Galep II

Twelve metres of hull, three metres forty of beam, and a top speed of thirty-five knots. Those three numbers describe a day boat in the proper sense: narrow, light and quick, built to cover the Amalfi Coast at the pace the coast deserves rather than at the pace a heavier boat allows.

Speed is not a vanity here, it is time. Capri from Salerno is a passage that costs a slow boat most of a morning; at thirty-five knots it costs a fraction of that, and the difference is returned to you as swimming, lunch and an unhurried afternoon.

Ten guests aboard, with a skipper and a hostess included. Two crew for ten is a generous ratio for a boat of twelve metres, and it is what turns a fast hull into a day out: one person drives, one looks after the drinks, the towels and the moment somebody wants to get back in.

There is a cabin and a bathroom below. On a day charter the bathroom is the detail that matters most and is mentioned least: nobody has to end the afternoon early, and the cabin gives somewhere to change, to put bags and to get out of the sun for twenty minutes.

The day includes a welcome drink and the stops that make the coast worth doing by sea: swimming where the water is clear, snorkelling off the rocks, and the sea caves and inlets that are simply not reachable by road from any of the towns along it.

She is a Raptor 35 from Motonautica Daniele, delivered in 2021. A local hull built for this exact water, recent enough that the engines, the upholstery and the electronics are current, and small enough to come alongside in places that a larger boat has to admire from outside.

Three pick-up points: Salerno, Amalfi and Positano. You board where your day starts instead of driving along the coast road to reach a marina, which in July and August is worth an hour of anybody's holiday in each direction.

For a family or a group of friends taking one perfect day rather than a week, this is the boat that answers. Fast enough to reach Capri, small enough to slip into the coves, and crewed so that nobody spends the day working.