pointer 30 sailboat

Yachting Monthly

• Digital edition

First look: Pointer 30 – stylish 30 footer

• Theo Stocker
• June 6, 2023

The Pointer 30 may not be the perfect boat for long passage making, but for a weekend with friends she fits the bill and does so with syle

Product Overview

The fact that the accommodation of the Pointer 30 is designed around a Nespresso machine, enshrined in glory, tells you a lot about this boat. It was conceived as a comfortable, fast and stylish weekend cruiser that you can take your friends down to for a coffee before a nice sail to somewhere for lunch. This is a boat that knows what it is about. Tea drinkers, don’t worry; there’s still a gas hob to boil a kettle.

Starting below deck then, the layout is simple, clean and quietly stylish. Headroom is restricted, dictated by the low freeboard and elegant lines.

To port, the heart of the boat is the ‘coffee bar’ on a shelf in the moulded hull liner, next to a small dinette-style table with two leather swivel armchairs. The forward of these chairs spins round to face a neat lift-top desk (though the drawer below isn’t large enough for a chart). Next to the work station is a drawer fridge that faces the simple galley. There’s a settee berth to starboard, facing the coffee bar, and a heads forward on the port side. The heads door serves a dual purpose as the door to the forward cabin and its double V-berth; one or other can be closed but not both.

Stowage is limited to bins beneath the bunk, and a simple but effective pull-out felt basket. Additional stowage comes from Pointer’s system of canvas pockets attached to parallel wires the length of the boat, so more can be added, moved, or changed – another simple and clever idea.

On deck, long, low lines with an elegantly subtle sheer, low coachroof, plumb ends and modestly soft chines aft make this boat very easy on the eye. Add in a displacement of under 2.5 tonnes, of which 41% is in the keel and a long waterline and you’ve got a boat with potential for some fast and weatherly sailing. She’s designed for the sheltered, shoal waters of the Dutch inland seas with a draught of just 1.25m, and is CE rated B for coastal waters so should be well suited to the UK’s tidal cruising grounds.

The sail area isn’t vast, but this looks to be an easily driven hull. A below-deck furler setting a genoa that sheets to tracks on the coachroof is standard, with a self-tacker being optional.

The fixed bowsprit houses a bow roller, and a tack point for furling offwind sails – the gennaker takes her offwind sail area up to 100m2, set from an aluminium twin-spreader rig with adjustable backstay. She has a powerful kicker, but no traveller for the main, which is sheeted to a raised plinth in the cockpit sole.

Her cockpit is large, capable of seating up to eight, both forward and aft of the wheel. This has a clever tilting wheel using the Jefa steering pedestal to tilt from one side to the other. Depress a foot pedal, and you can cant the wheel to port or starboard, or lock it amidships, allowing you to helm standing, or sitting on either side. The system seemed to work well ashore.

Halyards are led aft to two coachroof winches, and sheets come back to coaming-top winches, all from Harken. One neat little touch are the moulded rope bins outboard of the aft end of the coachroof.

While this isn’t a boat you’d head off long-distance cruising in, she has everything you need for a comfortable weekend on board, and overnight with friends, or something longer for a couple or small family, and the Pointer 30 would do so in a lot of style.

Pointer 30 specifications

LOA: 9.75m / 32ft 0in (incl bowsprit) Hull length: 9.20m / 30ft 2in LWL: 9.20m / 30ft 2in Beam: 2.90m / 9ft 6in Draught: 1.25m / 4ft 1in (optional 1.75m / 5ft 9in) Sail area: 46m2 / 495sq ft Ballast: 950kg / 2,094 lb Displacement: 2,400kg / 5,291 lb Price ex VAT: €128,017 (ca £112,353) Contact: www.smallyacht.co.uk

Enjoyed reading this?

A subscription to Yachting Monthly magazine costs around 40% less than the cover price .

Print and digital editions are available through Magazines Direct – where you can also find the latest deals .

YM is packed with information to help you get the most from your time on the water.

• Take your seamanship to the next level with tips, advice and skills from our experts
• Impartial in-depth reviews of the latest yachts and equipment
• Cruising guides to help you reach those dream destinations

Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram.