Sundeck Trawler

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Yes. There are negatives and positives for every boat design.
Since you asked about negatives, here are a couple that are negative to ME.
You can't walk around the entire boat to handle lines. This was important to us, that's why we bought a trunk cabin style.
Sundeck boats also have limited visibility when backing into a slip. That's another reason the WE did not want a sundeck style.
Also they have more windage, another negative to ME.
And yes I know there are some work-arounds for those, but positives and negatives are more of a personal choice.
 
I lived on a Uniflite 42 ACMY (aft cabin motoryacht - same layout as a Sundeck trawler). I'd say the biggest drawbacks are simply getting on and off the boat. Bringing groceries aboard. On/off dinghy. And of course docking - can be a bit challenging to get a mate on the dock.

Not sure where you're located, but if your area have fixed fingers, might be easier as they tend to be pretty high compared to floating docks.

I'll add that as nice as the aft deck is, it always felt a bit detached from the water. I've been a sedan guy ever since.

Lot of benefits. You just have to decide if the tradeoff makes sense. Lot of nice interior living space in a Sundeck.

Peter
 
mvweebles said:
I lived on a Uniflite 42 ACMY (aft cabin motoryacht - same layout as a Sundeck trawler). I'd say the biggest drawbacks are simply getting on and off the boat. Bringing groceries aboard. On/off dinghy. And of course docking - can be a bit challenging to get a mate on the dock.

Not sure where you're located, but if your area have fixed fingers, might be easier as they tend to be pretty high compared to floating docks.

I'll add that as nice as the aft deck is, it always felt a bit detached from the water. I've been a sedan guy ever since.

Lot of benefits. You just have to decide if the tradeoff makes sense. Lot of nice interior living space in a Sundeck.

Peter
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I think that about sums it up. The side deck layout forward of the raised aft deck will be a big factor in how easy the boat is to get on/off. This is also mitigated in a trunk cabin design where you can walk around the aft cabin, although any non-cockpit design can still require steps if you're at a very low dock.

But any design without a cockpit is going to involve a ladder for access to the swim platform, so you lose that as an easy boarding option (and it can make getting people, dogs, stuff, etc. in/out of a dinghy more challenging).
 
Our last boat was a sundeck. We loved sitting on the sundeck, hreat view lines. It was taller than a cockpit but every but each boat has advantages and disadvantages. You just have to find one that works for you.
 
Mine's a sundeck too. We love the back deck and the aft stateroom is a little larger than a trunk cabin type. But we do need to climb a ladder or steps to board no matter how we're tied up. There's no gate in the side deck rails and even if there were it's still too high to comfortably step up from a low dock.
 
You want a sundeck with aft cockpit....like this...safe, easy access to floating docks and dinghy, plus all the other benefits. More photos of this one in the For Sale section (Ocean Alexander 440). Do the reverse loop back to Jacksonville. Clean, low hours Great Lakes boat. (Price negotiable)

boat arcadia.jpg
 
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Good call on the aft cockpit variation. Here's a Defever 44+5 Cockpit Motoryacht. Full displacement, twin engine, very liveable. Nice boat. Great example of an accessible "Sundeck" trawler. Usually stabilized too!

Peter

Defever 44+5.jpg
Defever 44+5 Stern.jpg
 
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There are some other, cheaper boats with a similar layout. Often sold as "cockpit motoryacht". Only a few are down in the 40 foot range though, many are in the mid 40s.
 
rslifkin said:
There are some other, cheaper boats with a similar layout. Often sold as "cockpit motoryacht". Only a few are down in the 40 foot range though, many are in the mid 40s.
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Yea, mine's 41 feet. Another 3 or 4 would have made room for a cockpit.
 
I guess we have a "Sundeck" although it's officially a "flush aft deck"

52747519712_3b10a49999_o.jpg


It's a favorite place on the boat. Has a big bimini over it and is the perfect platform for loading supplies onto the boat. You stand on the dock and load the stuff onto the deck which is about chest high from the dock. Pretty easy, just slide under the rails. Four steps up to the flybridge, 4 steps down to the saloon, 3 steps down to the forward deck.

Easy.
 
Delta Riverat said:
I guess we have a "Sundeck" although it's officially a "flush aft deck"
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I think the difference between a sundeck or the Grand Banks "motoryacht" style vs a true flushdeck is the steps down to the side decks. A true flushdeck (think Hatteras 53 MY) has the full width aft cabin, but it's a level walk forward onto the side decks.
 
TFers previously asked about getting a large dog on and off. A crane was the answer.
Riviera built a 40ft sundeck with molded steps set into the transom "climbing wall". Worked well, did not detract from the aft cabin, but I doubt there are many/any over there. Maybe someone copied it.
 
I totally agree with the negative comments about a sundeck cruiser. Another is if you plan on doing a lot of fishing, or scuba diving, it's more difficult with a sundeck.
That being said, our boat is similar to a sundeck cruiser, in that the aft deck is raised about 5' off the water line. However, having a large swimstep (ours is 4') mitigates a lot of the negatives.

Several advantages we've noted, one of which is pretty obvious, is that the aft cabin is huge, and full beam! Great for a liveaboard.
The second real advantage we've discovered, we found out by chance last year in our trip to SE Alaska. When others in the anchorage were getting eaten alive on deck by the noseeums, we weren't bothered at all. My take is that the Noseeums tend to hug closer to the water, and with the deck being 5' out of the water, they didn't come up that high, but I may be wrong. We were in the same anchorage, same distance from shore, pretty much same everything, except for "altitude" above the water, and the other two boats were getting eaten alive, and we weren't bothered at all! Also, we tended to have a little more breeze than the lower cockpit boats.

Either way, if all other things were equal, being a sundeck or not would not decide me for or against a particular boat. Best of luck in your search!:dance:
 
Hi Don. If you are planning on doing the loop or lots of locking a sundeck style without a cockpit can be problematic. Going down in a lock your grab points will be close to water level so the dock hand will have to climb down the ladder and hang on to ??? to reach out and down and wrestle the boat to the lock cable or tie point. Also the rear dock cleat may be hard to access if it is obstructed by the sundecks surround. Manageable for the young , nimble and strong. I envy the large rear cabin and deck they create but the full walk around was our compromise for locking safety. I agree that a sundeck with aft cockpit or Grand Banks style works. You will also see swim platforms with a safety rail around the corners that might suit you. Paul
 
We have a Heritage East Sundeck Trawler 36 and love it. There are molded steps instead of ladders and we can walk all the way around the boat. We love the design. We navigate from the flybridge helm and have drinks and meals frequently on the sundeck. It's our "entertaining" space unless it's cold or rainy.
 
Don L said:
Well the limited access is a big issue to me and glad I asked.
Click to expand...

I don't see any issues with getting aboard or limited access on our sundeck trawler. Handling the lines is easy for me but I don't have any canvass except in the flybridge.

We have cabin access on both sides of the boat which makes groceries etc pretty easy.

The first thing is just to go look at boats! Some down galleys are great, some are like caves. I can easily walk around our boat but others that look the same even from only 50 ft have much narrower side decks making getting fore and aft more difficult - but the interior is bigger.

Just go look and see what you like :)
 
rslifkin said:
I think the difference between a sundeck or the Grand Banks "motoryacht" style vs a true flushdeck is the steps down to the side decks. A true flushdeck (think Hatteras 53 MY) has the full width aft cabin, but it's a level walk forward onto the side decks.
Click to expand...

Yeah, We've got 3 steps down to the side decks and the aft deck is a good 6 feet above the waterline.

Four steps down to the saloon, four steps up to the flybridge. From the saloon it's 4 steps down to the forward cabins and 4 steps down to the Captain's quarters.

You never have to do more than 4 steps anywhere - :)
 
We did 75 locks when we brought our last boat home. It was a 41’ President sundeck. We never had any issues in the locks handling lines except that our dog learned quickly that the lock masters had treats for him so it was a fight to get to the side of the boat first. Radar is an 85 pound lab and we didn’t have trouble getting him on and off the boat but he is very smart and learns easily. We taught him how we wanted to get him on and off, no problems.
 
Don L said:
The differences in posts are making me crazy.
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Some of it is differences in preferences, but it's also small differences between boats that might make access easier or harder. It's hard to tell for sure what will work or not until you've seen a given boat, know how tall it is, etc.
 
Don L said:
The differences in posts are making me crazy.
Click to expand...

For most boaters, you learn to work with what you have. Would like to have side decks on my boat, but I don't. So I learn to do everything without them. The trade off is a much larger saloon. I prefer an aft covered deck, but there are rarely 3 people on my boat.

You really need to go look at some boats and decide what makes sense for you and what the trade offs are.

Ted
 
Don L said:
The differences in posts are making me crazy.
Click to expand...

Everyone has different opinions. As said above you need to do some looking and see what you like. I can’t tell you what will work for you.
 
A sundeck is a great asset. If I visit folks that have one, I'm always envious as in good weather it serves as a very social patio.
Line handling, access and visibility are negatives - +! for a cockpit version.
 
Don L said:
The differences in posts are making me crazy.
Click to expand...

Yeah... but even boats with the same name type... vary enough from one to another that you usually have to view in person before you can decide.

Example: Previous boat brand, our 42C version had nicely wide side-decks, but their 45C and 50C versions... not so much. You could get around the sides of the larger convertibles, but not near as easily as on ours.

As to sundecks...

We mostly use our enclosed flybridge for preferred social space. I can open up enclosure panels for airflow if necessary, or in July/August we'd often have the bridge AC running while still having the views.

Which in turn means we don't really favor the sundeck (or ACMY) design. That said, we did look at some CPMYs, and they would have given us the flybridge, a sundeck, and a cockpit all in the same boat. Didn't happen to find one that suits us, but at least the cockpit version seemed to have some better points.

But that's just us...

-Chris
 
ranger58sb said:
We mostly use our enclosed flybridge for preferred social space. I can open up enclosure panels for airflow if necessary, or in July/August we'd often have the bridge AC running while still having the views.

Which in turn means we don't really favor the sundeck (or ACMY) design. That said, we did look at some CPMYs, and they would have given us the flybridge, a sundeck, and a cockpit all in the same boat. Didn't happen to find one that suits us, but at least the cockpit version seemed to have some better points.

But that's just us...

-Chris
Click to expand...


In your case, you went big enough on the current boat that you gain a flybridge big and comfortable enough to use as a good outdoor space. That makes up for not having the sundeck as outdoor space, I think. And at your size, you also don't necessarily need the ability to pack in a large aft stateroom to get enough living space. In other worse, scaling up the size sometimes fixes the shortcomings of one design and makes living with the shortcomings of another design unnecessary.
 
We have a 37' Jefferson Sundeck. We looked at 'true' trawler types, i.e., Marine Trader, Defever, etc. When we saw boats with a covered sundeck, our search shifted. It gives us another whole room. Doesn't matter if it is raining or not. We have a full enclosure on it. If hot, we open all the enclosure up. When cruising and docking, we know ahead of time if it is a Port or Starboard tie-up. We open up that side enclosure and have a line already hooked up. My wife goes up on the bow, once into the slip, I come down from the upper helm and handle lines aft. we can walk all the way around the boat through the sundeck. We've never had issues with docking or going through locks.
We love the sundeck. We get on/off the boat using either side boarding gate. when at home marina, we have a set of plastic steps that we and the dog use. When cruising, we have a four step foldable ladder that I put on the finger dock. Easier than trying to get our plastic steps onto the dock and much lighter. Our dog knows that I will lift him off the boat and put on his leash.
 
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