Dear readers,
Series manufacturers like to work, let's say, creatively with the numerical designation in the type name and pretend a yacht is bigger. Example Dufour 37the smallest boat in the fleet from the French shipyard. 37 feet is 11.28 metres. However, the hull length of the boat is only 9.99 metres, making it a mere 32-footer. With the bowsprit it is 10.77 metres, still 51 centimetres short and on top of that: The stem on the stern is only optional.
Or the X 4.0It should be the equivalent of 12.20 metres in length, but the hull is only 11.50 metres, and only with the bowsprit is it 12.09 metres, after all. Consider the Hanse 360the latest boat from Greifswald: 10.60 metres instead of 10.98 metres, but with the bowsprit it measures 11.18 metres and is even longer than the name in feet. This may be confusing to say the least and is by no means new; the name suffix has always not exactly matched the dimensions. Or take a look at the latest Elan. The Slovenians recently presented a modified boat, the Impression 45. As it turns out, this is just the familiar Impression 43, only with a bowsprit as standard. The crux: it was already fitted to the 43, at least as an option. Elan euphemistically refers to this measure as a hull extension.
This raises the question for the interested customer or prospective customer: Is this blatant dazzle, aggressive marketing or merely a justified prettification?
Let's take a relaxed view: the number in the boat's name may come from the designation in feet, but is nowhere documented, fixed or prescribed as such. A Vindö 40, for example, derives its number in the name from the sail area, in good Scandinavian tradition, as do skerry cruisers. In any case, I can't get worked up about the numbers. Actually.
The shipyards now argue with the large volume. A 32-foot yacht today would offer as much space as a 37-foot boat used to. Space for stowing, wider berths, larger pantries, a more generous impression of space and more interior height to boot. All features that hardly help the primary virtue of a sailing yacht, its sailing characteristics. Mockers even talk about the headroom downwind.
In this respect, there may only be superficial truth in the shipyards' argument: a modern boat of a given length is larger today than the previous, narrower generations, yes. But converting this into a slimmer boat is a bold move. Where, for example, is the standard of comparison in the future if the boats become even more voluminous? Consequently, the modern designations are misleading. As a customer, you have to be aware of this and, if in doubt, use a calculator or look at the actual hull length.
There is another aspect to the issue of length between fiction and truth. A designation that is too long could attract the attention of over-ambitious harbour masters. After all, the owner will want to pay according to the actual hull length, not according to the shipyard's larger marketing measure. The harbour master could insist on a higher payment. A popular anecdote about Piet Busch, the almost legendary former harbour master of Damp, fits in here. He used to scare owners by standing in front of the bow with a chainsaw running and announcing that he wanted to trim the boat to the specified size.
The shipyards should also consider this.
Fridtjof Gunkel,
Deputy Editor-in-Chief of YACHT
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