The Melges 15 designed by Reichel/Pugh Yacht Design was awarded Sailing World Magazine’s 2022 Boat of the Year Overall! The Melges 15 is a pathway boat for junior sailors and an adult racing platform that brings a deep cockpit, high stability, and an ease of handling. More than 375 boats have been ordered and fleets are popping up around North America.
The Melges 15 designed by Reichel/Pugh Yacht Design was awarded Sailing World Magazine’s 2022 Boat of the Year Overall! More than 375 boats have been ordered and fleets are popping up around North America.
The Melges 15 double-handed dinghy is the latest boat in the successful partnership of Reichel/Pugh and Melges Performance Sailboats which includes the Melges 14 and 17 dinghies and the 20, 24 (named Boat of the Year in 1994), and 32 sportboats. These designs have defined one-design racing for a generation.
The Melges 15 design builds on the success of the Melges 14 which made new levels of performance attainable for the club-level single-handed sailor. The Melges 14 launched in 2016 and soon thereafter won Sailing World’s 2016 Best Dinghy award (sailingworld.com/best-dinghy). The Melges 15 achieves the same goal in a double-handed dinghy. It has all the hallmarks of a superb dinghy, with outstanding maneuverability and all the power and planing ability of a modern skiff.
“This project was conceived right from the start to allow both new sailors and experienced racers to not only have fun, but really get the most out of the boat very quickly,” explains designer John Reichel.
“It is stable, forgiving and accessible to a wide swath of physiques, a platform where you can learn to sail it and then transition quickly to racing,” says Eddie Cox of Melges Performance Sailboats. The design offers performance, comfort, and stability in one sleek package, and is built to be sailed by everyone from friends and couples to families and kids. "No longer shall youth and adult sailors be cast to their individual dinghy classes. This one allows all ages to play together in one remarkable 15-footer."
Over the course of 2019, R/P worked closely with Melges to continually refine the deck design and incorporate design improvements learned from sailing the prototype on Lake Geneva. Ergonomics were a priority right from the start, with a deep cockpit and wide side decks for comfortable hiking. The rig utilizes a ‘gnav’ above the boom rather than a conventional boom vang underneath, to provide more space for the crew and the daggerboard. The daggerboard trunk and mainsheet block are supported on a low, central spine with enough depth to be a foot brace, but substantially lower than a conventional centerboard dinghy. Conspicuously absent are any uncomfortable athwartship supports in the cockpit.
The hull features a wide beam and a chine along most of the length, resulting in maximum stability and flat aft sections for quick planing downwind. There is plenty of volume for a wide range of crew weights and the boat naturally keeps the bow up quite easily in all conditions.
The sailplan is thoroughly modern, with a large jib and tight upwind sheeting angles. The square-top main provides plenty of power in a very efficient high-aspect form, and features plenty of adjustability from the spar and long topmast section. The large asymmetric spinnaker offers an additional performance element while the single-pull launch and retrieval system makes handling the sail easy and fast.
The Melges 15 focuses not just on performance, but also durability, which is a necessity for any organization looking to build their fleet for beginner instruction, junior sailing, or club racing. Lightweight extruded aluminum foils and a slender, tapered aluminum spar from Selden are specifically designed and engineered to take abuse yet minimize weight and drag. Built with the composite construction quality Melges is known for, these dinghies are sure to last for many years.
“When you have sailors from 18-80 years old ripping around at 15 knots together, there’s really nothing else on the market that has this level of accessibility and fun,” reflected Little Egg Harbor Yacht Club Fleet #1 Captain. “It’s not just a race boat, but a boat to go sail and have fun with anyone, anytime,” added Sailing World judges.
In less than a year, multiple fleets have been seeded and growing across the country, with more than 150 boats sailing and another 175 or so already on order as of October 2021.
After a session on the water, Sailing World judge and naval architect Greg Stewart reflected, “the Melges 15 is exceptional in all ways. Everything is so well-integrated and clean. It starts with a good designer, and then it’s good product development and craftsmanship—there’s nothing on this boat that you don’t need.”
The 2022 Boat of the Year nominees spanned small dinghies to high-tech bluewater catamarans, read more about the review process at Sailing World Magazine.