Beneteau Oceanis 51.1

A monohull among catamarans, and the difference is the point. Four metres eighty of beam on a hull of nearly sixteen metres, with a keel two metres thirty down: this is a boat that leans, holds a course to windward, and gets somewhere when the wind is on the nose.

The hull is chined, which means the topsides break into a hard angle rather than curving all the way round. It carries the beam further aft, so the boat stands up to her sails better and the aft cabins get width that older designs of the same length simply did not have.

Five cabins and three bathrooms. That is the honest number and it should be said plainly: ten guests, three doors. Between friends who sail together it is unremarkable; for five couples who do not know one another well it is the fact to weigh before anything else.

Twin helms, one each side, so the person steering sits to windward and can see the sails and the bow without standing up. It is a small thing on a short passage and the whole difference on a long one, when steering is what somebody is doing for three hours.

She is available from six bases, more than almost anything else here: Portorosa, Capo d'Orlando, Trapani, Salerno, Cala de' Medici and Olbia. Sicily, Campania, Tuscany and Sardinia, from a single boat, decided by where you would rather begin the week.

The draught of two metres thirty is the price of the sailing. She anchors further out than a catamaran does, needs more water under her in a harbour, and repays it every time the breeze fills in and she starts making six or seven knots to windward without complaint.

She dates from 2020 and there is no permanent crew. Bareboat with the right qualification, or skippered by arrangement, which on a boat that genuinely sails is worth more than it is on one that mostly motors between bays.

For a group that wants the week to include sailing rather than transport, this is the boat in the fleet that answers. Everything about her, from the keel to the second wheel, is arranged around the assumption that somebody aboard actually wants to steer.