GAEL I

GAEL I Few yachts still afloat carry a signature like this one. Launched in 1962 by Abeking & Rasmussen — a German yard whose reputation for engineering rigour has never needed embellishment — GAEL I is a 23.2m / 76ft sailing yacht from an era when hulls were drawn by eye and built to last generations. Six decades on, she remains exactly what she was conceived to be: a serious sailing yacht, run properly. Her appeal is not about square metres. It is about the particular quality of a day under sail on a classic of this pedigree — the angle of heel, the sound of water along a wooden-era hull, the absence of anything superfluous. Guests who charter her tend to be sailors, or people who want to understand why sailors care. She cruises the Balearics, the French Riviera, Corsica and Italy — a range that suits her well, offering everything from short Mediterranean passages between anchorages to longer legs where her sailing qualities come into their own. A professional crew looks after the yacht and her guests throughout, with the discretion and seamanship a vessel of this character requires. For those drawn to authenticity rather than volume, GAEL I makes an unusually convincing case.