CR 380DS

Maybe the Brand does not ring a bell to you, it is a North European small one, almost custom, a family shipyard that is making boats for a long time and among then the (true) Deck Saloons are an important part. Their history is impressive:

"CR Yachts is a family run company that was founded in 1989 by Charles and Marita Rutgersson. At the age of 15 Charles started working at Harry Hallbergs Yard in Kungsviken, nowadays Hallberg-Rassy. He worked there for 15 years, 7 years as a carpenter and 8 as Service manager, before he decided to start his own company. For 4 years he helped boat owners around in Europe with various things from changing impeller on a 31 foot boat to participate in building a 110 foot Super yacht. After all years going around talking to and helping boat owners, he found that there was a lack of sailboats on the market that offered a High Quality wooden interior, good sailing performance and the possibility to get the boat customised. So in 1990 Charles developed the CB 370. Since then more than 150 boats have left the company, both One-offs and own models."

 Not many brands making DS boats, I mean small ones and the reason is that a DS looks very nice on the boat show but they are not really the right choice for the Med or the Caribbean and that's where most of the sailboats are. They are not a good choice because on those warm climates the large "windows" will let a lot of sun in and with that a lot of heat, too much heat in fact.

If you sail there you can see that the sailboats that have this configuration have permanently (during the day) the "windows" closed with outside covers and then, why do you want a boat with a view if the only thing you will see most of the time is a white cover?

Big yachts use this configuration a lot more but that only means that they have the engine(s) power to cover the excess of heat inside using powerful AC systems. Not very ecological and not really suited for smaller sailboats or not so full pockets.

Of course there are exceptions, the countries and latitudes where the heat of the sun is welcome most of the time and it is not surprising that the builders of DS sailboats are from those parts, higher latitudes, like the North of Europe. There are a considerable number of sailors from those parts (North of Europe, Alaska and Canadá) following this blog so for them I would like to say that if I lived there and sailed all year around this would be one of the boats on my short list, the CR 380DS:

Impeccable building, great interior, very modern hull, not too beamy, light and fast. Look at this video  (yacht de boat test) and you will understand why I like the boat (maybe you like it too ;-):

http://tv.yacht.de/video/F%25C3%25BCr-jedes-Wetter%253A-CR-380-Deckssalon/d3e1adf0b2f924dd61461970da5a3447

Specifications and more information:
http://cryachts.eu/models/deck-saloon-line/cr-380-ds-new/380-ds-data
http://cryachts.eu/models/deck-saloon-line/cr-380-ds-new/380-ds-technical-specifications