Solaris Cup - Porto Rotondo

An invitation from the team at Windcraft to get up close and personal with the Solaris range of yachts for the annual Solaris Cup held at Porto Rotondo was the “carrot” that had us making the journey to Sardinia - having said that - its fair to say we didn’t need much of a carrot but probably wouldn’t have gone without this invite getting us thinking about a trip - so thanks very much Windcraft…and Im sorry that we didn’t buy a boat from you…again!

The Solaris boats are just next level beautiful and they really are the perfect race and cruise combination. The attention to detail that goes into these Italian yachts is evident in the quality of build. I especially liked the joinery and the clean deck layouts. The Solaris 55 would have been a tempting option had it not been for the draft restrictions of our home port which only caters for a max draught of 2.4mts which I believe could be catered for by Solaris but to me that is akin to buying a race  horse then cutting its legs off at the knees and expecting it to perform!

It was during our time at Porto Rotondo that we really solidified what we wanted from our next boat - it would not be a race boat but instead a boat that sailed well and primarily could house our family and friends in comfort.

Kye & I race an F18 off the beach catamaran and so it was decided that racing would be enjoyed on the F18 and the “big boat” would be something we could experience beautiful places, some that are relatively remote and isolated  - hence the boat needed to be self sufficient. This simplified the options - a catamaran was the obvious choice.