VIKO 35S: HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO COST 45 000 EURO?!!!

The Viko 30S offered already an incredible value for the price but this one defies all that I thought possible in what regards price for a cruising 35ft boat: 53900 euros including VAT....and the engine!!!!And the Viko 35S, even if not out of the ordinary is a good looking boat designed by the Italian NA  Segio Lupoli, with great design specifications.

The boat is bigger than the other 35ft mass production boats on the market and with a 10.80m hull length it should in fact be called a 36fter. The Hanse 348, the Oceanis 35 and the Jeanneau SO 349 have all 9.99m and that means 2.7ft less!!!

The Viko 35 is a beamy boat but while comparing beams with other so called 35ft boats those extra 2.7feet in length should be  taken in consideration, in fact the Viko is a bigger boat. It has a  3.74m beam, similar to the one of the Oceanis 35 (3.70) and considerably bigger than the one of the  Jeanneau 349 and Hanse 348 (3.44 and 3.50).

Even if with the same beam the hull is different and while the Oceanis has the max beam pulled aft the Viko has a more traditional hull, not properly old designed but more on the Italian ORC development line. Regarding the hull shape I have to say I do have contradictory information since the 2D layouts do not fit with the 3D drawings. I guess we will have to wait to see which one is right, even if I find more probable the 3D drawings to be correct.

Anyway the boat has a great stability and will be a very powerful  one (for a main market cruiser). It has the bigger hull form stability of the Oceanis 35 and a bigger  B/D than the narrower boats joining the best of the two worlds in what regards producing RM. 

The Oceanis 35 has a 28.2 % B/D (1.85m draft) the Viko 35S has 36.5%!!! (1.95m draft), the Jeanneau 349 29.5% B/D (1.98m draft) the Hanse 349 33.9%BD (draft 1.95m).

The  Viko 35s is also the lighter of all these boats, about 150kg lighter than the Jeanneau, 330kg lighter than the Oceanis and 1100kg!!! lighter than the Hanse. If we consider that this is a bigger boat, than the D/L will be certainly a lot smaller increasing even further that diference regarding weight and D/L.

In what regards sail area from the three comparison boats the Hanse, being by far the heavier is the one that has more sail area, 58sqm but even so, due to the bigger B/D and superior beam, the Viko, 1100kg lighter, has a considerably bigger sail area upwind, 63.6sqm. That will make it a much faster sailboat than the Hanse and all the other considered boats.

This excellent specification makes more intriguing the low price and raises questions regarding the way the boat is built. Viko is not a newcomer and has been making boats for the last 30 years. It is a Polish shipyard and even if not well known the Polish boating industry is one of the biggest in Europe with a large manufacturing experience, being subcontracted by almost all the big brands to produce some of their boats.

For many years,  besides building for other brands, Polish shipyards produced mostly small boats (with the exception of Delphia), reasonably well built boats but with an inferior standard in what regards boat design and quality of finish. In what regards quality of design that certainly has changed with Viko and Sergio Lupoli, even if the finish quality and quality of the interior has to be necessarily lower than the one offered on much more expensive boats.

I am a bit skeptical about the hull built quality and boat structure. It just seems too light to be built without using infusion techniques and better quality resins and I don't think it was the case, at least not on other Viko. Fact is that there are a lot of Viko on the market and there are not any abnormal number of complaints about the strength or building quality.

 I am very curious about this boat, the price, the way the boat is built and Viko will certainly be one of the stands I will be more interested to visit at Dusseldord boat show. I hope they have there some technicians from the factory to give me a better information regarding all these doubts.