I’ve been meaning to write about this new boat since her launch this summer because she really looks the business.

It’s a Frers-designed 60ft daysailer called Ciao Gianni, and is designed to be sailed single-handed by its owner, Jacky Setton, owner of Pioneer hi-fi company and avid collector of cars and boats. The boat was built at Multiplast in Vannes and has been doing sea trials along the Riviera.

There’s been a proliferation of big daysailers, from the Spirit classic range to the Wally Nano and the somewhat similar Brenta range (there’s a new B60 out). This is a lovely looking permutation, very light at 9 tonnes displacement, with a long waterline length, deep draught, a high aspect ratio rig and that aggressive looking reverse bow, which the designers say is to keep weight out of the bow and reduce the bow wave and spray.

While admiring this new yacht greatly from an aesthetic point of view, part of me wonders about the necessity of such large boats for day sailing. Single-handing becomes more complicated to organise the larger the boat becomes, whereas in something smaller it can be purity and simplicity itself. So I just can’t help feeling it’s all rather surplus to requirements.

Then again, it’s not, I suppose, if one of those requirements is to turn heads.