Sailboat Reviews

The Beneteau 38.1, considered by many sailors to be an optimal size for a coastal cruising couple with occasional guests, has been in production...

The Cabot 36 is a sought-after, medium-displacement, 36-ft. cutter from the 1970s that can provide security and comfort for a budget-conscious sailor willing to...

With several hundred boats sailing the seas of the world, the Tayana 37 has been one of the most successful products of the U.S.s Taiwan-built boat invasion that began in the early 1970s. Its shapely Baltic stern, scribed plank seams molded into the glass hull, and lavish use of teak above and belowdecks have come to epitomize the image associated with Oriental boats.

If you’ve ever looked at a sailboat and thought, “Yeah, but what if it didn’t suck when the wind dies?” welcome to the wonderful,...

Designed by Phillip Rhodes back in 1960, the Rhodes 22 is a trailerable cruiser for a couple that wants the amenities of a larger boat without putting up with the hassles and expenses of a larger boat. It's clearly not a racing boat. It's also not a "shoehorn special," whose claim to fame is how many persons it can sleep. And it's not an inexpensive boat for its size. The Rhodes 22, from its inception, has been a purpose-built boat. And, with a history of detail improvements and some innovative thinking, it meets that purpose quite well.

By today's standards, the Morgan 34 is a small boat, comparable in accommodations to a lot of 30-footers. When the boat was designed, she was as big as most other boats of her overall length. In profile, the boat has a sweeping, moderately concave sheer. The ends of the boat are beautifully balanced: the bow profile is a slight convex curve, the overhanging counter aft is slightly concave. Esthetically, hull shapes of this period from the best designers are still hard to beat.

This 1981 Bill Shaw design is a late-IOR racer/cruiser.

We’re looking at a boat that sounds like a German electronics band but is actually a 43-ft. cruising sailboat—the Hanse 430e. If you’re shopping...

The early 1970s was the heyday of the Tartan 30' racer/cruiser. In all, no less than two dozen boats of a similar size and type were introduced in just three years, many of them to become highly successful among sailors eager for the performance and amenities of big boats at a modest price. Among the most noteworthy and enduring of the 30-footers from this era has been the Tartan 30.

This recent sailboat from Jeanneau may as well be a spaceship. They’ve taken all the time-honored designs of a monohull aft cockpit and turned...