THE BABY OYSTER
“If you don’t like our weather, just wait a minute, ” Mark Twain joked about New England’s climate. That could be Scotland, too, or Patagonia or New Zealand. There are plenty of places with capricious weather, but that won’t bother the Oyster 495.
On a test day in the Solent when 10 knots of wind could quickly become 25, sunshine was suddenly snuffed out by torrential rain and one minute we were in T-shirts and the next in foul weather gear, but the Oyster sailed on. A touch of a button here and there and we’d made sail or reefed. At lunchtime we furled the sails away, picked a spot and dropped the anchor without ever having to leave the wheel.
The Oyster 495 is one the most interesting yacht launches of the year, of any size. It is the British builder’s first 16-meter (53ft) model in 16 years, a “starter” boat with a price tag of £1.25 It is a capsule luxury yacht boasting the quality and technology of Oyster’s largest models but in a package suited for a couple to sail.
