Grand deja vu
Reviews and test drives

Grand deja vu

Motor Yacht Grandezza 39

Share on social media

Watching a boat slide on the waves, I couldn't help feeling like I'd already seen...
and I know her very well. Well hidden 40 foot sports cruiser with light silhouette lines reminded me of well recognized popular European yachts - French, English or German. When the yacht came closer, interesting details such as the starboard sliding door next to the control post and the square window below the private bar showed up. The interest grew: what kind of boat is it?

Grandezza 39 can be rightly considered a «hot novelty»: the boat is ready, has passed sea trials and will be shown to the public for the first time at the February exhibition in Helsinki. However, we managed to get to know it a bit earlier. It is not difficult to predict the layout of the decks and rooms of this cruiser, focusing on the appearance, it is enough to understand the general design trends in this niche. The saloon, with its standard layout, is separated from the cockpit by a glass door with four leaves. The cockpit has a simple corner sofa with a sliding backrest. The bow stateroom is not distinguished by anything, and the owner's stateroom in the middel area occupies the entire hull from side to side (or otherwise!). It would seem that another private cruiser, which at the European pond market...

But on closer inspection it is not so simple: the Finns would not be Finns if they had not saturated the vessel with valuable details, interesting and practical.

The side aisles on the Grandezza 39 are asymmetrical, and although the left is already, from the aft platform on it are comfortable steps, equipped with LED lighting. The starboard sliding door mentioned above allows the helmsman to instantly find himself on deck and quickly go to the bow or stern without jumping over the passengers resting in the cabin. This feature, in my opinion, is extremely useful not only in terms of convenience, but also in terms of safety (on boats of this type it is rare).

In the owner's cockpit in the middel area occupies the entire hull from side to side (or otherwise!). It would seem that another ordinary cruiser, which is on the European pond market... But on closer inspection it turns out to be not so simple: the Finns would not be Finns if they had not saturated the ship with valuable details, interesting and practical.

The side aisles on the Grandezza 39 are asymmetrical, and although the left is already, from the aft platform on it are comfortable steps, equipped with LED lighting. The starboard sliding door mentioned above allows the helmsman to instantly find himself on deck and quickly go to the bow or stern without jumping over the passengers resting in the cabin. This feature, in my opinion, is extremely useful not only in terms of convenience, but also in terms of safety (on boats of this type it is rare).

No less practical is the stern locker - a kind of transom cupboard with a hinged door, in the cells of which neatly stand six faucets. Take a closer look: at the bottom, at the stern platform itself, there are powerful hinges on which the transom, together with the sofa and cockpit deck, automatically tilts back, opening up easy access to the engine compartment. This type of «mechanization» is extremely convenient, although each time you have to remove the tender from the aft platform (if it stands there) and move things from the sofa. In the cockpit and square side windows can cause a picky critique. In this case, I would advise to buy a boat with a dark gray hull instead of white - the panoramic window will not stand out against the general color background.

On first acquaintance Grandezza 39 makes a very positive impression on the layout and design solutions, but the main surprise is ahead. Reaching deep water, the captain gave full throttle - and the boat spontaneously accelerated to 30 knots in just a quarter of a minute (standard load: two on board, 60% fuel). But it turned out to be far from the limit. A few more seconds - and the boat flew at 3570 rpm on a fine ripple at the maximum 40 knots! Curiously, fuel consumption in the 2400-2800 rpm range changed little, and at 3.2 l/h at 28.9 knots, the cruising range would be almost 300 miles.

So, according to the dynamic characteristics of the Grandezza 39 is in the front row among the competitors in its class. But what are the reasons for such good results? The boat turned out to be quite light (empty 9 tons of displacement). The weight was reduced by the multilayer construction of the fiberglass hull with multidirectional fibers, divinyl as a sandwich filler and vacuum forming. As a result, with a thickness of 22-28 mm, the housing is also more robust. In addition, on fast boats, where longitudinal edanes are necessarily present, it is very important to position them correctly. On the Grandezza 39, the arrangement and length of three pairs of redanches are correctly calculated (the lower one is the shortest). With a keelworthiness of 20.5, this ensures an optimal supporting surface area (i.e. high speed), which is especially good at full speed; moreover, the boat does not crash on the next redan in circulation.

The doughboat was equipped with 370 hp Volvo Penta D6 engines with DPH tilting columns, which are often used for such cruisers. Manufacturers limit the choice of drive only to transom speakers, but the power of the engines will depend on the ambition and the purse of the buyer. The economy variant assumes 300-horsepower Volvo Penta D4; the boat with them will be 200 kg lighter than dough, speed loss will be about 5 knots, but fuel economy looks convincing - 20%. And those «who like to light up will» surely like engines of Volvo Penta D6 with 400 hp.

Finnish shipbuilders are not the kind of people who do banal copying of other people's models.

Scandinavia is rich in its own maritime traditions, so with talented engineers and good ships there is nothing wrong.

But still, why does Grandezza 39 look so much like German or, say, French boats of this class? The answer lies in the needs of the market and buyers: the popularity of sports 40-foot cruisers remains consistently high, and the closed cabin only adds to the boat versatility in any climate.

It is not always advisable to create something invented long ago, but to qualitatively realize this or that concept is a matter of honor, which Grandezza coped with perfectly.

On the materials of the magazine "Boats and Yachts". Published with the permission of the company. Grand Marine

Share on social media
Want your yacht SOLD?
Let us know whether you want to get a fast deal by selling instantly for cash or list your yacht on favorable terms. Leave a request and get a free valuation of your Boat.