wallynano37

• LOA 12 m, beam 2.6 m, draft 2.6 m
• Unladen displacement 2,900 kg
• Vacuum-infused carbon epoxy hull, carbon rig
• Sail area 72 sqm upwind, 171 sqm downwind
• Oceanvolt 6 kW electric auxiliary
• Lines by Hoek Design with Luca Bassani, built by Doomernik Yachts under licence
• Berths for four, galley unit, head, CE Category C
• Cruises above 10 knots, clocked at 21 knots

A classic drawn by modern hands

The nano is the boat Wally builds for love. Andre Hoek, the master of the modern classic idiom, drew a hull with the low freeboard, sweeping sheer and long overhangs of a pre-war daysailer, and Luca Bassani's collaboration keeps the detailing unmistakably Wally, minimal, functional and clean. The original nano appeared years before this generation, and the current wallynano37 is the second, refined edition of the idea.

Construction now sits with Doomernik Yachts in the Netherlands, building under exclusive licence from Wally, and the Dutch yard's obsessive standards are the reason the relaunch succeeded where the first attempt stalled. The MkII came out roughly 300 kilograms lighter than the original boats, a serious margin on a hull this size, and every one leaves the shed as a small piece of yacht-building craft.

Carbon under the varnish

The classic lines are a disguise. The hull is vacuum-infused carbon and epoxy, the mast and boom are carbon, and unladen displacement is just 2,900 kilograms on a 12 metre length with a slender 2.6 metre beam. Underwater there is nothing traditional at all, a deep 2.6 metre draft with a modern bulb keel and a single spade rudder, the appendages of a racing boat wearing the topsides of an heirloom.

The result sails like the numbers suggest. With 72 square metres of upwind sail and 171 downwind, the nano cruises comfortably at well over 10 knots and has been clocked at 21, startling company for a boat that looks like it should be posing off a 1930s postcard. The stability of the bulb and the balance of the Hoek hull keep all of that speed polite enough for two people to enjoy.

A 1930s silhouette in vacuum-infused carbon, 2,900 kilograms all up, clocked at 21 knots under sail.

Electric, simple, silent

Auxiliary power is a 6 kilowatt Oceanvolt electric drive, which suits the boat perfectly, silent out of the harbour, no diesel smell in the varnished interior, and regeneration available under sail on passage. It is the right engineering answer for a daysailer whose engine runs minutes per outing, and it makes the nano one of the cleanest routes into genuinely quick sailing.

Handling follows the Wally doctrine scaled down. The sail plan is managed with minimal hardware and honest ergonomics, the cockpit is long and social, and nothing on deck needs a professional. An owner can daysail alone, race with three or four friends, and hand the helm to a teenager without a briefing. Simplicity at this size is a luxury measured in how often the boat actually leaves the dock.

A cabin like a humidor

Below the long foredeck hides a small, beautifully made interior, berths for up to four, a galley unit and a head, finished in warm mahogany and teak set against sporty carbon and fine upholstery. It is enough for a night on a mooring or a weekend raid down the coast, and its real function is atmosphere, the smell of oiled timber in a boat that weighs less than a tender.

The nano carries CE Category C certification and the daysailing brief shapes everything, this is a boat for evening sails, club races and the pure pleasure of a perfectly balanced helm. Owners of 40 metre yachts keep boats like this for the sailing their flagships are too grand to give them, and the nano is arguably the finest current expression of that private pleasure.

The purest Wally

Strip the Wally idea to its core, carbon engineering, visual discipline, sailing joy without labour, and the wallynano37 is what remains at minimum size. It costs a fraction of anything else in the fleet, moors where yachts cannot, and delivers a higher grin-per-mile rate than boats forty times its price. On a summer evening it will beat most modern cruisers to the anchorage and look better doing it.

For the brand's owners it slots in as the fleet's smallest satellite, the mothership toy that turns an anchorage into a regatta, or the retirement plan of a sailor who has owned the big boats and now wants only the good part. The nanos gather at classic events and Mediterranean regattas, so ownership carries an invitation, as it does everywhere else in the Wally universe.

Für wen: The sailor who has done the big boats and wants the essence, a carbon modern classic for evening sails and club racing, or the most elegant sailing toy a superyacht anchorage has ever seen.