Grand designs

Elan Yachts has teamed up with Studio F.A. Porsche in order to produce the ultimate grand tourer. Sam Jefferson steps aboard the new GT6 to find out just how stylish performance cruising really can be

- Sam Jefferson

For those not familiar with Elan Yachts, allow me to give you the briefest of introductions; the company is based in Slovenia and started out making skis. Those au fait with alpine pursuits will doubtless know this already, as their skis are of some repute. From here, the company used its expertise in laminating to branch out into building yachts. This has meant that visitors to the factory, perched high in the Slovenian Alps and many miles from the sea, are both charmed and baffled by the stunning but geographically bewildering setting of the factory until this quirk is explained.

Anyway, the company has been turning out a fine selection of cruising and racing yachts for many years now; for over 20 years they have worked exclusively with the designer Rob Humphreys to produce the Impression range of extremely practical and comfortable cruising yachts and also the ‘E’ range of performance cruisers. So far so good, but where to go from there? Well, somewhere in between obviously and the first step on that path was to introduce the Elan GT5, a fast cruising ‘grand tourer’ if you will. This was achieved by taking the hull of an Elan E5 racing yacht and putting a new deck on it, plus upgrading the interior and reducing the rig somewhat. Very good it was too. Yet, clearly, the company decided it was time to go a bit further with this concept and the result is the all new GT6 which, unlike its smaller sister, is a new design from the keel up.