achts of 30 foot or under are exciting – something about their (relatively) diminutive size makes them reminiscent of childhood adventures. They’re also intriguing from a design point of view. The challenges of fitting in cockpit, cabin and berths into a confined space mean that there is often more variation among the ‘pocket cruisers’ of this world than among boats that are not dimensionally challenged. Go big, and they all start to look the same to the small-boat enthusiast. Conversely, the small boats launched or planned in the last year or two, such as the Bente 28, Swallow Yachts 32, the GT 325, or the Sunbeam 29.1 and 32.1, are all so different as to be hard to compare. The truth is that this size of boat sits somewhere between a fully offshore-capable cruiser, and an inland or coastal day sailor, or, in the case of the Pointer 30, a classy ‘weekender’. This appellation has been pilfered from the motor boat world to denote a cruising boat intended to be fun to sail with your mates, pleasant to be aboard, and comfortable enough for a night or two. The question is, does such a boat fall between two stools, lugging around a load of half-usable accommodation while sacrificing the sailing ability of a more honest luxury day-sailer? Well, when I first clapped eyes on the Pointer 30 at her world premiere at the Düsseldorf
