Sailboat Reviews

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...

The Caliber is a peculiar blend of tradition and innovation, of security and performance, of practicality and pizzazz. All of the owners we heard from were "satisfied." One called the 33 his favorite boat over six decades of sailing.

Florida-based Island Packet targets a relatively narrow niche, so the toughest competitors to its new boats are often older Island Packets. Introduced in 2010,...

What if I told you that the most radical sailboat you’ve never heard of looks like a turtle, weighs in at 17 tons (17,200...

In 1978, Tartan brought out the Tartan Ten, a 33', fairly light, fractionally-rigged "offshore one design." The boat was a huge success: fast, easy to sail, and unencumbered by the design limitations of a rating rule. But the Tartan Ten had one big problem: limited accommodations with stooping headroom, an interior most kindly described as spartan. A hardy crew could take the Tartan Ten on a multi-day race such as the Mackinac, and you might even coax your family aboard for a weekend of camping out. But cruising or extended racing in comfort? Forget it!