THE BEAUTIFUL LIGHTNESS OF BEING

By SAMUEL JEFFERSON | TIDE Magazine

Compromise is a part of life – except when you have a 108ft, smart, comfortable Superyacht that handles with all the daintiness of a dinghy. The Skipper and owner of Kiboko 4 – just voted Sailing Yacht of 2025 – explain how she does it.

The phrase ‘small is beautiful’ is one that is often relevant in the sailing world. Anyone who learnt to sail in dinghies will vouch for the fact that going out in a small boat can be a wonderful experience. The sensation of skimming over the waves is a special one. Your closeness to the water, the feel of the helm and your relatively precarious position means you feel involved with the elements, at one, in a way that is truly life affirming,
exhilarating and, yes, beautiful. Imagine though if you could take all the sensations that a dinghy delivers and place them on the bigger canvas
of a full-size yacht.

That is what the designers of Kiboko 4, a 108ft-long Southern Wind sloop, were aiming for when they set about drawing up the lines for this custom-built cruiser/racer. We’re talking about finger-light dinghy-style handling on the most ambitious scale.

Kiboko 4 is a stunning all-carbon black beauty which is destined to turn heads wherever she goes. She’s already been voted Sailing Yacht of the Year at the recent World Superyacht Awards in Venice. Kiboko 4 is the second Southern Wind 108 to be launched and, if her half-sister Gelliceaux is anything to go by, she looks likely to also cut a dash on the racecourse. Gelliceaux cleaned up at the 2024 St Barths Bucket Regatta in her debut season. If anything, Kiboko 4 should be even quicker than her predecessor because she is a shade lighter.

While Gelliceaux featured hybrid electricdiesel propulsion, the new boat has dispensed with the heavy batteries and gone with a diesel engine. Farr Yacht Design, which worked up her hull lines, state that the emphasis was on producing a boat that could sail well in light weather conditions while also being a fast passage maker — which can compete effectively in regattas.

Such a wide-ranging brief could have led to an uncomfortable compromise, but this certainly does not seem to have been the case. Skipper Raimon Pasco, freshly arrived in Palma Mallorca after completing the 4,300 nautical mile trip from Southern Wind’s home base in Cape Town, is delighted with the performance of the new boat. “When there is wind Kiboko 4 performs very well and is extremely fast and powerful,” he says. “From a sailing point of view, the boat has been amazing – better than what I was expecting.”

Producing a 108ft yacht that will perform strongly in light winds requires a light hull to match, and Kiboko 4 boasts a carbon-fibre hull produced in three sections combined with a carbon deck and rig. The keel is incredibly deep at 6.2m but this can be partially raised when required, reducing the draft to 4.0m. “This long lifting keel gives us a lot of power so this is a big difference,” Skipper Pasco notes. Kiboko 4 also features twin rudders which provide masses of grip and the very simple and direct Dyneema linkage between the wheel and the rudder quadrant goes some way to explaining why this boat is such a joy to handle.