Jeanneau Yachts 54

The interesting number on the Jeanneau Yachts 54 is the draught: two point three metres on a sixteen-metre hull. That is a proper keel, and it tells you what this boat was drawn to do. She is a bluewater cruiser, built to hold a course and stay comfortable when the sea gets up, not a coastal boat that borrows the look of one.

The consequence is a boat that behaves differently from the catamarans alongside her. She heels. She settles into a groove and stays there. On a passage between Sardinia and the Tuscan coast, or across to the Aeolians, that is exactly what you want, and it is why some guests will accept a deeper draught in exchange.

Her signature is the side decks, which drop down to the waterline. Walkaround decks on a yacht this size usually mean a narrow path between coachroof and guardrail. Here the panels fold outward and the deck becomes a platform a metre above the sea, which changes the boat at anchor more than under way: swimming stops being a matter of climbing down a ladder from the stern.

Four cabins for ten guests, with four heads. That is one bathroom per cabin, which at sixteen metres is not the norm — plenty of boats this length put six or eight people through two. It means two families can share a week without the morning becoming a queue.

Her beam is four point nine four metres, less than a third of her length. That is the monohull bargain stated in numbers: she gives up the deck area a catamaran of the same length would offer, and gets back a hull that slips through water rather than sitting on it. Delivered in 2019.

The cockpit is sheltered and carries a bimini, which sounds minor and is not. A sailing yacht spends most of its daylight hours in the cockpit, and shade decides whether that space is usable in July or merely available.

She lies at Olbia, Portorosa and Salerno, and can be taken with a skipper on request. From Olbia the Maddalena archipelago is an hour north; from Salerno the Amalfi Coast starts immediately. She suits people who actually want to sail, and who read a deep keel as a promise rather than a limitation.