January 2008


Bluewater cruiser

Here's a new design from the group at Hunter with the emphasis on accommodations and comfort. This model is intended to replace the successful Hunter 44. Using the 44 as a base, dealers and owners gave Hunter ideas on how to improve the model.

To begin with, this design is not 45 feet long. The "hull length" is only 42 feet, 1 inch. I think the extra length comes from the extended anchor roller fitting on the stem. I use the length of the molded hull for LOA, except when I have a bowsprit. Then I use LOA with the sprit and an LOD, length on deck, to define the hull length. Hunter was kind enough to provide me with a set of lines for this design and I appreciate that. The boat has a D/L of 170 and an L/B of 2.9. Any time you get that L/B below 3.00 you have a very beamy boat.

The sections show a moderate shape with a reasonably wide BWL and no deadrise that I can see. The bow is on the full side. If we use the deck edge to define the fineness of the bow we can measure the angle of the deck edge as an indicator of fineness and fullness. This angle on the Hunter is 24 degrees. It's 22 degrees for the Grand Soleil, 20 for the Dehler and 22 degrees for the big Tayana. The stern on the Hunter is about as broad as they come. You can have either 5-foot or 6-foot, 6-inch draft keels.

There is a lot going on with this design on deck that does not translate well to a two-dimensional sailplan drawing, but a photo of the boat shows it to be good looking in a Euro kind of way. Even the hull that appears so full in the drawings looks much finer forward in the photo.
Hunter has been using swept spreaders for years, long before they caught on with the mainstream. But Hunter goes one step farther and sweeps the spreaders 35 degrees. I had to do some sketching and calculating to get that number as the mast location shown on Hunter's drawings is clearly in the wrong place. This extreme sweep is part of the Bergstrom-Ridder rig. This is a rig that was develop in the 1970s and initially used on several racing yachts. Hunter has had very good results with this rig. The downside of this rig is that you will impale the mainsail on the spreaders pretty quickly once you start bearing off. On the positive side, with the spreaders swept so far aft you can eliminate the backstay altogether and still have a very stable mast section. This of course has the additional benefit of saving money as there is no backstay chainplate or wire. Note the high boom and the mainsheet led to a stainless steel tubular arch over the cockpit. The SA/D for this design is 17.09.

This is an amazing layout for a boat that is 42 feet, 1 inch LOA. There is a huge stateroom aft with its own head and generous shower stall. The galley is big and very well laid out. There is a front-loading fridge just inboard of the sinks and an optional front-loading freezer aft of the range. There is a large pantry inboard of the freezer with a microwave and coffee maker over the bank of drawers. The counters are Corian. There is a nav station to starboard with a teak slat seat. Forward of the saloon there is a stateroom with a Pullman-style double berth. A second head is all the way forward. My only complaint with this layout is the way the lockers outboard stop short of the deck. This is done by a lot of boatbuilders today and it's just easier to build this way. The problem is that you lose valuable locker space. You get a lot of shelf from this detail but I think more locker volume would be better. But I'm picking a nit here. I don't think you could find a 42-footer with a more spacious layout. Headroom in the saloon is 6 feet, 10 inches.
The deck design for this boat is an aft cockpit type with the cockpit expanded to the extremes of the hull limits aft. This looks weird in the drawings but visually works well when you see the boat in person or in a photo. The result of the cockpit treatment is a huge cockpit. There are twin wheels and a walk-through to the swim platform. With the mainsheet traveler on the arch there is nothing interfering with the cockpit area and forward of the twin wheels there is a centerline fixed instrument binnacle and a drop-leaf table for al fresco dining. I think the designers at Hunter did a very good job of styling this deck.

This new Hunter offers a lot and I would guess it is going to be very successful.

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LOA 44'10"; LOD 42'1"; LWL 39'2";
Beam 14'6"; Draft 5' (shoal), 6'6" (deep);
Displacement 22,936 lbs.; Ballast 7,389
lbs.; Sail area 834 sq. ft.; SA/D 17.09; D/L
170; L/B 2.9; Auxiliary Yanmar 54-hp; Fuel
51 gals.; Water 140 gals.

Hunter Marine, P.O. Box 1030, Alachua,
FL 32616, (386) 462-3077,
www.huntermarine.com.
OBE: $275,000 Our Best Estimate of the sailaway price