boats similar to 36ft grand Banks Europa ?

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FlyWright said:
We all now know that your boat only drinks 6 if the other 5 bring their own drinks! :hide:
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Here's a man who practices what he preaches.
 

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that 1990 IG 36 looks like a hell of a buy, unless it was in the way of Sandy last year. How do you tell if it's "salvage'?
 
How did I miss this thread. IGs and Bourbon. :smitten:
 
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The style boards offer another bit of functionality. They provide a simple / clean attaching point for canvas to enclose the aft cockpit area and give a bit of a wind break in the companionways. I love our europa for the northwest weather. My forward style boards are just slightly aft of the cabin doors on each side. They allow you to step out while underway or docking and have great visibility and protection from the rain and wind.
 
Looks good to me.

There's lots of other stuff like bow pulpits, some to most hand rails, antennas, fenders, swim steps and many other things that make our boats less attractive but we live w most for the utility involved. Antennas are good and swim steps are mostly good. All our boats are a balance of what is attractive and what is not and what is desirable, essential, mostly needed or not needed at all. The question is how much better looking our boats would be v/s how much we would miss these ugly to slightly unattractive things. Or how could the utility be gained in a more attractive way. As is the case w the style boards. And unmentioned so far is the knowledge of what is attractive and what is not. Not that anybody will start hucking unattractive stuff overboard even if they knew it was ugly. My radar arch is ugly (uglier than most actually) but it serves me well both in service and economy .... so it stays (but gets refinished). I think the "style boards" were named by someone that knew they weren't stylish but wanted people to think so. And there are probably some (or more) that think they actually are. They certainly aren't ugly and don't add OR subtract much from the appearance of a boat but they do subtract. Almost fly stuff actually and I'd rather I hadn't mentioned it at all but I do tend to mention things ... call me opinionated if you like. Many have and I can't say it dosn't apply but I do know something about art and design. None the less my opinion is none other than that.

Thanks for the link John.

And Marin the GB32 and 36 are better looking than most or all the other GBs that come to my mind but I'm not that familiar w the bigger models. The 36 is actually the best looking of them all and you don't even realize it.
 
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manyboats said:
Looks good to me.
... the GB32 and 36 are better looking than most or all the other GBs that come to my mind but I'm not that familiar w the bigger models. The 36 is actually the best looking of them all ...
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:thumb: I agree wholeheartedly!

If only it didn't have teak decks! :banghead:
 
manyboats said:
And Marin the GB32 and 36 are better looking than most or all the other GBs that come to my mind but I'm not that familiar w the bigger models. The 36 is actually the best looking of them all and you don't even realize it.
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Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree strongly on that one. We bought a GB because of its construction quality and because its interior layout would accommodate what we wanted to accommodate. And as older GBs are damn near free in the overall scheme of things, it's a terrific value for the money if you don't care what it looks like. Our '73 boat allowed us to get into the kind of boating we want to do at an extremely low cost compared to what we were grudgingly prepared to shell out. It was simply too good a deal to pass up despite the age of the boat and the fact it's not the style of boat we prefer.

Ken Smith's Spray was a pretty good looking boat in my opinion. But when American Marine changed the lines to create the production Grand Banks I think they totally ruined the boat aesthetically. The house is way too tall for the hull for starters. This is really apparent on the short models--- GB32 and 36. I would not consider the GB32 and GB36 ugly but they're bordering on it in my book.

The basic design gets a little more tolerable as the boats get longer, but only up to a point. The GB42 is okay, and the GB46 is actually quite good in both the Classic and Europa models. Then as the boats get even longer they start looking bad again. The GB48 and 49 are just kind of hulking and blocky and the GB52, which only comes as a Europa, is just too big for the design to work anymore. It looks like an apartment house. And the GB66, of which only three were made, are downright hideous.

I see the whole GB range every time we go to our boat and pass the big GB charter operator on they way out and we have spent time examining GB46s closely when we've thought about aquiring a larger boat. So my opinons, while totally subjective, are based on seeing these boats almost every weekend in person from every angle for nearly 15 years. As opposed to making judgements based on a few photos.

So while I rate GBs near the top of the list in terms of construction quality, longevity, and value for money (the used ones), neither I nor my wife even put them on the list in terms of what we consider to be a good looking boat. They are just too grossly out of proportion for that.

I've seen a photo of a GB32 with the flying bridge removed and it was a big improvement. But the house is still too tall for the hull even with the flying bridge gone.

The attached photo of our boat up north on the Georgia Strait I think really bears this out. It's just not a good looking or well-proportioned boat at all in my opinion, and I'm always surprised when I hear people saying how good-looking GBs are. Built like a tank, especially the first run of fiberglass 36s and 42s, and the woodies just seem to go on and on and on when taken care of, but sometimes I think the house was designed by the janitor while the naval architects were at lunch.:)
 

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The GB46 Europa is the best looking of the bunch if you ask me!!!
 
I'll take my GB 42 tri-cabin with a lowered cockpit over the other models. I've had many people comment on the fishability the lowered cockpit has over that raised all one deck. I looked at one before getting mine.

I prefer a King size bed over a V berth too. It's all a matter of preference in my opinion and what you want vs. what you compromise on.

I also think there isn't much of a difference in fuel burn between the 36 and the 42 especially with my engines.
 
One of the features we really like about the GB46 Classic is the step-down aft cockpit (the GB46 Europa does not have this). Not for fishing because a GB goes way too fast even at idle for the kind of fishing we do up here and it's way too big and clumsy for the close-in bottom fishing in strong currents we do for halibut and ling cod in the islands up north.

But the step-down aft cockpit on the GB46 makes for really nice access to the swimstep and dingy, or for using the swimstep to get to a dock.

The very early GB36 woodies had a lower aft cockpit but this was eliminated very quickly. I've only seen one GB36 with this feature and as I recall it had a two-digit hull number I did not know AM had incorporated this feature in the early GB42s as well. Too bad they didn't keep it in both the 36 and 42.

The bummer about the GB46 is that Grand Banks Llc cheaped out late in the production of the GB46 and eliminated the step-down aft deck. So no more convenient access to the swimstep, dingy, or dock. We were told by the GB dealer in our marina why they did it--- it was solely to reduce production cost. But to us, it wiped out one of the really nice things about the GB46.

So that's cool that you have that feature on your 42, Capthead. I wish we had it on our glass 36.
 
Marin, I saw an early 46 and fell in love with it also. Then I saw they quit that feature. I am not in a position to trade up now that I've retired so I'm epoxying my way around the boat.

As far as I know, they only made a few like mine. Maybe 4 or 5. We had hull# 15 and 19 in my marina at different times, mine is #17, and they didn't have the lowered cockpit.
 
Capthead, can you post a picture of the lowered cockpit?
 
It's basically the same as what's on every GB32, including the glass ones, if you've ever seen one of those.

I took this shot last year of this GB32 in Nanaimo. The aft deck is shaded but you can see the step-down from the main deck. The GB36 woodie I saw with the step-down deck was the same as this and I assume CaptHead's 42 is similar.

Incidentally, this is the only GB32 ever made with a teak-planked hull. The wood normally used to plank a GB woody is mahogany.
 

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I'll see if I can find one.

Sitting in the cockpit is what I found. As you can see, the railing doesn't go around the back of the boat. Just the cap rail on the transom.
 

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Another shot of the aft end of that GB32. I lightened the photo a bit in an attempt to make the cockpit a little more visible.
 

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HeadsUpLilFishermans.jpg

This is an old photo but look at the railing and you can see it ends at the cockpit.
 
Generally speaking, boats without flybridges have better proportions unless one prefers the "cruise ship" look.

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Capthead said:
I'll see if I can find one.

Sitting in the cockpit is what I found. As you can see, the railing doesn't go around the back of the boat. Just the cap rail on the transom.
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Rails should go around the whole boat!

232323232%7Ffp73485%3Enu%3D3953%3E576%3E8%3C9%3E2%3A445769%3B%3A245ot1lsi
 
FlyWright said:
If only it didn't have teak decks! :banghead:
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One of my best decisions in 2010 was to drop the teak deck option and go for the Kahlenbergs.

ry%3D400
 
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