SAIL’s Best Boats program is designed to seek out and acknowledge true innovation and forward thinking; the awards are based on firsthand knowledge of the new boats we see at the shows. SAIL editors Peter Nielsen, Bill Springer and Kimball Livingston, and editor-at large Charlie Doane combed the docks at the fall boat shows and have given Editors’ Choice awards for innovation and overall excellence. But we weren’t looking for just the cutting edge; smart ideas, like a new and better way to set up a mainsheet, a radical accommodations plan, or a breakthrough in design or boatbuilding technology, were candidates for an award. Best Boats is not a contest in which there are winners and losers, but rather a celebration of true advancements in every aspect of sailboat production, from technology to design and execution. Our goal is to discover and reward the ideas and refinements that propel sailing into the 21st century. Click here to read what we found.