FIRST TEST HANSE 360

Theo Stocker braves the wintry weather to go for a blast in Hanse's new big little cruiser to see whether she is as easily driven as her predecessors

- Theo Stocker

Testing yachts in the middle of winter is a fiddly business. You need a boat in the water, some breeze, ideally neither rain nor snow, and a glimmer of sunshine through the leaden skies. Amazingly, early December gave us some of the best sailing conditions of the year, with a lively Force 4 to 5 from the northwest (we’d have to forgive it for being a little gusty), a few broken clouds to make the sky look extra blue, and beautiful sunshine.

The boat I had come to see was the latest offering from German yard Hanse. It’s a sign of the times that the Hanse 360 is now the second smallest boat in the Hanse range (the 315 from 2016 is still going strong), yet she still has a beam of 13ft or 3.99m. That is some width for a boat of only 33ft 9in on the waterline.

Hanse has always been known for boats that are exceptionally easy to sail whilst still offering proper, enjoyable sailing. I was keen to find out whether the bent for ever larger volume has eroded this, and whether something so spacious can still be weatherly and easily driven.

The rough hull shape will be familiar to anyone wandering the pontoons of a boat show these days. Hard hull chines at the bow create a relatively narrow entry to the waterline while flaring out to very full sections higher up, with the chines tapering aft into softer lines, ready to produce a huge amount of form stability once the boat heels much beyond 10°.

There are clues, however, that this boat is about more than just space. Composite wheels, an adjustable backstay, a deep single rudder and, on our test boat, an extra set of winches for offwind sails plus a set of laminate tri-radial sails from Elvstrom.