Boat Camp

We got into a ritual pretty early, and by the end of the week, we had it down pat.
Each morning, our four Boat of the Year judges would gobble down
breakfast, layer up in their foul-weather gear, and convene on the
private dock adjacent to our comfortable, rented home on secluded Lake
Ogleton, just south of Annapolis, Maryland. There we'd board our chase
boat-an all-black Ribcraft 7.8 powered by a single four-stroke Honda
225-horsepower outboard-and moments later, we'd be flying over lumpy
Chesapeake Bay at close to 50 mph, en route to a full day of sailing.

Photographer Billy Black, who rises early and always beat us off the
dock by a good hour or more, would certainly have enjoyed something
other than our steady diet of bleak skies and flat light. But our
judges at Boat Camp-which is what I came to call our eight days of
dockside and on-the-water testing last October for the 12th edition of
our annual Boat of the Year contest-were happy campers nonetheless. For
beneath that leaden ceiling we had wind, glorious wind, in absolute
abundance. Combine that with plenty of brand-new sails to hoist aboard
a veritable fleet of state-of-the-art cruising boats, and you have the
ingredients to make any true sailor very happy.

A quick word about our 25-foot-7-inch Ribcraft (www.ribcraftusa.com),
which was expertly operated for the sailing portion of our trials by
the company's very capable Tripp St. Clair. There's no way we could've
arrived for our respective appointments in any better style, even if we
did at times more closely resemble a boatload of Navy SEALs or a
waterborne SWAT team than the boat reviewers, editors, and judges we
actually were. This Ribcraft was loaded, with a full suite of
electronics, an onboard intercom system, carbon-fiber H2 suspension
seats, underwater lights, and more. We boarded one European entry whose
manufacturer's representative greeted us with very wide eyes. 
"You guys on that boat have kind of scared me," he said. To which BOTY
judge Ed Sherman, without missing a beat, deadpanned, "You have every
right to be very frightened."

In all seriousness, though, our BOTY program is the biggest, most
comprehensive project we undertake each year, and we're very proud of
it. Other sailing magazines have tried similar enterprises and
abandoned them, and you know what? I don't blame them a bit--our
intense version of Boat Camp is a lot of fun, but it's also bloody hard
work. This year we started off with 42 entered boats and had them
whittled down to 26 nominees in seven classes before the judges arrived
in Annapolis to begin their assessments. From there, each boat was
scrutinized dockside and under sail. When the day's sailing was done,
we'd spend hours discussing the boats and their relative merits, both
on their own and in relation to the entire fleet. Each judge filled up
his or her own personal notebooks, and the transcript of the recorded
deliberation numbers over 100 typed, double-spaced pages and 28,000
words. Whew.

As always, the independent judging panel's decisions were its own, and
I think this year the members made several intriguing--and in some
cases, surprising--choices. When all was said and done, our senior
judge, Bill Lee, nominated the Ribcraft 7.8 as his personal pick for
Boat of the Year. I think he was kidding, but maybe not. In any event,
for the real list of the top new boats for 2006, please follow this
link to our BOTY wrap-up, "Crunching the Numbers."