This is the Grandezza 37CA. Grandezza is a name you've probably heard of but
don't know an awful lot about. The boats are built in Finland by Finnmaster and
the 37CA is the current flagship. It's just shy of 38 feet long and has a pair
of Volvo Penta D4-300s on stern drives and the price is a whisker
under £450,000. On a glorious day in Poole it was
time to get behind the wheel and put it to the test.
Instant punch from these twin 300s, onto the plane already, up to 20 knots
and this boat's got a zipwake interceptor system fitted, which means
really you don't have to think about trimming the boat at all, of course you've got leg trim, but that also
has auto-trim, which means that helming this thing at speed, okay it's a very calm day
today, is very easy, the boat is doing all the thinking for you.
All you have to do is set the speed
and let the computer do the work. Now we're at 28 knots with the sunroof open and the door closed
it just makes it a little bit quieter and that
sunroof open means you get a bit of natural ventilation
and this already feels like a very nice quick cruising speed here at 28 knots,
it feels very agile, steering is light but there's good feedback, she doesn't
wander too much
and it just feels very, very smooth. I don't think we're going to be able to test the hull much today, it is
flat calm out here in Poole Bay
but in terms of the handling, we've got loads of grip
just feels very assured, and it's very easy
30 knots.
As I said before
Scandinavians and Finns, they build boats to be used, they're not toys, they're not playthings, they're practical, they're
usable, they use them to go to work, to commute, they use it to go out to the holiday
islands, and they need to be able to do that all year round, so they have to work
and it just feels a very sorted boat from first impressions.
See how the handling fares as we get into
the twists and turns for the photoshoot. At speed the helm set-up is just as
good.
You have everything so close to you, sit back in the seat, I can reach the throttles and the
steering wheel very comfortably. My view is very good, mullions are a little bit thick
here on the windscreen, but because you have a long side window here you can see past it nice and easily.
Because you haven't got tall cabinets behind you, the galley is all under counter,
you've got a very good view all the way around you,
and as I said before this sort-of floor-to-ceiling window right here means
you have an excellent view in your blind spot.
There's real agility to the hull, lots and lots of grip, feels very, very sure-footed.
There's a nice bit of heel as you dial in the wheel
Plenty of grip on offer, but it feels safe, it's doesn't feel like it's going to surprise you at any point.
Those twin sterndrives offer efficient cruising, we're doing 85 litres per hour
here at 27 knots, which is maybe a little bit quick for a cruising speed, but
still that's that's pretty good going for both engines.
36.5, nearly 37 knots there, feels very, very comfortable, it's still feels quite controlled if you
had to go for a long period of time at this speed you could do, you probably wouldn't,
fuel flow is now 115 litres per hour, but you can do it
and now at high speed you can really start to see how the hull copes
It's very agile
Lots and lots of grip on offer, that's nearly a
full-speed hard turn and it feels extremely secure
and it's good fun
People don't necessarily buy boats like this to
chuck around in empty bays but
it's nice to know that you can do it if you want to.
A couple of little things letting the side down here, now one is there is
nowhere to put anything, now to be fair they haven't put the cup holder on this
helm, but they usually would, so the dealer's gonna fit that seperately, but even then
you're not going to have enough places for the helmsman to put their stuff: VHF,
mobile phone, whatever, you've got one cupholder to put everything in. Storage is
much better opposite for the navigator but they need to do better at the helm here. I think the door feels a little
bit cheap and nasty, rattles a bit when you're moving at high speed, but everything else is pretty good.
Crossing the wake of the chase boat is always quite a good barometer for assessing how good the hull is
and even though the chase boat isn't massive, this handles it really well,
slices straight through it. A lot of the time
hulls will get found out, you get a horrible slam on the chine or a
big bunch of spray. But even if you don't get the angle quite right on this boat
still, we're crossing the wash here at 25 knots, and it's absolutely fine.
It's even really quite enjoyable
and so agile, you can swish from side to side so quickly
It's a hell of a lot of fun to drive this thing.
Now this is a boat that was designed with single-handed skippering in mind,
hence why you have the door, you can get out onto the side deck really easily, it
would be nice if there was a boarding gate here actually so you can go from the helm seats
straight onto the pontoon. They haven't managed to include one of those, but
because you've got asymmetric decks the port one is is narrower than the starboard
one it is a really good size and a very easy deck to move up and down on, and it's a very
easy boat to handle at slow speed, as I said the joystick is an option you
probably don't need, I really don't see the benefit of them really on stern
drives. IPS pods are a different matter, I think you
have so much great control with these twins sterndrives, especially these DPI
drives, the gearbox is much smoother in and out of
gear. They're really, with the two engines
and the powerful Sleipner bow thruster, there's
very little you can't do.
I've got crew today, but I feel really confident in calm conditions like this to
bring this boat in on my own and do the lines and be quite comfortable doing
that.
You just have so much manoeuvrability.
That's what I like about sterndrives is that they're great out on the water
that agility really is addictive, but when you come to doing this stuff
because you have such great manoeuvrability, they can do that as well.
Now at just under £450,000, it is not a cheap boat, but you can see where
the money's going, it's very thoughtfully designed, it's got that typical Scandinavian
practical flair, and that starts right back here, where for example you've got
dedicated storage space for your fenders, there's another locker the other side,
which has got dedicated space for the mooring lines, very nifty,
then moving into the cockpit the first thing you notice is that the decks are
asymmetric, so the starboard one is wider and deeper than the one on the portside,
the portside one is still usable, you can still use it to crew and hang fenders,
but it's narrower and it's higher, whereas this one sinks down and it lines
up with the side door, as we'll see in a moment. Going back to the cockpit,
overhead you have a sunroof here, really nice way of letting the sunshine in if
it's a day like today, but of course you can put canopies around this whole
perimeter here, close that and you've got another sheltered seating area, aside
from the main saloon, and if you notice both tables are on electronic high-low
legs, you can adjust the height of them at the touch of a button, which is quite useful.
Engine access is beneath this hatch here, again
it's electronic, you press a button, the hatch comes right up and you've got really
good access to the two diesel engines, and this is a very nifty practical
feature - you've got a huge storage space underneath the saloon floor, very easy to
access, could probably do with another ram to be honest, that's quite a heavy
lid, but there's space there for storing food, kit, whatever you want, really nice
big space that's very easy to access. You talk about the little touches on this
boat that you notice, see the quality, where the money's going, and it's things
like this, how simple it is to get to this storage void, all you do is lift that
cushion, the cushion is mounted directly onto the hinges here with a gas ram, you
don't have to fiddle about with lifting off cushions and and lifting off lids,
it's one piece, very simple and easy to get to those storage voids. Other things:
you've got a Wallas induction grill, you've even got a Dometic extractor fan
overhead, sort of things you don't really expect on a 37-foot sportscruiser, loads
and loads of storage here in the galley, and the fact that you've got built-in
cutlery slots, they really have gone to town on the
storage. It's absolutely everywhere, you've got a nice fridge under the counter here,
it's not huge, but it does the job, and then you just got plain counter space, which
is always useful for prepping food, making drinks. Microwave down here and
they've even gone to the trouble of putting a Dometic pullout and cool box
underneath the helm here. The helm seat is smart as well, you can bolster it like
this, you can flip this down, very comfortable position to sit and drive,
you have an adjustable steering wheel, you can adjust the angle of the wheel as
well, you can flip that up so you can bolster, there's a flip-down section here,
and with that down even shorter skippers will be able to poke their head up over
the sunroof and look out forward. It's a boat that's designed to be used all year
round, hence why it's so handy to have the sunroof, you can open it up on a day like
this, or if you want to go boating in the middle of winter, you close that, you
shut the side door, you closed the aft doors and you can go out whatever the
weather, and I like the fact that you have two navigators seats here facing
forward, so you've only got a single helm seat but at least people can join you,
face forward, enjoy the journey and they've got plenty of storage places to
put their phones etc. A couple of cup holders, a charger over there, and this
area here is a great place to store paper charts, if people still do that
sort of thing. Moving out onto the foredeck, this is
where I'd quite like to see a boarding gate, that would make crewing even easier and just
step straight from the helm seat down onto the pontoon, as it stands you have to
go down to the transom and get off that way, but it's not a major issue. You're up
these steps, and what's quite nice is that as well as the
standard sunpad the sort of thing you expect on a boat this size, they've got
this little bench here with a footwell as well, makes it that bit more
comfortable, that bit more usable, very nice place to sit on anchor, if you're
pottering along at sort of 6-10 knots, this would be a very nice place to
sit and watch the world go by, and that attention to detail extends right here
to the bow, I mean look at the gauge of these cleats, really, really solid, a good
size, nicely finished, and then if you lift up the anchor hatch, and you see the chain
is nicely separated off, you have the windows here, you have a through-hull
mount for the bow roller, and you have a little hook here, so that you can line
ropes up on there and they're not going to drop down into the storage area
itself, and then you have fresh water up here if you want to wash off this area,
say if you're moored in the Mediterranean, you've got lazy lines up
from the sea bed and this area gets filthy, you can hose off from here, this
is something that's always quite nice to see, you've got
the fuel filler cap and the wastewater and a drain all here under this flap on
the side deck, so if anything spills out from over here it's not going on the side
deck, it's going into that drain into the bilge, very smart. Securing these
cushions isn't done by cheap velcro or nasty plastic poppers, you've got proper
metal sockets, which are magnetized so they find their own way home,
there they are in place, very slick. Now if we move down here we get to the
accommodation space, move right forward and you find the master cabin and there's
more smart design here as well, because you can see you've got split doors here.
So the doors split in half and then fold back against the bulkhead, it really opens
up this area nicely, you just want to watch your foot on this ledge down here,
it can be far too easy to to catch your toe there, the bed is set quite high,
however you have got steps up either side, so it's quite easy to get up into
bed, and natural light is pretty good as well, these windows are tinted, you see
the porthole isn't, you've got some natural ventilation through them, they're
not huge, but it helps, and of course you've got the hatch overhead, an escape
hatch, and also that gives you some ventilation and some more light. You've got
a small cupboard in here, a bit of storage, then actually you've got another
larger locker just outside in this little entrance hall, and that's got
hanging space, so you can hang some clothes up in there to supplement the
little cupboard inside the cabin itself, and it's the little touches again that
you notice on this boat, so you have fiddled edging around this shelf here,
so you don't have to wory about things sliding off when the boat's going along, this
section here you notice that on both sides of the bed have you USB, so people can
charge their tablet or smartphone, you've got a cup holder, you've got a little pad
here where you could put jewellery or a mobile phone, and you have reading lights
up there by the head of the bed.
Now if we head aft amidships you find the guest cabin,
which has got perfectly good headroom here in the entrance way where you'd probably
get changed, obviously it dips down a bit where the beds are, but fine to stand up
there, you've got storage in the guise of a double wardrobe shelving area here and it's
a quite clever layout, because it looks like two singles here, two single beds, but
this backrest simply poppers off using velcro, you put that down the middle
there and then you have a huge double bed, makes it quite versatile, if you've got a
couple they can have a double, if you've got people who aren't a couple then they
can use two singles, quite good for kids, it's quite clever use of the space, and that
really does sum this boat up, clever use of space, big storage void down there,
there's a big storage void there, even this little cupboard here, which most
manufactures wouldn't even bother with, put a door on it and you've got a bit
more storage, you've got a little porthole in here and an opening section
as well, and quite nicely you've got a proper reading light up at the top of
the bed there, and you got some nice down lighters over that side, and
then I quite like this, it's recessed lighting as well, it's quite a classy
glow in this cabin, and then moving to starboard you have the shared bathroom,
so a good size, it's well finished, the standard in here is just as good as the
rest of the boat, you've got the same level of wood, you've got a really nice
bathroomware here, lovely sink and you have a separate shower cubicle, you don't
have a horrible cheap shower curtain sticking to you in your shower, you've
got a proper separate cubicle with a little seat finished in teak, okay you
have to share this bathroom with your guests, but it's a nice enough size, and
again storage is pretty good. It's natural to compare the Grandezza to
the Bavarias, Beneteaus and Galeons of this world, but in reality it's more of a
rival to the likes of the Marex 360 and the Nimbus 365 Coupe, in fact with the
Brits and Italians all but abandoning this sector, if it's a high-quality
sportscruiser of these dimensions that you want, the Grandezza
makes an excellent case for itself.