Forty metres is the point at which a sailing yacht stops asking guests to choose between performance and comfort. A rig of this size still needs a professional crew and still rewards a skipper who knows what to do with a breeze, but the yacht beneath it now carries a full beam master, air conditioning that copes with the tropics and a tender garage.
The fleet at this length is unusually varied. Perini Navi and Alloy ketches prioritise easy handling and volume, carbon sloops from Vitters and Fitzroy will hold twelve knots upwind, and traditional Turkish and Indonesian hulls offer eight guests a week for a fraction of the cost. Four to six cabins is typical, with crews of five to eight and lifting keels on many designs.
That variety shows in the rates. A well found gulet or classic hull at forty metres can be taken for twenty five to sixty thousand euros a week, the bulk of the modern fleet sits around eighty to ninety thousand, and the most sought after performance yachts pass two hundred thousand. Provisioning runs at roughly thirty percent, and low fuel use keeps it modest.
Forty metre sailing yachts belong in the Aegean and the Adriatic through summer, where the Meltemi and the Bora give real passages between islands, and in the Leewards and Grenadines from December. A lifting keel takes you into Cala Saona or the Blue Lagoon at Bequia, where much of the motor fleet cannot follow. Tell us how you like to sail and we will match the yacht.
