Finding the perfect boat for a sailing holiday is a balance of stability, space, and ‘power-to-weight’ performance. As a Switzerland-based boutique charter agency serving all of Europe, we draw on extensive time at the helm of popular charter models. This allows us to provide practical, first-hand advice based on real-world experience

We draw on over 35 years of wind-sports experience. This spans from family cruisers to high-performance yachts like the RM 1350. We created this guide to explain how different designs handle. Crucially, we show how those traits scale as boats get bigger.

How to “Scale” Your Expectations

How do you know if a 46-foot boat feels like the 38-foot version you read about? Larger boats are naturally more stable due to their weight. However, a boat’s “soul” depends on technical ratios.

The SA/D Index: Your Performance Compass

For those who prioritise sailing, look for the Sail Area-to-Displacement (SA/D) ratio in the specs:

• Under 15: Often under-sailed. Expect to motor in light winds.
• 16–18: The “sweet spot” for modern cruising.
• 20+: High-performance (like an RM or Pogo). Expect higher loads and active sailing.

As you scale up—for example, from a Sun Odyssey 410 to a 440—waterline length adds speed. However, check that the sail area increases with the weight. If it doesn’t, the larger boat may feel “slower” in light air than its smaller sibling.

Size Matters: Crew Comfort vs. Handling

Size influences two major factors: Space and Load.

• Small Crews (Couples): A boat in the 34 to 41-foot range is often perfect. It offers luxury without becoming a chore to manage in a marina.
• Two Couples or 4–6 Friends: Aim for 38 to 43 feet. This ensures everyone has “breathing room” and storage.
• Large Families: Boats over 45 feet or Catamarans are best for larger parties.

Pro Tip: Never fill a boat to its absolute maximum capacity. A 41-foot boat may sleep eight, but we recommend a limit of 4 to 5 people. This ensures everyone has a cabin and enough storage for a comfortable holiday.

Technical Specs: Handling the Rig

Pay close attention to the sail plan. It dramatically affects your daily experience:

• Fully Battened with Slab Reefing: Best for performance. It offers more sail area and better tuning.
• Roller Furling Mainsail: Offers easy reefing from the cockpit. It is great for small or less experienced crews.
• Self-Tacking Jibs: These make tacking effortless. They are ideal if your group isn’t active in sailing. However, you do sacrifice some sail area.
• Autonomy: If you love secluded bays, prioritise solar panels and large water tanks (500L+).

Real-World Case Studies: Our Honest Reviews

We have personally tested these models in various conditions. Here is our take:

Bavaria Cruiser Series (34, 41 & C38)

Cruiser 34 & 41: These are exceptionally stable with a comfortable motion. They have a “classic” hull shape that handles choppy seas smoothly.

Bavaria C38: A modern style with hull “chines.” While it has good form stability, the self-tacking jib version can feel under-sailed.

Beneteau Oceanis Series (35.1 & 41.1)

Oceanis 35.1: Very easy to handle in marinas. It is perfect for a couple’s getaway but can feel “light” under sail.

Oceanis 41.1: A significant step up. We’ve seen speeds over 10 knots on this boat.

Expert Choice: We chose an Oceanis 41.1 with a fully battened mainsail for our own personal boat and for coaching. The battened main provides the power and precision needed for high-level coaching.

Jeanneau Sun Odyssey (410)

A personal favourite. The walk-around side decks provide incredible security at night. It feels reactive, almost like a large dinghy. The twin rudders provide excellent grip during marina manoeuvres.

Dufour Grand Large (412)

This boat offers a massive interior and a fun transom gas grill. While it is a great “floating holiday home,” its sailing performance was the lowest among the group we tested.

Alternative Options: Performance & Space

• Performance Cruisers (Pogo, RM): These are for experienced sailors wanting a sporty ride. Expect higher loads and technical systems like running backstays.
• Catamarans (Bali, Lagoon): The ultimate for space. They don’t heel (tilt), making them great for nervous sailors. Twin engines make them manoeuvrable, but their width requires good communication when docking.

Summary Comparison Table

Ready to find your perfect boat? Contact us to discuss your needs. We are happy to help you find your dream charter boat. Why not read our Step-by-Step Guide to booking your first charter?

The post Choosing Your Perfect Charter Yacht: Expert Reviews and Performance Scaling appeared first on All Winds Adventures.

Adventure has always been at the heart of what we do.

When I started Swiss Alpine Adventure, my mission was simple: to share my love of nature, freedom, and exploration with others. From mountain trails to alpine lakes, from snow-covered peaks to sunlit valleys — we wanted to help people experience that feeling of being alive outdoors.

But long before Swiss Alpine Adventure was born, my story began somewhere else entirely… on the water.

Back to Where It All Began

Before trading wetsuits for ski boots, I (Dave) was a full-time watersports instructor — teaching windsurfing, sailing, and introducing people to the excitement of being powered by the wind.

It was there, on beaches and bays across Europe and as far as Hawaii, that my passion for outdoor adventure truly took shape.

That feeling — the lift of the sail, the rush of the wind, the quiet connection with nature — never left me. It’s what inspired me to create Swiss Alpine Adventure in the first place: to bring people together through active experiences in the great outdoors.

When I met Karin and she mentioned that she sailed, my first question was simple: “Can we go sailing together?”

Karin, too, has always felt at home on the water. A lifelong sailor and all-round outdoor enthusiast, she shares that same connection to the elements that drive every one of our adventures.

Together, we’ve always believed that adventure is less about the location and more about the feeling — the wind in your hair, the water beneath your feet, and the freedom to explore.

The Bridge: Wannabe Watersports

If you’ve followed us for a while, you might already know Wannabe Watersports — our small but passionate side project that offered windsurfing and wing foil lessons, equipment rentals, and sailing experiences.

Wannabe Watersports allowed us to stay connected to the water while still running Swiss Alpine Adventure. It was where we experimented, refined our ideas, and started helping others rediscover the joy of wind-powered adventure.

Now, that energy, experience, and community are all part of our next big step.

Introducing All Winds Adventures

All Winds Adventures is the natural evolution of our journey — combining everything we’ve learned from the mountains, the lakes, and the sea.

Born from Swiss Alpine Adventure GmbH, and built on the spirit of Wannabe Watersports, All Winds Adventures is where our love for the outdoors meets our lifelong passion for wind and water.

We’re here to help you discover your own wind-powered freedom — whether that’s through:

• Windsurfing and Wing Foiling Coaching — learn or progress with expert instruction in Switzerland
• Taster Sessions and Private Lessons (Sailing, Windsurf, Wingfoil) — perfect for beginners who want to feel the wind for the first time
• Equipment Rentals — high-quality Windsurf, Wingfoil and SUP gear for your holidays or weekends away
• Yacht Charters or Coaching Weeks — Coaching in Croatia and Charters worldwide, for anyone who wants to combine sailing, learning, and exploring

All Winds Adventures isn’t a replacement for what came before — it’s the next chapter in our story. A full-circle return to the element that started it all.

A Shared Adventure

At the core of everything we do — mountains or waves, snow or sea — is the belief that adventure should be accessible, shared, and real.

We don’t just teach sports; we help people find connection — to nature, to each other, and to themselves.

Whether you’ve joined us on a bike ride or ski tour in the Alps, a sailing week in Croatia, or your first windsurfing session on a Swiss lake, you’re part of this story.

Now, as we set sail with All Winds Adventures, we invite you to join us once again — to chase the wind, explore new horizons, and rediscover the joy of being powered by nature.

All Winds Adventures

Powered by the Wind. Driven by Passion.

The post From The Alps to the Sea: Coming Full Circle with All Winds Adventures appeared first on All Winds Adventures.

The STX 11’6″ Touring SUP is a 3.5m long SUP with 270 litres of volume, manufactured with a double-layer construction. The board weighs a little more than some other boards of its size, but the double-layer construction makes it a reliable, durable and stiff iSUP for its 799CHF price tag.

Unpacking

All STX SUPs come with a backpack, pump and aluminium paddle (except the Freeride 280 Windsurf Board). While the quality of the backpack and paddle is not amazing, they are perfectly functional.

The backpack is made of a relatively lightweight material with very simple padded shoulder straps. There is ample room in the backpack to easily pack the SUP back in after usage. While perfectly functional (and has proven reasonably durable) it does look a little cheaper than the backpacks I’ve seen from other brands. Ironically, while looking cheaper than the backpack I received with another brand of SUP (which costs more than twice the price of the STX) the STX backpack has survived a season’s use much better.

The paddle is a very basic aluminium paddle, which, while functional, is possibly the one thing I would personally like to upgrade in this package. It is at least comparable to the paddle which you would receive in any other bundled package.

The pump is where STX starts to prove its value for money. It’s a good quality pump that can be set to either inflate or deflate, which is great when you want to pack the board up as small as possible. I’ve ended up using the STX pump as a matter of preference when inflating other SUPs of other brands.

Rolling the board out, you get a sense of the materials being more sturdy than quite a few of the other boards I have tried. In terms of build quality, the board is comparable to boards from many more expensive brands. The double-layer construction inflates to provide a very solid, stiff board.

On the Water

The quality of the deck pad is good, and the board is very comfortable to stand on. Once on the water, the board is stable and paddles efficiently without any noticeable feeling of bending under my 80kg. We have efficiently paddled the board two up with the 270 litres of volume, providing enough flotation for two adults on flat water.

The narrow nose of the board rides efficiently through chop if the water state gets rougher. However, like all iSUPs, this board is quite a handful when the wind picks up. It is certainly not any worse than any other board I have tested in this respect.

Once finished paddling, the board rolls very easily and fits without any difficulty in the supplied backpack. If you want to have things fit a little bit better together, you can use the deflate function of the pump to reduce the space the board needs when rolled up in the bag. This allows ample room in the backpack for anything else you would like to take with you on your way to the lake.

The bungee cord on the front of the board provides ample storage space for a dry bag with a picnic and possibly some warmer clothing in it. The handle is comfortably padded and does not cause any difficulties when carrying the board over a longer distance. The supplied fin uses a slide-in clip system rather than a plate and screw. This is much easier to set up and definitely saves a minute or two when setting the board up to get on the water. It does mean that if you were to lose a fin you would need to find a suitable replacement, whereas the standard US box fins would be easier to come by if necessary.

Perhaps the only thing that is missing from this package for me is a leash. Despite having a number of SUPs to test over the summer of 2019 from Oxbow, Bic, Quatro, STX and Fanatic, this board became my board of choice. Coming in at close to half the price of the Fanatic, Oxbow and Quatro, the board offers performance in comparison with the best of the more expensive boards.

Summary

The STX 11’6″ inflatable SUP is a great value for money double-layer board, which will provide many hours of fun on the water. The performance is comparable with much more expensive boards, and in my opinion, STX is probably the most underrated brand of SUPs that I am aware of on the market at the moment.

Update 2020/21

STX hasn’t rested on their Laurels with their iSUPs. For the 2020 season, they updated the construction to make the boards lighter without losing any of their stiffness. The new fusion technology fuses the two layers of the SUP instead of sticking them together with glue, which means a considerable saving in weight without any sacrifice to performance. The STX SUPs are one of the stiffest boards out there and stiffer than almost all of the brands, which sometimes cost double their price.

Availability

The board is available in Switzerland through Swiss Alpine Adventure/All Winds Adventures. Use the contact link above.

The post STX 11’6″ Touring Inflatable SUP – Review appeared first on All Winds Adventures.

Everyone likes to get great holiday snaps, but sometimes it’s nice to get something a bit different. Technology advancements now mean that the kind of photographs previously only possible by professional photographers are now achievable by the average person.

The GoPole Dome is a simple product that can provide stunning photos if you are willing to take a little time and effort to figure it out. I recently purchased one before going on holiday in the hope of taking some memorable holiday snaps. The dome is a Plexiglas half sphere which mounts a GoPro camera at a distance from the Plexiglas screen. This allows you to capture over/under photographs while taking part in watersports.

Before using the dome, I did online research to try and figure out how best to utilise it. In the end, I discovered a lot of the techniques I tried based on online advice did not provide the desired results. However, with a bit of trial and error, I did get some shots I was happy with, but ultimately, there is still a lot of luck involved.

Mounting the camera, the camera clamps securely into a Frame at the back of the dome. The clamping force pushes the camera into the dome, providing a seal to ensure that no water gets into the device. I also used a GoPole Bobber floating mount to attach to the dome and make it easy to point and shoot when out in the water.

When everything is assembled, the system feels quite firm. First impressions in the water were positive, except that with lots of sunlight, it is not easy to see the screen. This is not a huge problem, as the screen is obscured by water when taking over/under pictures anyway.

A few of the tips I read online suggested trying to shoot at an angle, either up or down, to do 70/30 style images, but when we tried doing this it was almost impossible to frame the pictures in the desired way. We found it easier to do 50/50 images for a few reasons. Firstly, it’s easier to frame something either over or underwater (while still having scenery above the surface in the frame. Secondly, due to water usually not being glassy flat it was easier to salvage something out of pictures when a piece of chop washed across the dome.

Drops on the globe can be quite unwanted when shooting in rougher water or once the dome has been fully submerged at any point. We found that briefly spitting on the globe and rubbing it in and then dunking the dome in the water immediately before taking a photo created the best pictures.

Once you take pictures, you need to be quite careful not to let water into the dome, as usually there will be some dripping once the seal between the camera and the dome is broken.

We also noticed that the dome itself is quite easy to scratch. I inadvertently touched the dome with a SUP paddle so gently that I didn’t even notice doing it, and there was a quite noticeable scratch on the lens right in the frame. It’s quite important to protect the Dome. It might not be a bad idea to maybe make a water case for the dome out of an old wetsuit.

One other issue we noticed when experimenting with the dome is that when shooting side on to the sun the image can be backlit, causing a reflection of the back of the dome in the picture you take. It’s best to position yourself to shoot down the sun if at all possible when using the dome.

Summary

A great piece of equipment which compliments a GoPro, allowing you to take pictures that only a few years ago would have required some very expensive equipment to shoot. Somewhat delicate but well worth the money.

Feel free to contact us or leave a comment for further information.

The post GoPole Dome – Review appeared first on All Winds Adventures.

The STX Inflatable Windsurf 280 is the board that initially introduced me to the STX brand. I first discovered the board on display in a shop and it’s simplicity, versatility and price point immediately appealed to me. I had sailed a few WindSUPs, but this board seemed like it had more to offer. On paper it seemed to be a “Jack of all trades” which could be used by beginner and intermediate windsurfers, but with straps and a release edge so that planning was also possible. I was immediately interested in the concept and contacted STX to try and get my hands on a test board.

The Board

The Board is 280cm long and has 280 litres of volume. The shape is very simple with a rounded nose and square tail and a glued on “rail” starting from approximately where you would expect the planning area to start. This rail is to help with water release assisting the board in getting onto the plane. Most inflatable boards have rounded edges which sucks into the water and prevents the board from releasing.

The STX features two fin boxes in the rear of the board and one centre fin in the middle. The centre fin is removable for planning conditions in the hands of more advanced riders. All three fin boxes protrude from the base of the board which does increase drag and there is a little flex in the rear fins when loaded laterally at higher speeds. The rear fin boxes are US slot boxes with a screw fin system and the centre box uses a slide in fin with a clip similar to what is found on the other STX Stand Up Paddle Boards.

The mast base is a single threaded hole in the board and STX recommend that you use a “cardan” (hinged) mastfoot with this board to reduce loads which could potentially pull the mast base out of the board. The mast foot thread is covered with a sticker saying “recreational use only” when you first unpack the board.

Unpacking

The STX 280 Windsurf comes in the same bag as all STX inflatable SUPs. In the bag there is the same high quality pump supplied with all STX boards (The deflate function comes in handy with this model), three fins and the repair kit. The 280 Windsurf does not come with a paddle.

When first unrolling the board it is worthwhile remembering how it was folded up and packed in the bag as with the extra fin box it is not necessarily obvious how to best fold the board to pack it away at the end of the session.

With the supplied pump the STX Windsurf board pumps in under 10 minutes. The board feels quite hard and stiff for an inflatable board when on the water with 15 psi of pressure. The valve on the board states that it can take up to 20 psi, but I am not aware of how this might affect your warranty.

On the Water

Advanced Sailor

For a more advanced sailor the board definitely feels different to a hard board. But it would be unfair to compare a 899CHF inflatable windsurf board to a 2000CHF+ Carbon board. At 80kg I could feel a very slight give in the deck which felt similar to how a slightly delaminated hard board might feel.

The volume is immediately evident and if you are used to sailing smaller boards it does take a moment to get used to this. But, bearing away in about 18 knots of wind the board started to rise onto the plane as you would expect with just a little extra drag compared to a hard board. Once planing you do feel a little drag from the external fin boxes but the board does release to give a proper sensation of windsurfing. I managed to get almost 20 knots out of the board which was not much slower than the speed I was going on my wave board in the same conditions.

The volume makes the board very stable off the plane and normal low speed maneuvers like tacking and gybing are very easy on this board. Due to the good quality deckpad which provides considerable grip the board is ideal for practicing any manouvers you might want to learn in lighter winds. Once planing foot steering works, but the board is quite challenging to plane through a gybe preferring a flarve technique of foot steering in and flaring the board out.

Beginners

The high volume of the STX along with the soft edges and good deck pad lend it to being an ideal beginner/intermediate board. I’ve thought beginners up to 100kg on the STX over the summer of 2019 and it has proven to be a very dependable board for those taking their first steps.

The relatively short length and centre fin make the board very maneuverable and with flat water conditions most beginners can learn and progress quickly. The stable platform allows total beginners to concentrate on learning how to handle the sail and progressing sailors can use this stability to think about their technique rather than just trying to stay on the board.

I would go as far as to say that this is possibly one of the boards that I have had most success with in teaching beginner and intermediate windsurfers.

SUP

While developed primarily as a Windsurf board, the 280 Windsurf also works quite well as a Stand Up Paddle board. At 9’2″ the board is shorter than most other inflatables, but offers great stability and maneuverability at the cost of a very slight reduction in gliding ability. When paddling with someone else on a 10’6″ inflatable I did not really feel disadvantaged, but the board did feel like it needed just a tiny bit more energy over a standard SUP. The only thing missing (in my opinion) for using the 280 Windsurf as a SUP board would be some bungee cord on the nose to allow carrying a drybag along when going for a paddle.

Some taller or heavier people I’ve had out to try out a range of SUPs actually choose the STX Windsurf board as their SUP of choice, due to it’s stability. So, the STX 280 Windsurf can definitely also be used as a SUP board if you are so inclined (paddle sold separately)

Packing Up

Packing was probably the most challenging element of using the STX 280 Windsurf, but with a little practice this can also be mastered. Due to the box for the centre fin the board can not be simply rolled up like other iSUPs. The board first needs to be folded from the nose to about half way along it’s length, then the tail needs to be folded over the back of the fin boxes and the board folded from the tail to meet the section which has been folded from the nose. Using this method ensures that the board can fit easily in the bag despite the extra fin box. Using the deflate function on the supplied pump to remove all the air from the board definitely makes folding the board easier.

Summary

The STX 280 Windsurf is a great value for money board for a family who would like one board to do it all for Stand Up Paddle or Windsurfing. The ability to store the board in it’s backpack greatly helps with storage and transport. For those who already windsurf at a higher level the board is a great toy for lighter winds in the summer or to teach your family and friends to the sport. If like me you are generally sailing in higher winds on small wave boards the STX can be a great compliment and allow you to get out and play in the summer on days when you would otherwise sit on the beach.

Availability

The board is available in Switzerland through Swiss Alpine Adventure/Wannabe Watersports. Use the contact link to contact us.

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