FIRST TEST FAURBY 370

This remarkable Danish boat is unlike almost any other 37-footer you're likely to sail. Theo Stocker explains why

- WORDS: Theo Stocker PICTURES: Paul Wyeth

This boat doesn't care. It isn't bothered about waves, and it doesn't give a damn whether it's blowing old boots or wheezing asthmatically. And she doesn't give a hoot about fashion. She just wants to sail, and she'll keep going, pretty much no matter what.

Our test sail took place on Denmark's Lille Baelt where, like many places in the UK, the tidal stream runs at up 2 knots, as it did for us against a solid Force 6. The fetch might have been short, but the chop was vicious as gusts barrelled out of the wooded hills like marauding Vikings, swirling anarchically over the woods, wharfs and ships of Fredericia. Little wonder those ancient warriors were such good seafarers. And yet from the helm of the Faurby 370, things were anything but anarchic; exhilarating maybe, in a refined, polite sort of way. It was exciting in the way I imagine the late Queen might have been excitable.

I have rarely, if ever, been on a boat that could scythe it's way through conditions like that with anything like as much poise and understatement, emerge the other side utterly unruffled, save for possibly tucking a stray hair back in place.

Cruising boats are a compromise. You always have to weigh comfort against performance, cost against quality, and a myriad of other variables, to hopefully end up with a boat that sits at an acceptable point on the spectrum between affordable or luxurious, fast or spacious, flimsy or quality.