Why a Topper Xenon?

Press and reviews of the Topper Xenon often make referrence to its 'stylish looks' and this was repeated to me recently at the sailing club. I started a conversation about why I had originally bought the 'Zambezi Shark'.

Initially it was not on my radar what-so-ever. I had trained on a Wayfarer and had been using the sailing club's Toper Topaz. The Toper Topaz is a small boat and at the most is designed to take one adult and one child. This ruled it out of my selection criteria as I had visions of taking Mrs Hook out one day.

The Wayfarer was looking like a good option - it was very stable, reliable, kept its value and could fit at least 4 people in. I knew how it worked and everyone said what a good boat it was. There were a few niggles though. All the boats I saw 2nd hand had kept their value just a bit too much and for a boat 10+ years old prices were £1500++. I thought this was too much given the maintainence that I would potentially need to do. Also the matter of style started to come into it - the older Wayfarers, within the range of the boat-fund looked horrible. There were too many home made paint jobs.

Some might say that you shouldn't buy a good boat to start off with. I disagree. Buy the best you can. It's a sport that you have got to commit to. I had nightmare visions of buying a boat and growing out of it very quickly, wishing I had somethig better. If you are new to sailing and you know it is what you want to do, get the best you can so you can enjoy it more.

Having raced for a few months on theTopaz, I had another requirement and that was speed. The Wayfarer was well out of it now and after further research I went to check out a Topper Xenon. I would have looked at more boats, but it was so good looking that as soon as I saw it, it made me buy her. Considerations were...

• Size
• Speed
• Cost
• Looks

This blog is not sponsored by Topper, but if they want to send me some £ .....