Nautor Swan’s Federico Michetti is a world-class sailor obsessed with perfection. Sail a short distance with him, and you’ll watch him make OCD-level adjustments. And when those adjustments come easy, as they do on the ClubSwan 28, he can’t help himself. Two-tenths of a knot slow? He feels it before the crash happens, and he’s already moving to the 28’s mast jack handle, the three-dimensional jib lead, the cunningham tugging the mainsail’s structured luff, or the myriad other controls that get a noticeable response from the 28-footer. Shift a gear and you feel it. Get it into a groove and it is lights-out fun, both upwind and downwind. This is Michetti’s kind of boat—a proper raceboat.

The judges agree, it’s Boat of the Year worthy.

“This thing is a pretty sexy boat,” judge Mike Ingham says. “I can definitely see the curb appeal, and we knew it was going to be sophisticated. Everything is ergonomically correct. It’s a performance boat, but it’s also a beautiful machine, and from the second we stepped on it, I was like, whoa. This is cool.”

Built in Cartagena, Spain, by the Sinergia Racing Group for Nautor Swan, the ClubSwan 28 is the smallest offering in ClubSwan one-design lineup that now stretches to 50-footers. Conceptually, Michetti explains to the judges, the boat is meant to bring new owners into the Nautor Swan stratosphere, with a no-hassle one-design boat and an organized and builder-supported regatta circuit.

The design itself is all Juan Kouyoumdjian: It is unique, technical and loves to sail on its rail. From the chines to the reverse sheer and deck chamfer, it all adds up to a fast and forgiving platform. “The whole package is about reducing drag and windage and saving material and weight,” says Dobbs Davis, an ORC measurer with a keen eye to the behaviors of modern hulls.

Good hull design is nothing without a legitimate rig and sail package, however, and here Ingham was having fun with the boat’s easy-to-play sail controls—especially the hydraulic mast ram and the structured luff (the boat had a North Sails quiver for our test sail) for mast control in the absence of a backstay.

“It’s interesting because it’s got a ram that you can adjust throughout the race, but with the cunningham and the structured luff, you’re bending the mast with compression,” Ingham says. “The cunningham is led back to the main trimmer, just below the mainsheet block, and when you pull that on, mast bend is noticeable. It’s really sophisticated in that you have multiple ways to quickly depower, between the rig itself and the structured luff.”

Prepreg vinlyester construction gives the boat impressive stiffness and a solid feel underfoot, Davis says, and that was noticeable during their session in 10 to 15 knots and flat water. “When you get on a this boat, it is a completely different feeling. It really is. Things are tight as a drum and when we pulled the controls on hard, nothing flexed. It’s incredibly solid.”

Michetti, a world champion of a bunch of grand-prix one-design classes, has the experience to ensure the boat’s ergonomics were right. Access to lines, the layouts, and the overall crewing ergonomics were strong selling points for judge Monica Morgan.

“It was really comfortable,” she says, “the cockpit had plenty of room, and even on the rail it didn’t feel as if we were all bunched up. Being a smaller person, I could do most things on the boat, and that’s pretty cool. I can see it as being manageable by a novice owner that’s new to racing. And I could see a high-level sailor being able to push its limits. There’s plenty of power in the sails, it’s really responsive, and it’s especially fun downwind.”

At 2,600 pounds, the boat is light, and with an L-shaped keel that draws 6 feet, the ClubSwan 28 can be easily trailered and raced in skinny-water venues. Michetti says an experienced team can have the boat off the trailer, tuned and sailing in four hours or less. And as to professionals, one-design class rules have no limitations aside from an owner-driver restriction and a maximum crew weight of 400 kilograms. The owner, however, can declare a weight of 85 kilograms and be exempt from any crew weigh-in requirements.

There is only one class spinnaker allowed (maximum area is 936 square feet) and only two class jibs. At ClubSwan events, the race committee determines which sail is to be used across the fleet based on the wind strength.

ClubSwan regattas, of which there are plenty in Europe, give owners and crew a unique environment that hints at a modest level of exclusivity. The U.S. plan for the class—as of October 2025—is to launch a series in Pensacola, Florida in the winter and Newport, R.I., in the summer. Success of the endeavor will rest upon Nautor Swan remaining committed to the class stateside. Should that happen, there’s a fun future of high-level class racing for those who seek turnkey racing.

“That is the one cool thing about the ClubSwan concept and this boat. Aside from the M32 catamaran group and the IC37s for New York YC, which is a different sort of thing, nobody has done anything like this in the U.S. for a conventional keelboat class, so this is a new deal,” Davis says. “Federico said they’re very motivated for the U.S. market because they see the potential here as untapped.”

Michetti’s stated price for the boat, in October and the midst of the U.S. tariff uncertainty, was $283,000. The judges agree that while that may seem high initially, it is a reasonable cost to experience the ClubSwan racing sphere. But for this price, they add, there’s a lot that comes with it: a sophisticated carbon build, purposeful high-quality hardware and systems and access to the club. And yes, you can club race it, day sail it and show it off all you want. It is a Swan.

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With its long history producing good-looking fast cruisers, in recent years, Nautor Swan has consolidated its performance yachts into its ClubSwan range, spanning the giant 125-foot Skorpios and the 80-footer My Song to their fleets of ClubSwan 36s and 50s. All designs by Juan Kouyoumdjian, the latter saw 11 and 15 compete in their respective five-event annual championships (Nations Cup) in 2023 and are set to be joined by the ClubSwan 43 this year. But Nautor Swan has another new development: While its smallest boats have been the ClubSwan 36 (plus the original Swan 36 back in 1967), its latest launch is its smallest ever, the ClubSwan 28.

This new model is not surprising given that Swan is sailing’s most prolific premium brand, with more large performance sailing yachts in existence than any other manufacturer. Its range firmly extends into the superyacht stratosphere, so why not lure new owners into the fold, earlier, with a modest offering? Federico Michetti, head of sports activities and product manager at Nautor Swan, explains, “The concept of the 28 is to have an entry-level Swan that allows owners to enjoy the journey with Nautor and our events.” He expects that the 28 will entice younger sailors, even those new to sailing, into the ClubSwan realm.

Among race boats today, 28 to 30 feet is the cusp between sportboat and yacht, and the ClubSwan 28 is more the former, given its light weight (displacing sub-1,200 kg versus 1,600 kg and 1,800 for the more yachtlike Farr 280 and Cape 31, respectively); outboard engine rather than inboard; and low freeboard and minimal interior, accessed via the foredeck hatch. The ClubSwan 28 is neither an excessively high-end carbon race boat nor a high-­volume J/70, but rather somewhere between. “Our aim for it is to race well in 6 knots or 20. It is a powerful boat but not extreme,” Michetti says. 

Kouyoumdjian adds: “We incorporated everything that modern boats have to perform very well but didn’t go extreme on any of them.”

Fundamental to the boat’s ethos is simplicity, and for it to be fun to sail, but as Michetti puts it, “at the same time being safe, a boat that can fit the needs of everyone from ­beginner to expert.”

Aside from its performance, the best demonstration of this is that while most sportboat crews must hike and hike hard (it being so vital to stability on boats of this size), the 28 is a “legs-in” boat.

“We would like to avoid a ­hiking contest. It is much more social too; sailors can enjoy what is happening around them,” Michetti says. Everything is optimized for this—the sheerline and cockpit arrangement to make maximum use of the weight of the inward-facing crew, while keel draft and ballast make up righting moment lost due to no hiking and crew not moving fore and aft.

Compared with the ClubSwan 36’s advanced hull shape and fixed-keel/C-foil combination, the 28 is far more conservative. The hull has a low wetted surface area and rocker aft to minimize bow burying. Its modest 8-foot beam means it can be towed legally throughout Europe without having to be inclined. It also allows the boat and trailer combined to fit into a 40HQ container for shipping farther afield.

The hull shape is quite ­complex, with flared topsides at the stern, above a substantial chine. Going forward, the topsides turn vertical and then evolve into a deck chamfer ­forward of the mast. The bow has a slight reverse sheer and a retractable sprit.

The rig breaks new ground, but again, simplicity is the focus. Developed between Kouyoumdjian, Southern Spars’ Steve Wilson and mast-builder Axxon Composites, it is skifflike, with no backstay or runners, and with swept-back spreaders and a GNAV (inverted vang) to keep the cockpit clear. “Imagine a 49er rig that is set up by the headstay,” Kouyoumdjian says. “The prebend and the tension you have in that kind of rig usually comes from presetting the headstay and then you deal with it with the vang and cunningham. But we wanted something variable that could simulate what you could otherwise do with the runners.”

The solution is to have a ­permanently attached mast ­ram that can be operated while ­racing via a pump in the pit area. “It brings a lot of things together—not only the tension on the headstay, but also the tension on the rig,” Kouyoumdjian adds. “And when you tension the rig, you bend the mast.”

Therefore, powering up the rig comes with just two or three pumps and an inch of movement of the ram. “Everything on the rig is simple and has been done before many times successfully,” Kouyoumdjian says. “We added the mast up-and-down function. I imagine crews using it on medium-light days: When you get into a luff and you’d ease the runner, instead you’d drop the mast, or anticipating a puff, you’d pump it up. As soon as the wind gets to 10 to 12 knots, then you’d be maxed up, like you would be at ­maximum runner on a typical boat.”

The ClubSwan 28 will be a strict one-design class. Like the ClubSwan 36, it is being built in Cartagena, Spain, by Sinergia Racing Group. Tooling for the 28 is CNC milled to fine tolerances, and like most other boats in this size, it is a glass boat, built with vinylester resin, although naturally its mast, bowsprit and rudder are full carbon. The keel fin is stainless steel.

What appears to be a 1990s retro feature is the 28’s L-configuration keel, as featured on many vintage 1990 one-­designs and early VO60s. Aside from positioning bulb weight aft, this lengthens the keel’s leading edge by 15 to 20 percent, increasing its efficiency and improving, for example, lift to windward. Kouyoumdjian is enthusiastic about this and says that he would readily recommend L-keels on other race boats, but warns that the shape of the bulb’s front must be correct. To enable easy trailering, the keel can be raised, and the rudder assembly lifts out within its own box. A full derig, from water to motorway, is expected to take around three hours.

Production for the ClubSwan 28 will be modest, initially at least, with the yard in Cartagena expected to roll out two per month, with the ready-to-sail price forecast to be around 200,000 euros. The aim is to have international fleets, with boats built by local yards. After Europe, Michetti says, its focus will be the United States, although as yet there is no time frame for this. At the time of this writing, six 28s had been sold, with the first boat due for launch in late May, with all six expected to compete at the Rolex Swan Cup in Porto Cervo in September.

The advantage of the 28 is that the owner is buying into the ClubSwan world, with its established circuit, Michetti says. “If you are building a new class, people need to trust you. You need to create momentum, you need to have sponsors and find locations and organize regattas,” which the ClubSwan management already has, with its comprehensive circuit, mixing established regattas and ClubSwan’s own in the Med, UK, Baltic and US. Aside from enticing new sailors and teams into the ClubSwan family, Michetti also imagines that some teams with larger race boats might acquire a 28 for crew training.

There is currently no class crew-weight limit, which risks enticing larger muscle-bound types on board, but Michetti explains: “We want to avoid this crazy ‘saunas before the regatta’ thing” (in other classes, crews typically duck just below maximum weight at weigh-in). ClubSwan 28 crews will ­comprise four or five with a World Sailing Group 1 (amateur) owner-­driver and probably one mandatory female or youth crewmember.

For the 28 this year, there are a number of events, including a kick-off event from Nautor Swan’s base in Scarlino, Italy, in July, plus September’s Rolex Swan Cup and the Nations League 2024-ClubSwan 28 Invitational Sardinia Challenge, taking place in Villasimius, Sardinia, in early November. Given its trailerability, the ­likelihood is that the 28 will also race inland, for example, on Italy’s famous Lake Garda. Naturally, as numbers grow, there will also be the opportunity for the ClubSwan 28 to get its own start in the world’s top ­multiclass regattas.

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