The cruising life

The cruising lifestyle has no boundaries, you can go where you like, when you like (work and wife permitting!). Therefore it is important to choose the right yacht. Safety is the most important criteria because a sailing adventure should not be a dangerous one! A well-designed cruising yacht should be able to take you anywhere in the world with confidence, there is no greater investment than a strong safe yacht.

The need to plan

The need to plan has become part of our everyday approach to life, be it having children, moving home, career opportunities, or retirement. It is also important to plan your leisure time and enjoy the fruits of your hard work.

The demand for cruising yachts has grown so rapidly over the last decade that many companies find it hard to keep up with demand. The lead-time on many new yachts can be from 12 months to 3 years. The need to plan well ahead is paramount.

Design

The modern cruising yacht must provide versatility, functionality, and simplicity without compromising its main function, which is to deliver exceptional sailing performance.

Versatility - a cruising yacht needs to have shallow draft to enable access anywhere without worry, but shallow drafts don’t sail well to windward, the larger the yacht the greater the issue. A lifting keel is the solution to this problem.

Functionality - whether at sea or in harbour the yacht must provide you with a practical layout. The wizard tourer’s one level concept creates an easy flow between cockpit and interior.

Simplicity - Often simplicity is deceptive, a great deal of thought goes into a truly simple design.

Performance - A fast yacht allows you to visit more destinations and spend more time exploring. Speed also allows you to get away from bad weather systems and reduces your time at sea, crucial on long passages. Heavy displacement yachts move through the water where as a light to medium displacement yacht moves over the water. Creating a yacht, which is easily driven, has significant advantages, the yacht requires less sail area making the yacht easy to manage this in turn means less stress in the rig and hull.

Construction

Many production yachts focus on reducing cost and construction time, these two factors if judged alone are great ideals but in the long run have detrimental consequences. Typically they are constructed employing single skin GRP method, which has been around for many years. This type of construction has moderate strength characteristics but poor elongation properties. Overtime this type of construction “softens”, this means with periodic rig tensioning the yacht distorts and this can ultimately affect its performance. The wizard tourers are built using composite/foam sandwich construction, by using engineered laminates and increasing the hull thickness the yacht has a “tight” and stiff construction.