MY CHOICE

It’s easy to believe that the larger the boat, the less compromise you need to make, but this quartet shows that even at circa 50ft, there are still significant trade-offs to be made. But perhaps we’re approaching this the wrong way – what each of these boats offer is significant strengths in key areas. The Nelson 45 might lack some of the volume of the others but the seakeeping is peerless. The Sealine offers 30-knot performance and the Grand Banks counters that with phenomenal class. But if I was buying a boat to live on, the vast space on offer from the Trader 50 would swing it for me. Nick Burnham