Comfortina is a German brand that always have impressed and pissed me at the same time: Why a brand that makes such beautiful crafted boats, with some of the nicest and best finished interiors I have ever seen, a brand that produces very well built boats with a quality that is evident, was unable to present a contemporary designed boat?
And I am not talking about the cozy interiors with a traditional but very nice design, but about hull design, that was hopefully outdated. The best example is the 42, still in production, that looks good, has a very nice interior but has a hull that could have been designed 30 years ago. Look at the images (on the right) to understand what I mean.
What a waste, what a pity. They know how to built great boats why can't they get a top NA do design them a more efficient hull? Well it is done now. The new 46 is designed by Dieter Blank and even if the designs and the data about the boat is still incomplete we can see already that it has a contemporary hull and Dieter Blank is known to design fast and very seaworthy boats.
The Comfortina 46 will have a kind of classic modern look, probably a classic interior but that is were the "old"outlook finishes. The hull has very fine entries, almost all the considerable beam (4.15m) pulled back and will be proposed with two types of keels, a fixed one (2.30m or 2.60m) and a lifting keel (2.40/1,35m).
They don't give the weight but Comfortinas are a kind of very comfortable performance cruisers, not really a cruiser-racer, but fast cruisers, not among the lightest but far from an heavy boat and this one would not be an exception.
The boat is built in epoxy using vacuum infusion. Previous boats had cored hulls above water line and solid laminate below. I am not sure about this one since they say that the chain plates and parts of the underbody are made of carbon fiber and critical design elements are reinforced with Kevlar inserts, so possibly this will be a full cored hull with reinforced parts. That will make it even a lighter and stronger boat.
The price it is not yet public but this boat is going to be made in Poland and not, as the others, in Germany, so probably the price would be attractive regarding the quality and Poland has already a big know how in what regards to built yachts.
I would say that someone interested on a very high quality boat of this dimension, a specially well built, seaworthy fast cruiser, should have a better look at this one, specially if the program is not pointed to cruiser/racing but just to a fine fast bluewater boat. Of course, the price is not going to be the same as the one of a Bavaria 46, but that is to be expected.
