SECRETS OF BOAT THE TESTERS

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHICH YACHT IS RIGHT FOR YOU? WILL BRUTON GETS EXPERT ADVICE FROM SAILORS WHO TEST DRIVE BOATS FOR A LIVING…

- WILL BRUTON

Yacht brokers don’t really sell boats, they sell dreams. To buy any sailing yacht requires a leap of faith: a conviction that the winds will blow in our favour, and that the places we voyage to will be better than the places we leave behind (or at the very least, that the experience of sailing there will be better than staying put).

No matter how hard-headed you plan to be about a yacht purchase, it’s easy to get distracted. At boat shows an overdose of polished chrome or fancy systems can overwhelm sense and reason. Sales patter can paint a picture of idyllic sailing experiences that are not, in fact, how you actually spend and enjoy your time on the water.

With so many different designs on the market, making the right choice is far from easy. What’s more, few of us get to regularly sail a really wide selection of yachts. Even when we do test sail a boat we’re considering buying, time on board is often limited. So how best to use that time wisely, and to work out what is really important?

We asked boat testers, who compare and trial dozens of different yachts all year round, for their tricks of the trade to help find the boat that best matches your needs.