It was 1973. I had left my job drawing ferrocement boat plans for Jay Benford and was headed to Boston to work for Dick Carter—my dream job. I never bought into the ferrocement “craze” that Benf

The origin of the celebrated Pearson Rhodes 41 can be traced back to the 1950s and construction of the Bounty II design, a cruising sloop designed by naval architect Philip Rhodes that was made of a p

More than 40 years after the first Cabot 36 cutter was built in Canada, the boats remain cherished by their owners and the stuff of dreams for sailors looking to purchase one.  Only 49 of these

Let’s add 12 feet to the LOA and see what designers Simonis Voogd can do with an LOA of 54 feet 3 inches. I think the main difference between this big cat built by Kinetics Catamarans and the Bali 4

I try to keep my reviews objective. I don’t always succeed. If I see what I consider to be a “design flaw” I’ll point it out. But aesthetics are so subjective. I hesitate to impose my sen

I always enjoy getting a new Hallberg-Rassy model to review. I like German Frers hull designs and the layouts and decks of the H-R boats are always very well thought out. This new model at 50 fee

Here’s a big, stylish cruising boat from Jeanneau with the focus on comfort. The Jeanneau Yacht 60 is designed by Philippe Briand, a very accomplished designer of both racing and cruising boats.Look

Full disclosure: I love Leopard Catamarans. I’ve “owned” several, admittedly only for a week at a time on bareboat charters, but that was enough to find them fun to sail, easy to maintain and ve

Here’s a new Oyster model that is about the same LOA as the Shogun 50, but this is a cruising boat with no pretense to being a race boat. Oyster did not invent the raised saloon configuration.

I frequently ask my editor Greta to give me something interesting and different to review. Well, I got my wish this month. This new design by Oscar and Haken Södergren is really different. If yo

Dufour is one of the oldest French production builders still in business. In 1974 I raced a Dufour Arpege in the Chicago-Mackinac race. The Arpege was an older design at that time. This latest Dufour,

This month we have two new European builds to review, the Dehler 38 SQ and the Dufour 430 Grand Large. It would be nice to compare the differences in the two designs, but most of the differences are i

If Gozzard Yachts had a mantra, it might be comfort and safety.  The late Canadian boat designer and builder Hedley “Ted” Gozzard harbored strong opinions on how a sailboat should be laid out

Here’s a handsome new design by my friend Kevin Dibley. Kevin is a very good designer and a nice guy. The builder is Lyman-Morse and the company’s pedigree goes back many years. I have been to tha

This month we have two very nice cruising boats to review. It’s hard these days to clearly define “cruising boat.” My definition is any boat that you can cruise. That leaves a lot of latitude.&n

Sailors shopping for a new cruising catamaran should start their search at the Miami International Boat Show, where all the latest models are on display. Making its U.S. debut in 2020 was the 52-foot

Leopard Catamarans has 25 years of cruising catamaran experience. The result is this new 42-foot model that builds off the success of the Leopard 40 model along with advances in styling made with the

The French catamaran builder Catana started building cruising cats 20 years ago, and at that time, cruising cats were far from mainstream. If you went to the Annapolis boat show back then you might se