boats similar to 36ft grand Banks Europa ?

A few years ago I posted how I changed my style boards.

Marin said:

As opposed to a Fleming where the side supports really complement the whole look of the boat in my opinion.

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I agree on the Fleming. Scale is everything. The forward support blends nicely into the Portuguese bridge.

The supports on the original boat above where trying too hard to make the boat look shippy IMO. I liked the altered look of it as it allowed you to see the cabin hiding behind it.

Daddyo said:

A few years ago I posted how I changed my style boards.

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I remember. It was a big improvement. Great job.

To be fair, it is really a difficult job to get everything right proportionally on a 36' cruising boat. Because head room and accommodations have to be in line height wise as say a 42' boat, the 36 will usually look a little more ungainly. On the whole I think the 36 Europa models by GB and other builders looked quite nice for their size. It's a lot easier to get good flowing lines like a Fleming with more length to work with. Some of my favorite designs are Feadships, but they have plenty of length to get the design right.

Daddyo said:

A few years ago I posted how I changed my style boards.

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Huge improvement in the visual and far better scale. Hard to believe a NA designed that 3 board arrangement. I still think the boat would have had more visual appeal with slender stainless steel supports, but still was vastly improved with your modification Daddyo.

I too like the DF46 Marin, haha, but visibility aft from the helm is zero with the addition of the flybridge. Problem solved with a glance aft from either pilothouse door.

OK guys they look great a lot of the time on larger boats like the one pictured and a little smaller than that.

They just look clumsy if they are (relative to the rest of the boat) large and visually dominating.

The things that visually need to dominate are sheer lines, fwd cabin shapes, fwd windows, major railings, transom shapes and window shapes.

The Sea Ray that Mark posted is an example of good design and I say that even though I dislike the type. Notice how all the shapes and lines seem to belong to the same boat. Visually a well integrated and balanced design. Large "in your face" "can't miss it" pieces (slabs) of white plastic that aren't related to the rest of the boat are absent.

But most trawlers are probably designed by men more closely related to engineers and mechanical draftsmen that know little about art and even industrial design.

One of my VERY favorite boats is the Nordic Tug and taken as a whole is a very pleasing design but has two visual features I dislike immensely. The fwd cabin just ahead of the wheelhouse windows is a very ugly shape having no grace or class. Fortunately nothing about it draws attention to the eye and it's ugliness is rarely noticed. It's not so much a negative but an opportunity for grace and beauty missed. The other thing I have an issue w is the imitation "smoke stack". I just despise them. Tacked on imitation things are sooo tacky and lacking class I would immediately remove the thing if I was lucky enough to ever get a NT. I really love them ... the boat.

Moonstruck said:

To be fair, it is really a difficult job to get everything right proportionally on a 36' cruising boat. Because head room and accommodations have to be in line height wise as say a 42' boat, the 36 will usually look a little more ungainly.

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Great point Don and something I learned firsthand this weekend. I looked at a couple of GB36's and even had one under contract at one point several months ago even though the boat felt really "busy" to me.

I had the opportunity to go aboard Ray's GB42 Saturday evening and found the solution to the 36's busy interior. 6 more feet of space relaxed the entire feel of what I felt was a busy interior on the 36. The extra beam helped too.

healhustler said:

When Eric mentioned the Europa without the style boards, I got to wondering what one would look like with just standard post-type supports.

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Wouldn't it look like the IG 32 Europa?

CPseudonym said:

I had the opportunity to go aboard Ray's GB42 Saturday evening and found the solution to the 36's busy interior. 6 more feet of space relaxed the entire feel of what I felt was a busy interior on the 36. The extra beam helped too.

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I agree with that completely, and it's probably why (IIRC) the GB42 is the most numerous of the different GB sizes sold over the years.

However, in our various exercises over the years of drawing up pro-and-con lists and price comparisons of moving to a larger boat, we concluded that since we have a 36, moving to a 42 would make little sense. We would gain something but not enough to warrant the cost and hassle of the change in boats.

So.... if we were to change to a larger GB, which is a possibility perhaps, it would be to the 46. We've been on several with an eye to buy and they make a 42 seem small and cramped despite the addition of "just" 4 feet. The two-forward-stateroom-with-down-galley-and-aft-cabin "Classic" version of the 46 is fantastic in terms of usable space. The original version, that is, with the step down cockpit. The later version with the one-level main deck is not worth bothering with in our opinions.

It has always surprised us how much the addition of just a few feet can make to the usability of a boat.

Thanks for those kind remarks, Marin. Meanwhile, I had to stop looking at the two examples for a while and then come back on line to actually get an objective view of the boat with and without the style boards. True, they do look a bit bunched up when used on a 36, but it can get much worse than that. A year or so ago, another guy with a Manatee was kicking around the idea of extending his hardtop over the boat deck, and asked me to Photoshop some Europa style boards as supports. After he saw the outcome, he abandoned the idea.

manyboats said:

... The other thing I have an issue w is the imitation "smoke stack". I just despise them. Tacked on imitation things are sooo tacky and lacking class I would immediately remove the thing if I was lucky enough to ever get a NT. I really love them ... the boat.

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The Coot's phoney stack provides headroom between pilothouse and saloon, holds the LPG, and makes recognition easy from afar astern. ... Seems like some complainers of style aren't considering practicality.

healhustler said:

...A year or so ago, another guy with a Manatee was kicking around the idea of extending his hardtop over the boat deck, and asked me to Photoshop some Europa style boards as supports. After he saw the outcome, he abandoned the idea.

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I'm speechless, HH!!

Since I like to fish, the covered cockpit of the Europa wouldn't be a good fit with my preferred boat use.

I appreciate the great visibility and open access of the sedan. The double doors to the cockpit really open up the boat and give it the room needed for more than two.

Does a 34 Californian (36' 8" LOA) compare to a GB 36 sedan (36' 10" LOA)?? In many ways, yes. The price is not as high, but neither is the quality of its cabinetry. It has two staterooms instead of one and a single head with a separate shower. It's got more cabinet storage at the cost of less salon seating. In seaworthiness, its flared bow gives it a very dry ride and greater buoyancy compared to the GB. The snap roll characteristics sound very similar. No teak decks to maintain.

I was on a 36'GB the other day, looking at the decks, I had the impression that the walk around deck area on the port and starboard side was wider than my IG 36, poking my head inside I also got the feeling that the interior was narrower than I was used to on my boat. Not sure if this was more of an optical illusion or indeed a design feature.A couple of pictures of the boats

FWIW, Dimensions for a 36' IG(the owners manual does not differentiate between the aft cabin & Europa style)

Height 16'6"
Displacement 23,500 lbs
Beam 12'6"

Based on my recollection of the decks on the 36' or so IG that was on our dock for several years on which the owner replaced the teak decking with a gorgeous fiberglass deck better than the factory would have made it, I would say that the GB's side decks are a bit wider, which is a major plus to us given the area we boat in. We will happily sacrifice a bit of interior width for wider decks.

And in the two berth cabins, the side decks do not take away from the practical width of the boat at all. In both the fore and aft cabins the berths, drawers, and other cabinetry go clear out to the side of the hull. So the part of the cabin you actually use is the full width of the boat. Only the part your head and upper torso stand up in is a bit narrower. And of course, the main cabin is a bit narrower.

But that is a minor sacrifice we both gladly accept in return for a nice, wide, full-walkaround deck.

Marin said:

One thing that might or might not be important to a potential buyer is that a Grand Banks, at least in the smaller 32 and 36 sizes, is a VERY wet boat in quartering seas with a wind, which there usually is if there are waves. The Kenneth Smith-designed hull has very little flare in the forebody (see photo) so what happens is that quartering waves whack against the side of the hull and shoot straight up. With hardly any flare the water continues up past the gunwale and into the air at which point the wind pushes all of it onto the boat and into the windows.

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Interesting. When I was interviewing Art DeFever, I asked him how he thought his boats compared to the GBs. He had spent a lot of time cruising in close company with GBs, especially the 46s and 49s. He said essentially the same thing that you do, that the lack of flare forward made them very, very wet boats.

Scott Welch
Island Eagle

Marin said:

On the subject of boat appearance, and acknowledging that aesthetics are totally subjective, of the deFever designs I don't like any of them except the deFever 46. The non-raised pilothouse-style boats like the 48 TO ME are very run-of-the-mill, plain-Jane designs. They have no features of particular interest, the flying bridge is awkwardly positioned, at least on the 48, and there are other things about the one-level designs I don't care for.

The DeFever pilohouse boats, on the other hand, particularly the 46' which I think hits the proportions just right, are outstanding to my way of thinking.

But actually I don't think even any of the branded deFever pilothouse designs get it quite right.

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This is a very interesting area, design aesthetics. Art's designs can be split into two categories: the one-off designs of the 60s (http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=6185&d=1307039792), and the production boats of the 70s, 80s and 90s. Many of the production boats were very minor reworks of earlier designs.

So, for pilothouses, the DeFever/Alaskan 46 begat the DeFever 42 (steel, Mexico), DeFever 50 (wood, Oriental Boat Company) and the DeFever 49 (Glass, Taiwan), more or less unchanged.

In tri-cabins, the DeFever 52 (wood, Oriental Boat Company) begat the DeFever 48, again more or less unchanged.

My favourite by far was the first Dul-Sea (42 feet, wood, 1963, Art's private boat, Boater's Resources: Boating, marinas, accessories, equipment, and supplies at discounts you’ll love!) which begat the DeFever 44 (44 feet, glass, Taiwan). The layout of the DeFever 44 is amazingly roomy, and to my eye at least the sheer is just about perfect.

After these designs, which were pure DeFever, you can see the influence of other designers in the office. Awkward sheerlines, weird flybridge configuration, etc. etc. etc.

Scott Welch
Island Eagle

FlyWright said:

Since I like to fish, the covered cockpit of the Europa wouldn't be a good fit with my preferred boat use.

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That's a point that so many people miss...."the preferred use of the boat." In other words, "the Mission." I had pretty much the same things in mind when I bought my boat and one of them was "how friendly is the cockpit for fishing?"

If the cockpit overhang is in the way of setting the hook on a big fish, it's not fishing friendly! The cockpit size must also be sufficient to support 2 or 3 fishermen without running in to each other.

I agree that there are many boats that compare very favorably with the 32-36 Grand banks from a quality level and at a much lower cost.

I'm driving one!

This is a very interesting thread and I've read it as it progressed and finally it hit on the purpose of the boat. What a concept!

I look at several things, like if you intend to have adult guests aboard that are sexually active. This might change the idea of all cabins forward. After all, the walls are what, 1/2" thick.

If it's you and family only, no problem there.

Where you cruise is important too. Pilothouse boats in Mexico don't work and uncovered flybridge boats in Canada either.

Windy areas, pilothouse high freeboard lots of glass boats = fun experiences docking.

Lots of things to look at.

My final take, buy a boat because it's like a GB and much cheaper? When you sell it, much lower selling price and harder market for a buyer.

Lots of things to consider. Good Luck! Hope you find the right boat, too.

IslandEagle said:

He said essentially the same thing that you do, that the lack of flare forward made them very, very wet boats.

Scott Welch
Island Eagle

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While not particularly relevant to this thread topic, one of the major differences between the WWII PT boats designed and built by Elco and the PT boats designed and built by Higgins was the same deal--- the Elco was a "dry" boat and the Higgins was a very "wet" boat. The Elco had much more flare in the forebody and this threw the waves out quite a bit. The Higgins with its much more vertical cross-section in the forebody did what our boat does--- throws the water high into the air where the wind, or in the case of the PTs the boat's forward speed, puts it all onto the boat.

The only time this is any sort of inconvenience on our boat (or any wet boat like a GB) is if one has to do something on the foredeck as the boat is going through quartering waves on a windy day. There is no way to go up there without getting soaked. While we rarely need to go up forward when we're underway (other than to relax in a chair on the foredeck if it's not raining), if we do need to go up front when we're quartering into waves we slow down and turn the boat directly into the waves while the other person is on deck.

For whatever reason, when we're headed directly into the waves the hull does not shoot the water as high and so the amount being blown onto the boat is actually quite minimal. But get even just a few degrees off straight into the waves and the major bath begins.

I took a picture some years ago that I can't find at the instant this happened as we were crossing Bellingham Bay on a windy day. All you see out the front windows is a sheet of heavy white spray coming right at you. It's pretty, cool, actually. One can pretend to be driving a crab boat through heavy seas in the Bering Sea during the winter.

IslandEagle said:

So, for pilothouses, the DeFever/Alaskan 46 begat the DeFever 42 (steel, Mexico),

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One of the founders of Kenmore Air Harbor (today called Kenmore Air) and the man who ran it from 1946 to 2000, Bob Munro, had one of these steel-hulled deFevers. He told me only three (or maybe five) were made. The hull was steel but the topsides were all wood. He kept it in a boathouse at the Kenmore Air Harbor base at the north end of Lake Washington. He acquired it as partial payment for a major repair job they had done on a customer's airplane.

For many years he and his wife took it to SE Alaska every summer. Bob was instrumental in getting my wife and I into cruising. When he passed away the family gave us first refusal on the boat. However by then we had acquired our GB and as much as we liked Bob's boat, named "Sea Beaver," we did not want to take on a larger boat with a wood superstructure.

Marin said:

But that is a minor sacrifice we both gladly accept in return for a nice, wide, full-walkaround deck.

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Good info y'all, thanks for sharing your opinions/facts.
The boat I have zeroed in on after years of homework is the GB 36 Europa single engine. These are very hard to come by and timing is everything. I missed the best one to come along in years down in Florida, a 1998 36 Europa with a single lugger, 2 owner boat with only 1000 hours on it. It sold for $190,000 ish, the most I would be willing to pay for one.
I also really like daddyo's 48 but I'm afraid the amount of work to keep up a 48 footer along with slip fees just might be more than I care to handle.
Thanks again

Been looking at this 42 GB Europa, a nice one indeed but out of my price range.
1998 Grand Banks Europa Power Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

I don't know about y'all but I need/want as much protection from the sun as possible. I'm in the Dermatologist office a couple of times a year getting stuff froze off my handsome face. Years of snow skiing all over the western half of the country combined with living/sailing in St Croix for years in the 80's has damaged my skin...I know I'm not alone, some of ya share the same fate from our carefree youth.

The Europa is the best cruiser configuration for this area but for the opposite reason you're interested in one. Up here, where it rains 24/7/365 or 6, having the covered side decks and that nice covered aft deck which can be enclosed if one desires and even heated lets you be outside without being "outside" even on a windy, rainy day.

The main drawback to the GB36 Europa is that just about all of them have only the one stateroom up forward and one head. While we rarely allow other people on board our boat we do have certain friends we take out, sometimes for a couple of weeks. For this, the tri-cabin is the far superior configuation in the GB36 because it gives each couple their own stateroom and head separated by the main cabin. So someone can get up, make coffee, go for a walk, read, whatever, without disturbing anyone else.

In almost all the GB36 Europas, if one has guests they have to sleep on a berth made up in the main cabin. This can get annoying and underfoot after awhile according to the people we know with GB36 Europas who've had guests aboard for any more than a day or two.

Now if you get up into the GB42 or even better, the GB46, then the Europa really is the best configuration around for this area because you still get that great coverfed and enclosable aft deck plus two or even three staterooms up forward.

The same holds true of the pilothouse "Europas,"--- the deFever 46, the Flemings, and the Krogens.

Marin said:

The main drawback to the GB36 Europa is that just about all of them have only the one stateroom up forward and one head. While we rarely allow other people on board our boat we do have certain friends we take out, sometimes for a couple of weeks. For this, the tri-cabin is the far superior configuation in the GB36 because it gives each couple their own stateroom and head separated by the main cabin. So someone can get up, make coffee, go for a walk, read, whatever, without disturbing anyone else.
.

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I prefer multi-day boating when people bring their own boats. Thus, a single stateroom and head is quite sufficient.

...drinks 6, feeds 4, sleeps 2! Perfect!

FlyWright said:

...drinks 6, feeds 4, sleeps 2! Perfect!

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Ditto and we have done that a lot!

We all now know that your boat only drinks 6 if the other 5 bring their own drinks!

FlyWright said:

We all now know that your boat only drinks 6 if the other 5 bring their own drinks!

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If you'd like an IPA beer, Al FlyWright can most likely provide.

And later this month we can tour and taste the IPA here during our Petaluma trip. I'll also need to restock by then.