The Aviara looks like a Scandinavian design, but in fact it’s built in Tennessee by Mastercraft, a well-known wakeboat builder.
The “Next Big Thing” in recreational powerboats is apparently the Scandinavian or Nordic style, sort of a modern Viking longboat, with high freeboard, vertical or reversed bow, sharp deadrise or “V” at the transom and lots of power based on the new class of jumbo outboards. Most also have a double-stepped bottom and a relatively narrow beam, tapered in more of linear shape than the typical broad-beamed USA design.
The boats are distinguished by lots of speed for a given amount of horsepower, great fuel economy and also by an impressive ability to zip smoothly through waves that would knock your teeth out in a conventional hull.
Most also have “modular” design, which means you can opt for anything from no seats at all to enough seats to turn the boat into a commuter bus. And most have bunks for at least two tucked into the console, as well as some sort of head arrangement. Pilothouse designs, with air conditioning, are also typical on the larger models, 25’ and up.
The Quarken wins the prize for the best name–it’s reminiscent of the legendary Kraken of Nordic lore.
The boats were mostly a thing in Europe until the last couple of years, but now at least two U.S. firms are building models in the genre. Wellcraft’s 355 and Mastercraft’s Aviara line are both in this playbook—you’d never know they are U.S.A. built had the companies not ‘fessed up.
European builders include Axopar—which was apparently one of the first—Nimbus, which is one of the largest and which just bought U.S. builder Edgewater, X-Shore and Candela, both of which build electric-powered models, Rand, and Windy, among others. My candidate for best company name is the Quarken, which is suspiciously close to Kraken, the legendary North Sea monster.
You can order nearly all of these boats about the way you want them. It’s sort of like going to a car dealership these days, where if you order the base model and break the sales person’s heart you can get out the door with some of your 401K intact but if you go for the Platinum version, you might as well go ahead and apply for a second mortgage.
Wellcraft is another U.S. builder now offering one of the new Scandi designs–and they’re reportedly selling like hotcakes to well-heeled buyers.
In fact, some of these boats will cost considerably more than a typical suburban home these days, completely loaded with triple 350-hp outboards and pleasantries like air-conditioning and big screen TV’s, powered either by a generator or by a bank of high-dollar lithium batteries. The Wellcraft 355 fully loaded and with triple outboards goes for around $600K, give or take.
(An interesting aside—a Fort Lauderdale boat dealer told me a few years back that every boat they had sold over $500,000 was a cash deal. I didn’t ask how many they had sold that way to outdoors writers.)
In short, at present the boat builders are enjoying the cream at the top of the Nordic latte, but it’s a sure thing that after they tap that market out—or when the next stock market plunge comes along—more affordable models will be made available, and the Viking invasion will become a bit more widespread.
(Can you see a Nitro or a Ranger in this style coming? But where would you put the boxes for two dozen rigged bass rods? Horned helmets for all . . . . )
