Many have never heard of CR yachts but, in fact, it is a prestigious old brand that was founded in 1989 by Charles Rutgersson. Before that, he had worked for 15 years for Hallberg Rassy. But the history of the shipyard is much older, CR are now built in the Malo yard. Malo yachts (and yard) was founded in 1939, in Kungsviken, on the historic island of Orust (Sweeden), famous for its century-old boat-building history.
Now CR yachts are managed by Charles's son, Mattias Rutgersson, and not only CR but Sweden yacht group, which reunites several old and very prestigious high-quality brands, that continue to be built also in the shipyard, namely Sweden Yachts, Malo Yachts, and Regina Yachts.
Sweden Yachts, founded in 1976, is a brand of high-quality performance cruisers, and today, because the line has not been actualized for years, produces beautiful slightly outdated yachts, that have become classics, and are still fast as performance cruisers, even by today's parameters.
Malo and Najad, were for many years the two main Hallberg-Rassy contenders, fighting for the same market, and there was a time when Malo was, from the three, the one that had a slightly more modern design. But Hallberg-Rassy moved on, while Malo did not modernize its range, that today is constituted by older designs, solid luxurious and seaworthy, but outdated.
Regina is an old brand of Deck-saloon boats. The yachts are heavy, seaworthy, and old design with the most luxurious interior and finish that I have ever seen in a sailboat. Today the designs seem even older, but the interior quality and the conservative interior design, are as good as it ever was.
CR was, of the four, the one that produced more modern boats, they produced aft cockpit sailboats and deck-saloons, even if the more popular were the deck-saloons, which are fast and seaworthy boats, considering the type. I remember that when Arcona produced deck saloons the CR could match their quality and speed, offering a better-finished interior (at a bigger price).
Their best seller was for many years the 400 DS, but more than 20 years after its launch the boat is outdated and its successor, the 410, did not look much more modern. But things changed radically in the yard with the introduction of the new CR 490DS, designed by Ben Rogerson, a young talented NA, and the design looks not only modern but gorgeous.
Without sacrificing any of the values that made the 400DS famous, like sailing ability, quality and seaworthiness, the 490 offers the same typology: a true deck saloon, offering a panoramic view when seated in the salon, and a true interior pilot station (with joystick), one that offers very good visibility all around.
The proposed interiors look great to me, particularly the one with a dinghy garage, that I would turn into a 2 cabin boat, with the smaller aft cabin turned into a technical and storage space.
.png)
They don't give the HL and it seems to me that the LOA (15.50m) includes the bowsprit with an anchor stand. The LWL (13.82m) indicates that the HL should be near the 49ft mark (14.9m).
The beam is big (4.71m) but not as big as in a Hallberg Rassy 50 (5.01m), and the bow entry lines are narrow and for that reason the forward cabin has a sail locker ahead, to allow a good width in the forward part of the cabin.
I like the hull shape that without having anything particularly remarkable provides a lot of hull form stability, but also allows a good performance upwind. The standard keel, which seems to be a traditional bulbed lead one, has a relatively shallow draft (2.25m). and they announce 6500kg ballast for a 17600kg displacement (36.9% B/D). That will provide an AVS over 120ยบ, good final stability, and small inverted stability, as well as a good stiffness to sail in more demanding conditions.
The standard keel can be substituted as an option by a modern hydraulic swing keel, that extended has a 3.30m draft, and 1.10 m when up. That keel, besides convenience (if they give the same RM to the boat), will offer not only better upwind performance as well as a lighter and faster sailboat, because the keel will need less ballast, for the same GZ stability curve.
The hull has a two-rudder setup that will provide additional safety and reliability, in case of a broken rudder, and also much more convenience while med mooring to a quay, where the smaller rudder drafts would be much appreciated, being most of the time the depth at the quay considerable less than the depth at the keel area.
The inconvenience of the two-rudder setup is smaller maneuverability at the marina, but boats of this size are today always equipped with a bow thruster, and this one has one as standard equipment, and that will solve almost any problem.
With a rig offering optionally two fixed sails on stays, a jib on a self-taking traveler and a genoa (in a Solent rig) it will allow a lot of flexibility, and easy sailing with a small crew. Personally to sail the boat solo or with a small crew I would prefer a bigger 135% genoa, dispensing the big gennaker (160m2) that is never easy to be set and controlled by a single sailor, especially if it is well over 50 years of age, the average age of CR yacht clients.
The CR490DS has a relatively small SA/D with the small genoa, and even smaller with the auto-taking jib (17.6 and 18.8) and that is why if I had the boat I would want a bigger 135% genoa, which would give it a 21.8 SA/D and would make it a faster boat.
Sure, you can have the original set-up and have a Code 0, but like the gennaker, it is not easy to mount, launch and control for a single sailor and many of these boats even if sailed by a couple are in fact almost solo sailed and using it out of very light winds is complicated. Many times light winds are changeable in direction, and that makes the use of that sail hardworking and not rewarding.
In fact most cruisers I know that sail in a couple, rarely use that kind of sail, especially if they sail big fast-performance cruisers, where those sails are huge. That does not mean that one has not a gennaker (I have one) but that considering it (or a code 0) as the main solution (with a small jib) does not make much sense if the boat is over 38ft (I use the gennaker maybe three or four times a year).
Modifying the rig for a 135% genoa should not be a problem in a semi-custom boat, and all that is needed (besides the sail) is a longer genoa rail. Another thing I really don't like is the winch at the mast, which is an outdated solution, being today all manoeuvers done in the cockpit. I would have preferred a different rigging with two more winches.
Maybe two winches can be mounted over the cabin, serving for controlling, the reefing system, and the main sail halyard, as well as the boom-topping lift and the cunningham, with the four aft winches controlling the forward sails (including a gennaker) and the boom traveler.
I also don't like the small space between the wheel and the seat, as well as the small space to be seated on the side (due to the seat), while steering, but that can be easily solved with the removal of the two seats behind the wheels.
The ones that will want the boat for crossing oceans will be concerned with the relatively big window surfaces (that are smaller than in other boats that are not even true deck saloons), and I can only hope the CRs are built by the son the same way they were built by the father. 20 years ago I remember having a talk about the big windows with Charles Rutgersson, and I was impressed with the care and work they had to warrant the solidity of those glass surfaces, and also remember Charles complaining about the price it cost doing it the right way.
He mentioned the price to me, I don't remember exactly, but it was a very substantial amount of money, one that I did not imagine possible. I don't know if they still do it the same way. The problem is not the glass, which is almost bulletproof and double (for isolation), but the way the frames are secured to the fiberglass and the strength of the frames.
Sure, they have decades of experience in what regards that, but it also seems to me that they are trying to lower the price of this boat as much as possible, and as a negative point they do not use vinylester or epoxy resins resin in the sandwich composites, but ISO polyester resins, that do not offer the same no-water-absorption, but, even so, offer better mechanical resistance than other polyester resins.
They don't also use contemporary techniques like vacuum infusion, which, if well made, allows for lighter sailboats, but hand-laid glass. Of course, one or the other technique can result in very different quality hulls, depending on how well it is done, and before thinking that the CR building has a low-quality boat building, it is good to remember that Hallberg Rassy hulls are built the same way, with a foam sandwich, hand-laid glass, and good quality polyester resins.
The CR490DS offers a big water and fuel tankage (600 and 400L) and a big 80hp engine, and it comes standard with many pieces of equipment that are optional in most sailboats, like a sprayhood, diesel heating, electric WC pumps, water-cooled fridge, boiler and hot water, bow thruster, Pentex sails, epoxy hull protection, anti-fouling and with all needed electronics including autopilot.
All that would make it difficult to compare in price with other cruisers that don't come standard ready to sail, and you would have to join to the standard price all the expensive equipment, that anyway is needed, that comes already standard in this boat. The price without VAT will be about 835 700 euros, expensive, as all high-quality boats, especially the ones built in Sweden, but even so much less expensive than a Hallberg- Rassy that costs well over a million euros.
All in all, a very interesting sailboat, one that continues the almost extinct deck-saloon typology while almost all boats of this size (and bigger) that use that denomination, or outside visual outlook, are in reality not deck-saloons, but boats that use the higher cabin and big windows to have an interior with more light, and a huge interior height, giving a house like sensation in what regards space.
A boat that I will follow closely and that I hope becomes a success, a well-deserved one: CR yachts have been building high-quality yachts for many years, never having abandoned the deck-saloon concept (with a pilot station) for a house volume interior (as so many others), and now dares to offer to a very conservative clientele, a modern designed cruiser, and for that matter, a beautiful one.
.jpeg)
.jpg)
