FIRST TEST DUFOUR 41

 There have always been yachts that claim to offer the best of all worlds. They lure you in with the promise of being able to luxuriate in spacious opulence after a day of exhilarating sailing.

- David Harding

The message is that there’s no need to compromise. Of course we know that’s not really the case. Any boat is a compromise. It’s just a matter of which elements are compromised more than others. Time was when we had the cruiser racers: race with the lads, cruise with the family (no doubt considered a politically incorrect message these days). By and large, race boats are now race boats that make no pretence at being anything else.

Cruisers, on the other hand, have become more performance-conscious in recent years, reflecting the reality that more speed allows you to sail further in less time. In many cases, today’s new cruising yachts are also faster by virtue of being longer than their predecessors.

Over the years, the elements of compromise in mainstream production cruisers have meant that buyers have, at different times, missed out on something significant. When hulls became beamy and the keels and rudders were shallow, handling and performance were – well, let’s just say, a little below par sometimes. Then when sterns became seriously broad and entries stayed narrow, boats were unbalanced when heeled and the rudders lost grip. Enter twin rudders to help overcome that one.

Now we have full bow sections to offset the broad sterns. This is still a relatively new development, and one that has been mentioned in the context of most new cruising yachts you will have read about in YM for some time. It’s definitely the ‘new normal’.

As a previously introduced ‘new normal’ it doesn’t need to be re-introduced here, save that these boats tend to stay more balanced when heeled, even with single rudders. What it also means in the context of a 40-footer with a high volume hull is that it makes for an even higher volume 40-footer.

Unlike the Dufour 37 that I tested in the February 2024