A rare beast indeed

…is a fair way to describe a ‘genuinely competitive genuine cruiser-racer’. But designer Matteo Polli is making steady progress in his mission to disprove the adage that, as far as high-level competition goes, such a concept remains the stuff of fantasy and adverts…

Italia 11.98
It has been a while since production builders have found a successful design niche for the true performance cruiser-racer. As they have for decades, many have tried to employ a handful of trendy features copied from current raceboats to hint at performance, but in reality they never quite get there since their real mission is to sell to the larger cruiser market. These boats may look fast in the brochures, or sitting next to more unassuming cruising designs at the boatshows, but one look at the hull lines, deck layout, rig and above all the displacement numbers reveals there’s no way for them to win on the racecourse. A long options list is another giveaway, with hundreds of kilos of variance waiting to be piled on top of the already unachievable displacement figure provided by the designer.