Boat of the Year winners

Boat of the Year judges of the Cruising World magazine have honored outstanding technical excellence, good old-fashioned value and sailing performance, naming the Passport 545 Overall Winner of the 2016 Boat of the Year contest. Along with this, the Passport 545 took home the prize for the Best Full-Size Cruiser Over 50 Feet.

20 nominees of the fleet represented 11 different countries this year. The nations include Denmark, France, China, Croatia, Germany, Turkey, Italy, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States and Sweden.

BOTY

Alvah Simon, the BOTY judge, noted that the Passport 545 represented great value, stellar sailing performance as well as magnificent craftsmanship, including custom stainless-steel fabrications as well as high-quality joiner work. Judge Ed Sherman said that this is an heirloom-quality vessel. This would be going strong fifty years from now.

Cruising World’s executive editor as well as BOTY director Herb McCormick told that this year’s fleet of twenty nominees was really diverse, and gave their independent panel of judges plenty to consider in their deliberations and tests. In the end, they came up with very worthy winners in 7 categories, and the no-holds-barred Passport 545, the Overall Boat of the Year for 2016.

Each year, the Cruising World honors the most wanted Boat of the Year winners depending on the results of reviews by an independent panel of 3 judges, . Testing happens in two parts: dockside during the United States Show in Annapolis, Maryland, followed by trials carried out by Greece bareboat charters on the Chesapeake Bay.