The America’s Cup, the oldest continuous sporting event in the world, has always fostered development-class yacht design and racing. This year the teams from six nations will be competing in 75-foot foiling catamarans that regularly sail at 50 knots or more. So, what kind of support boat could keep up with the sailing monsters and do so with zero-carbon emissions? For the answer the team American Magic, representing the New York Yacht Club, turned to the Italian boat builder Bluegame who came up with an innovative design for a foiling power cat driven by a hydrogen fueled engine. The foiling…

The launch of the Absolute 52 Fly , following the introduction of her sisterships the 56 and 60 Fly, enlarges the builder’s Flybridge line to six models. All of the Fly range share the same snub bows, complex hull forms, voluminous interiors and distinctive hull glazing. Built in Podenzano, Italy the new 52 Fly is a Mediterranean family cruiser designed for indoor-outdoor living and relaxing vacations. Connecting cruising families and friends to the natural world and seascapes around them, especially during the Med’s hot summers, is a popular design trend in Europe that Absolute embraces. The main outdoor living spaces…

Focus Yachts has carved out a special niche in the express-cruiser and day-boat market in Europe and now has a distributor in the U.S.A. The new 38-foot 3x, just launched this summer, combines exceptional performance with luxury and style that you might equate with a Maserati or Aston-Martin motorcar. One could easily imagine James Bond and a special Bond girl chasing villains in one of these. But, we digress. The new 3x is the latest design to be introduced by this family-run boat building business based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. It joins four sister ships from 37 to 50 feet…

The new Glacier 48 from the Latvian builder Glacier Yachts is an intriguing new design from the offices of Guido de Groot.  This all-aluminum build has a purposeful, expedition-yacht look from the bow. But as your eyes sweep aft you pick out a lot of subtle and interesting details that show how versatile this design can be. The 48 has a central saloon with open side decks running forward on both sides. These are contained by high bulwarks and there are sturdy handrails so you and your guests will feel secure moving forward to moor or anchor the boat or…

YOT Catamarans, based in France, is a new brand in the power cruising market. It launched the business last year with an attractive, modern 36-foot cruising cat designed by Slovenian design wizards JnJ Yacht Design. The cats are built in France by the famous Catana yard, which is known for its high-quality performance sailing cats. Catana also builds the Bali line of charter cats. The brief behind the design of the YOT 36 takes two concepts seriously, efficient performance and spacious indoor-outdoor living. On the performance side of the equation, it is worthwhile pointing out that power cats are inherently…

Now here’s something a little out of the ordinary for Cruising Odyssey, a 130-foot steel expedition yacht from the Hong Kong builder Cheoy Lee, also known as CL Yachts. The yacht, which will be built of steel instead of the company’s usual composite yacht-build method, will have transoceanic range so it will be capable of expeditions from the Arctic to the Antarctic and all points in between. While we are used to thinking of CL Yachts as builders of private yachts in the 65 to 90-foot range, this much larger yacht is not a stretch for the 150-year-old family-owned boat…

Azimut, one of Italy’s largest and most prestigious boat builders, has launch the Seadeck series of boats that are designed to reconnect boaters to the sea, build and cruise more sustainably and offer a slower and gentler lifestyle afloat. The Seadeck 6 is a 57-foot family cruiser powered by three Volvo IPS Drives 500s (380 hp.) that can be upgraded to the 480-hp. model. The expected top end speed will be 33 knots with a fast cruising speed of 24 knots. Azimut reports that technical efficiencies in. the power train and hull design will reduce the boat’s carbon emission by…

Based in Helsinki, Finland, XO Yachts recently introduced their new, aluminum-hulled EXPLR 44 for adventurous cruisers. The 44 has many interesting design features beginning the walk-around decks and high bulwarks, the enclosed pilot house and the 1350-horsepower delivered by the outboards. XO Yachts EXPLR 44 has a lot of current, Finish-design aspects that we have seen in Axopar and Saxdor express cruisers. The bows is plumb, the sheer straight and angled upward and the hull carries a hard chine all the way aft. The look is almost military in its severity. But the real story here is the EPLR 44,…