Yachts just keep getting bigger’. It’s becoming something of a tired old cliché these days trotted out by sailors of a certain age who remember a time when the Sigma 36 was considered a big old boat. Well, forget that, it’s a midget these days. Financial realities mean that boat manufacturers have to push to build bigger boats to cover the costs of materiels and labour. Pound for pound, a 60ft yacht is massively cheaper to produce than a 30ft yacht. That’s just reality. But what intrigues me about the Dufour 41 is that smaller is also bigger. Sure, 41ft is a decent size for a yacht but what really gives pause for thought is that one layout option for this yacht is to have four cabins and FOUR ensuite heads. Extraordinary. This makes the Dufour 41 the poster boy for a new approach to yacht design which involves giving boats much fuller forward lines married to wide beam aft – above the waterline – and relatively narrow waterlines keeping wetted surface area low in light winds and ensuring the damn thing sails well in a breeze.
This experiment in space exploration commenced with the Dufour 37 and is repeated in the
