SOLARIS 40, A MUCH AWAITED YACHT

Solaris is a brand mostly known for beautiful high-quality big yachts, but it was not always like that, I mean, the high-quality was a constant but their more popular yachts were for many years a 36ft and a 39ft both designed by Frans Mass... but that was 40 years ago.

More recently with the increase of the shipyard production (10 years ago ) besides big units, they returned to the origins and produced a 37ft (2010) and then a 42ft yacht (2012). Both boats were (are) great sailboats and sold relatively well, but it seems that the shipyard makes much more money selling big units than smaller boats, and some years later these were taken out of their offers and not replaced.

At present, the smallest offer is a 44ft boat and this year they have expanded their offer to even bigger units, an 80ft and a 111ft boat, so it comes as a big surprise the announcement of a new 40ft boat designed by the same NA that designs now all their line, Soto Acebal, the one that had already designed  the 37 and the 42, a decade ago.

Soto Acebal is known for designing fast boats, among them two famous very fast one-designs, the Soto 30 and the Soto 40. For more than a decade he worked on German Frers cabinet and since 1998 has his own office, being Solaris his main client.

The new 40ft should be available in 2021 and the drawings show us a beautiful design, as it was to be expected from Soto. But looking better there are some things I really don't like, being the main one the option he took to give the boat the look of a bigger yacht.

Sure it looks very nice and the cockpit looks amazingly big with the two wheels far apart but for managing that Soto has taken away the side deck on the aft part of the cockpit and the only seating place for the helmsman are two small foldable seats that should be very uncomfortable and almost impossible to use with the boat heeled, while sailing close to the wind.

There is also no space to seat forward to the wheel, a position that is used by all that sail solo to reach the winches and the main traveler at the same time they are steering the boat. Really odd all that but maybe they know better than me the target market for this boat, maybe the ones to whom this boat is pointing to are going to sail it most of the time on autopilot and will have fun just for a short time at the wheel and so they don't need to seat because they will not be at the wheel for long.

They say that configuration has the advantage of offering a bigger traveler for the main but that does not make any sense on a boat that comes standard without a main traveller, with a self-tacking jib and only 2 winches, if we can trust the pictures. The information regarding the boat is imprecise, in some places the hull length is 12.36m, while in others 12.36 is the LOA and that is what seems right for a 11.70 LWL.

That means I don't know the length of the boat because the hull length is not provided. I would say that the boat has not 40ft in length, probably between 39 and 40ft. The 4.10m beam makes it a beamy boat, especially if we consider it as a performance boat. An Oceanis 40.1 has 4.18m, a Jeanneau 410 3.90m, a Salona 41 3,84, a XP 44 4.0, a X 4-3 3.95, a First 40 3.89 and the older (and fast) Solaris 42 3.99m beam.

It is not the only one that is beamy, the same happens with the new Grand Soleil 44 with a 4.30m beam. It seems that now, even in what regards performance, yacht designers certainly at shipyards' request, are designing boats not mainly taking into account performance but also taking more and more into account interior space, designing boats that are not as fast as they could be, especially upwind, but boats more oriented for easy downwind performance, the same tendency that we had observed on the last 10 years in what concerns mass production boats.

Cruiser-racers changed the denomination to performance cruisers and little by little the design parameters are coming closer to the ones of mass production boats, even if with a superior B/D, that in the last years has also been diminishing.

Take for example one of the fastest cruiser racers around, the Swan 50 and compare its beam (4.2m) and B/D (40% with a 3.5m draft) with the ones of these new performance cruisers and you will understand what I am talking about.

Even in what concerns racing boats where probably the overall most successful box rule in what regards overall condition is the TP52, the max beam is 4.43m and that max dimension is rarely used with several very successful racers having much less, like Platoon, the winner of the 2019 world TP52 championship ( 4.37m Beam and over 50%B/D).  

The Solaris 40 displacement is surprisingly high, 9850kg, if compared with the old 42 (8800kg) or with the one of the Solaris 44 (9900kg), especially taking into account that the 44 has 3600kg ballast and the 40 has 3050kg. That means that without the keel and ballast the 44 is actually 550kg lighter than de 40! That is really odd!

The 31%B/D on a 2.40m torpedo keel is normal by modern parameters and more than what mass production boats offer but less than the 36% of the 44 (on a 2.60 keel) or the 34% (on a 2.5m keel) offered on the old 42.

Also very strange is the standard 30hp engine that seems clearly underpowered for a 9.9T boat and will make necessary what is an option, the 50 or 60hp engine. In some pictures we see only two winches but on the price list, the boat comes standard with 4 but then they offer two more optional winches over the coaming and two more aft the cockpit and things become confusing in what regards the running rigging set-up.

The main traveler that we see in the images is optional as well as the genoa traveler and the integrated bowsprit. They have two optional masts, one bigger and another one in carbon. Lots of options on this boat as it has become more and more the rule.

The new 40 has no promotional price for anticipated orders (without seeing the boat) and costs standard at the factory without taxes 289 000 euros. The 44 costs 314 000 euros and the extra 25 000 euros seem more than compensate for the extra size, the extra performance and I would say the better design.

https://www.solarisyachts.com/yacht-en-40-1-21.html

https://www.solarisyachts.com/yacht-en-44-1-15.html