From Tender To Hard - What Europe's Luxury Yacht Of The Year Can Do

Plan drawing of the Amel 60

Sailing in strong winds and choppy seas can really get on your bones, in the long run it can even get on your nerves. A lot of the situation forces you to steady support, the waves to steer carefully, gusts to work on the pods, and the spray that comes over - let's be honest - is simply a nuisance. Unless you encounter the elements on Amel 60.

No splash, no cranking on the winches, no beating. Seated in the shelter of their large deckhouse, the crew and skipper enjoy completely relaxed as the 26-tonne semi-wind speeds through the azure blue mogul slope at eight to nine knots on the log.

The serenity that the boat exudes and the comfort in the deep, lavishly dimensioned central cockpit are among the most outstanding features of the sloop, with which the shipyard finally said goodbye to the ketch concept that had been practiced for decades. This was previously considered a unique selling point for the French and helped to distribute the sail area over several small, more manageable cloths.

Today, up to three headsails fulfill this function: self-tacking jib and genoa, both of which can be rolled away electrically, and, on request, a Code Zero that can be tightly wound up even in 25 knots of wind without pumping or untwisting. If required, the ensemble can be supplemented with spacer sheets by a gennaker, which can also be wrapped or tamed using a rescue hose - a rig concept as flexible as on an Imoca racer, which is now known to be operated from the covered cockpit.

Even the mast is laminated and baked from carbon fiber here and there. But that's not all: below deck there are tightly sealed off areas fore and aft; In the event of an accident, the doors of the cabins can also be locked watertight. Salon, pantry and navigation then remain as a place of retreat and residual buoyancy.

Otherwise, however, nothing on the Amel 60 is reminiscent of the puristic world of modern ocean-going racing yachts. Rather, it is the total alternative, a ship built to pamper and to lull its crew into safety. In the consistency shown here, no boat can currently do better.

This should not reduce the performance of the established competition, especially since they place more value on active sailing fun, which the large Amel cannot serve in the same way. It gives hardly any feeling for the rudder and therefore tempts you to entrust most of the course keeping to the autopilot. In all other respects, on the other hand, the yacht is either equal or superior to its competitors.