The rhetorical trick worked: "Are you brave, or are you very brave?" asked industrial designer Gerald Kiska from nearby Salzburg, who had been commissioned by the bosses of the Sunbeam shipyard. The Schöchls' answer to this challenging question is self-evident, especially when it is directed at a shipyard management that, at the time of the commission, is in the middle of the second generational change in the company's 70-year history and must therefore be open to fresh thinking per se. Andreas Schöchl is the new man at the helm, son of technical director Manfred, who took over his parents' business together with his cousin Gerhard in 1990.
- Read the entire test with all measurement data here!
The result of the generation change is the Sunbeam 32.1, which was first presented and tested in YACHT in 2021. She floats, sails and does what she is supposed to do: polarise. Not so much through the Caffè Latte paintwork of the test boat at the time, but through the design language alone. It is not only characterised by chamfers, angles and joints, as is now familiar from the cruising boat segment, but is also downright avant-garde. This starts with the wave piercer bow, which has a strongly negative curve and slopes upwards towards the stern - only to shoot forwards again with a fixed bowsprit. The deck is also wider at the front than the hull underneath; they call it a flight deck, an implied aircraft carrier shape. Bold, fresh, cool.
A fine diagonal chine runs aft, above which the freeboard is slightly retracted. The aggressive design language is complemented by long hull windows in the foredeck, which consist of unequal trapezoids and can be seen on various motorboats.
Above the superstructure is a moulded part that conceals the catches and other technical elements and tapers into a U at the front. The cover looks like an X from above, they call it the X-brace. A fold-away cushion can be secured in this brace on the foredeck. And the lid over the deck superstructure is designed to provide thermal insulation and reduce the interior heat through ventilation. The flight deck and X-Brace together create a "second experience zone" alongside the cockpit, as Gerald Kiska calls it. The crew can use the wide foredeck for sunbathing and relaxing, and it is also easier to walk on, which is convenient when walking across the bow.
When I looked at 20 sailing yachts at the trade fair, I couldn't remember in the evening which one looked like what."
Sporty boat for the whole family
These things follow an approach to the boat that is fundamental to its creators. It should not offer sailing pleasure to one person, traditionally the skipper, for a few hours, but to the whole family for the entire day. The new boat should be a piece of sports equipment, a floating home and a beach club all in one and, incidentally, "people should look behind it when such a boat leaves the harbour or sails past," muses Kiska with a smile, who bemoans the monotony of sailing yacht design: "When I looked at 20 sailing yachts at the trade fair, by the evening I no longer knew which one looked like what."
He attests to the motorboat scene, to which Kiska is connected through his work for the Austrian Frauscher shipyard, as being much more progressive. He knows how to defend his provocative, polarising design: "Things that are perceived as beautiful from the outset are dull after six months." But those that polarise find their target group and are more sustainable.
Sunbeam 32.1 "sails exceptionally well"
The Sunbeam 32.1 is hardly inferior to its aggressive appearance in terms of sailing characteristics. Well, it's not a racer; at 4.15 tonnes (weighed according to the shipyard), it's a little too heavy for that because it is conventionally built from foam sandwich with glass fibre laminate. Andreas Schöchl: "The Sunbeam 32.1 is designed to fulfil many wishes and offer great versatility. And because it does that, it is difficult to categorise."
The 32.1 is almost painfully eye-catching due to its otherness, making every visitor pause for an unusually long time, some pulling out their phones to take photos. And the price? At just under 210,000 euros ready to sail, the Sunbeam is around twice as expensive as a Dufour 32. Or as the shipyard's senior Manfred Schöchl puts it: "These boats are so expensive, you not only have to ask the wife for permission, you also have to ask the dog!"
And this was also the conclusion of the YACHT test: "Sports equipment, beach club, weekender, cruising boat: the new Sunbeam 32.1 can do many things, sails exceptionally well and is visually unmistakable. The exterior lines polarise just as much as the interior design with the open saloon."
