A light touch | Life Under Sail

By Life Under Sail

For these serial Southern Wind owners, upgrading to their largest yacht yet was all about keeping it simple and enjoying the sailing experience. Katia Damborsky steps aboard Kiboko 4, Sailing Yacht of the Year at the 2025 World Superyacht Awards.

For 20 years, Southern Wind has been building yachts for the owner of Kiboko 4, and this is the fourth since the first 21.8-metre Kiboko was delivered in 2006. Each is an evolution of the previous one, and all of them have increased slightly in size. The evidence of the graduation is seen in the main saloon of the latest 35.5-metre Kiboko 4, where models of the hulls are lined up on the bulkhead.

Kiboko 4 was delivered in 2025 with exteriors and interiors by Nauta Design and naval architecture by Farr Yacht Design. She is the second hull in Southern Wind’s SW108 series, the first being 2024 St Barths Bucket winner Gelliceaux. While recognisably sisters, the biggest difference between the pair is that Gelliceaux has hybrid credentials, which was born from owners who were highly invested in generating power under sail. The hybrid tech came with a weight penalty that required a taller rig and therefore a heavier keel. The owners of Kiboko 4 had a “less is more” philosophy, according to Christophe Harvey, the project manager for the yacht. “[She] is overall a touch lighter,” which allows for a fractionally reduced sail area and reduced weight of the keel bulb. “The performance should be very similar, it’s just a different philosophy,” explains Harvey. “The whole point of this boat is the owner can drive it.”

At her core, Kiboko 4 has been designed to offer bluewater cruising capabilities without compromising on racing performance. Like all Southern Wind models, she’s built with a carbon and epoxy resin cocktail, with most of the interior components – bulkheads and fixed furniture – made in either foam or honeycomb core to keep the weight down as much as possible. Veneers just 0.6 millimetres thick finish most of the furniture and other interior components, with two-millimetre veneers on the floorboards; Harvey hands me a piece of the shelving unit so I can feel how light it is. With a displacement of just 76 tonnes, she is about two tonnes lighter than Gelliceaux.