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Boat Tests > Moody > 45 DS
Tomorrow's child
WORDS: BARRY TRANTER
PHOTOS: NICK WOOD
Technology and free-thinking design produce a craft with no allegiance to the past.
If you put the Fjord 40 powerboat and the Moody 45 DS side by side you could be forgiven for thinking they share the same hull.
It's a silly notion but there is some substance to it—Fjord and Moody share an owner, Hanse of Germany, who has made the bluff, aggressive look their trademark.
Hanse began only in 1993, and until 1997 it built unspectacular craft. Then, according to yacht designers and engineers Judel & Vrolijk, they devised a way to make hulls with beamy sterns work, and the Hanse portfolio since 1998 shows how they developed the blunt-bow, beamy-stern look. The bigger Hanses are quite 'slab-sided', a look that Hanse wanted for its Fjords. Now that look adorns the Moody 45 Deck Saloon.
British architect Bill Dixon, who designed Moodys before Hanse took over the 150-year-old company, drew the 45. Bill has given the Moody the Hanse/superyacht look favoured by the Italian Wally superyachts: slab sides, high freeboard, bulwarks, teak where possible, and slabs of 'glass if you need a superstructure. Bill has designed an 82-footer on similar lines; American designer Bill Tripp drew a 50m Wally which looks like a Moody 45 times three.
read on below advertisement
I like this look. The big Hanses, the Fjord and now the Moody remind me of those World War I battleships ploughing towards the camera, smashing the seas aside and daring you to get in the way.
The Moody's theme is one-level living. Like some powerboats and catamarans, galley and bar are at the rear end of the saloon just inside the sliding patio doors, which lock at 100mm intervals. This means that when the weather is right you can have a sort of incremental environment; you can sit in the saloon on the settee, or under cover in the cockpit, or right down the stern in full sun. Oh, there's a sliding sunroof in the coachroof, which confers even more control over how much of the environment you wish to experience.
The sleeping area is on the lower deck—three cabins, two bathrooms, one en suite with the master cabin forward, the other in the starboard side, which acts as the day head.
SELF-TACKING JIB
Some of Hanse's success must be attributed to its allegiance to the self-tacking jib which takes so much of the effort out of sailing and helps encourage families who may be deterred by what they see as the unnecessary hassle involved in sailing. The 45 DS's self-tacker contributes immeasurably to the boat's calm demeanour.
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PHOTOS: NICK WOOD
Technology and free-thinking design produce a craft with no allegiance to the past.
If you put the Fjord 40 powerboat and the Moody 45 DS side by side you could be forgiven for thinking they share the same hull.
It's a silly notion but there is some substance to it—Fjord and Moody share an owner, Hanse of Germany, who has made the bluff, aggressive look their trademark.
Hanse began only in 1993, and until 1997 it built unspectacular craft. Then, according to yacht designers and engineers Judel & Vrolijk, they devised a way to make hulls with beamy sterns work, and the Hanse portfolio since 1998 shows how they developed the blunt-bow, beamy-stern look. The bigger Hanses are quite 'slab-sided', a look that Hanse wanted for its Fjords. Now that look adorns the Moody 45 Deck Saloon.
British architect Bill Dixon, who designed Moodys before Hanse took over the 150-year-old company, drew the 45. Bill has given the Moody the Hanse/superyacht look favoured by the Italian Wally superyachts: slab sides, high freeboard, bulwarks, teak where possible, and slabs of 'glass if you need a superstructure. Bill has designed an 82-footer on similar lines; American designer Bill Tripp drew a 50m Wally which looks like a Moody 45 times three.
read on below advertisement
I like this look. The big Hanses, the Fjord and now the Moody remind me of those World War I battleships ploughing towards the camera, smashing the seas aside and daring you to get in the way.
The Moody's theme is one-level living. Like some powerboats and catamarans, galley and bar are at the rear end of the saloon just inside the sliding patio doors, which lock at 100mm intervals. This means that when the weather is right you can have a sort of incremental environment; you can sit in the saloon on the settee, or under cover in the cockpit, or right down the stern in full sun. Oh, there's a sliding sunroof in the coachroof, which confers even more control over how much of the environment you wish to experience.
The sleeping area is on the lower deck—three cabins, two bathrooms, one en suite with the master cabin forward, the other in the starboard side, which acts as the day head.
SELF-TACKING JIB
Some of Hanse's success must be attributed to its allegiance to the self-tacking jib which takes so much of the effort out of sailing and helps encourage families who may be deterred by what they see as the unnecessary hassle involved in sailing. The 45 DS's self-tacker contributes immeasurably to the boat's calm demeanour.
next page »
« go back
