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My boats so far
Coronet 32 deepdea sedan built in Norway very well built as well.
Tom
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Coronet was made in Denmark, not Norway.
I say the Swedes and Norwegians build the best boats in terms of quality. Specially Nord West, Storebro, Nimbus and Windy.
On theese boats the quality is more than skin deep. And best of all, they don't fall appart when taken out in heavy weather like we have here in in Norway like Fairlines and Princess does.
New Princess boats are driven in convoys form Plymouth to Norway, and after arrival most of them spend weeks refitting bits and pieces that came off if the weather was a bit "unpleasant"
I dont think you can generalize too much, each country has its good and bad but perhaps catagories of boats may give a better handle, I ve seen some beautiful stuff in say turkey but a lot of hideous stuff too. UK makes some nice stuff but there are some dogs too sub 60' flybridges the UK do best but their sports cruisers tend to be a bit staid and for some reason some still can not get the helm position on sports cruisers right yet, Italians do bigger stuff flybridge especially the best by miles and 40' + sports crusiers are ahead in design and looks, Holland does custom like no one else, in general the Scadinavians do smaller walkarounds, practical family boats and smaller sports cruisers the best, the yanks do sub 30' day boats and sports stuff very well but larger and they loose the plot except for sport fishers which they lead the way.
More and more however its is individual yards and designers that stand out rather than a particular manufacturing base or brand, it is now more about quality and innovative product. In the past no one gave a fiddlers if a boat drank fuel like an alcoholic or it weighed twice big Ben as long as it had a shiney badge and a perceived brand image be it flash, old farts brigade, jolly hockey sticks or conservative they sold bucketfulls. Now fuel efficency is just as important, new technology that aids rather than hinders, enviromentally more acceptable manufacturing and design that inspires rather than bland same ole are as valid as country of origin or brand.
I personally see more niche product develoment and yards perhaps doing more of what they do best rather than cover all the bases. Ferretti group are a good example they build the best larger flybridges by far but have expanded their turnover not by building Ferretti sports cruisers or Ferretti lobster boats but by buying in the best of the niche brands and let them do what they do best. Similar, Azimut Bennetti group and that is why they will always knock other yards into a cocked hat when it comes to profitability which ultimately means survivability, do what you do best and then aquire the best of the rest.
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"when it's moored just in front of you"
Which is exactly what most of them spend their time doing,when was the last time anybody actually saw one moving.Our local EA boat has not moved from its mooring in months,mind you has been a bit rough lately with lots of F2 and F3 breezes gusting up to 10mph,enought to keep any Targa tied up . /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
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The Met Police boats are on the move all the time; my boat is on the move (except when I am antifouling - like now!). The last thing you can accuse a Targa of is sitting around - and F2 or 3 - I dream of such calm conditions. Now some of the boats which look like someone was in tears when they were designing them, and which have a different deck for each cocktail - now those things sit still....... except when there's breeze/tide/imbalance in the drinks cabinet.
Seriously though, I like modern architecture, I particularly like functionality, I like contemporary art, and I don't like 'standard' form - so in the same way that Scandinavian design works, so Scandinavian boats work. This analogy is straying dangerously close to IKEA, which is a nasty aberration - so I'll shut up now.
no, this is not true - it is an indicqtion of fab marketing puff from sunseeker et al.
Best pleasureboat boatbuilding skills are found in germany and holland. Tho this need not translate into best boats. Uk std spec of a production boat seems easily beaten by italian std spec. To wide a question. I don,t think that the uk builders have the breqdth of options available to those on mainland europe
But the fact is that they do produce great little sportscruisers...if you forget Glastron, Binliner, larson and concentrate on Regal and Chaparral!
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Cheers
I was refering to the sportscruisers not the bowriders. Anyway I have owned a Binliner (well bro did), 1 x Glastron, 2 x Chaparral, 1 Regal and an Aquatron before the best of them all, an Aquador!
Our cruiser market is a HECK of a lot more confused than our bowrider market. After a while it seems like you may as well toss a coin! Maybe naive on our part, but Fairline and Viking (Princess) are sometimes cited as the standout cruisers over here.
I work as Service Manager for Norsk Batsenter in Stavanger and concur that the forums short list is pretty accurate seeing as we sell Princess for luxury cruising, Forbina (Swedish) for practical cruising, Windy for performance cruising, Saga (norwegian) and Minor (finnish) for displacement cruising, Hydrolift (Norwegian) for raw performance, and Arctic Blue ribs (norwegian) for offshore performance.
And Nortech, a mental catamaran designed by a couple of mental norwegians and built in Florida the home of true performance boats 120- 180 kts depending on if you have V8's or gas turbines!
Its interesting to see the consistently high percentage of scandinavian produced boats in the mags top 10 weekend/sports cruisers, come on UK can't you make anything other than Hardys, Nelsons, or 40+ footer boats, there is good market for a 24-28 ft allweather weekend cruiser, its where a lot of people start out. The big boys should make base model to get people on the ladder like BMW with the 3 series. It seems that only Sealine have figured this out.
And its true about the Princess convoys we have the biggest collection of Princess's outside the UK in two weeks in Stavanger harbour, its part of the convoy, the bosses new V65 arrived last week complete with flat screen TV from the owners cabin on the floor, it fell off the wall on the way over!
So I guess the next convoy is going to keep me busy when they get here.