggerboards to fuss with, the otherwise basic catamaran was a hit. Twenty-five years is a long time, however, and rather than reinvent the wheel, Nacra redesigned and reengineered the 500 from its skegs up. While technically a new model with a long list of updates, the judges eventually decided a Boat of the Year award would be a stretch to give a “Mark 2” boat. But after sailing it, they also felt it was too perfect to leave out of the running. It deserves special recognition.

There’s a good reason why the ­original 500 was a cult favorite: It was fast, fun and relatively easy to own—a great lake or beach house boat. Hardy Peters, from North Carolina’s East Coast Sailboats, is a lifetime cat guy who sells a lot of recreational beach cats. So, when he says this one is an ­excellent first boat, he knows why.

“The Mark 2 is designed for those entering the cat market,” Peters says. “And for anyone with the most basic cat-sailing experience, it’ll be a real easy pickup. And for monohull sailors, with a few cat-sailing pointers, you’ll be having a blast in no time.”

Nacra, Peters says, prides itself in the boat’s eco-minded construction, which is infused vinylester and a core material sourced from recycled plastic bottles. Zero waste in the production of the boat—from tooling to finish—is the company’s new approach. Whatever the process, the judges felt the boat was flawlessly finished, and the quality justified the $16,000 base-boat price tag. The additional spinnaker system is $2,500; with cat tracks and a cover, you’ve got yourself a complete setup for $20,000.

To improve the performance of the boat, the rig is 1.5 feet shorter than the old model, and the mainsail is now a semi-deck sweeper cut, all in an effort to bring the power in the rig lower for better stability. At just over 8 feet wide, the boat is notably stable, and the trampoline is big enough to comfortably lounge two adults in light air.

The judges appreciated the high-­quality lines used throughout the boat, slightly oversize and soft. The standard tiller extension is aluminum, but a telescopic carbon tiller would be a worthy investment for fingertip steering.

At 319 pounds all up, the Nacra 500 is a substantial beach cat, so the cat tracks are a mandatory accessory, and two people will definitely be required to haul it up an inclined shoreline or boat ramp. For those who beach-launch, the skegs have reinforcement rods and extra gelcoat running along the entire length.

Volume in the bow area was increased to prevent regular pitchpoling and the tendency of the boat, says Allen, who went off on a solo tear halfway across the Chesapeake under gennaker, and the boat happily bounced across the wave tops without much stuffing. Not wearing a trap harness for his turn on the 500, he instead hooked his feet into the hiking straps, back over the weather rudder, and let it rip. “That was fun. It was no problem getting it up and going, and it was really forgiving—amazingly responsive to every little rudder or weight movement. It would have been a blast in the trap.”

Powlison had the pleasure of solo ­trapping in 15 knots of breeze and, as a relatively inexperienced cat sailor, he was hooked in, zipping right along with a big grin and looking as if he knew what he was doing. It was a testament to the power, stability and balance of the boat. “I could have kept sailing that by myself all afternoon,” Powlison says. “I didn’t want to give it up.”

The post 2023 Boat of the Year Special Recognition: Nacra 500 MK2 appeared first on Sailing World.