Look at the way designer Peter Norlin has worked fixed skylights in between a brace of hatches – which open in opposite directions to capture breeze coming ahead or astern – over the saloon of the Sweden Yachts 54.
The new 54-footer from Italy’s Grand Soleil line was also impressive in its level of detail. I liked the minimalist steering pedestals, and the cockpit table that stows under the sole.
Of the new boats from Bavaria, I much preferred the 40. It’s a handsome boat that follows current fashion with two wheels and a suite of instruments and plotter mounted on the cockpit table. The interior layout is conventional and sensible.
The Vision 44 from the same company looks like a deck saloon boat from the outside, but once you get down below you realize that the effect is wasted. There’s enough headroom to satisfy an NBA team but when seated you can’t see out, and isn’t what deck saloons are all about?
If you like moderately sized, well-built, center-cockpit boats, you don’t have to think Swedish. Holland’s C-Yachts yard has a line of solid cruisers that takes on Hallberg-Rassy head to head.
Speaking of Swedes, this good-looking performance cruiser is from a brand new yard. Twenty Swedestar 370s have been built over the last couple of years and the yard is tooling up for a 41-footer. How one small country supports so many fine boatbuilders is beyond me.
Solaris is an Italian yard that builds high-end sailing yachts, designed mainly by Doug Peterson. The Solaris 44 performance cruiser on display at Dusseldorf is a Bill Tripp design, and was very put together. This view of the cockpit shows you what to expect down below. I sure wish they’d radius the edges of the cockpit table, though – imagine landing on one of those corners…
