The Sport Cruiser is Back

When nearly everyone seemed to stop believing on the medium size sport cruiser here comes British builder Fairline and its new Targa 40 to show and remind us, why in all sizes, a two cabins sleek looking sport cruising boat is still one of the best way to go at sea.  This new Fairline Targa brings evolution to the species, and finally we see drop down bulk-heads integrated cleverly in a sport cruiser design.

The twelve meter medium-sized open sport cruiser has been hammered in the past decade, by center consoles and dual consoles, and arguably the most successful models in this size are over ten years old.  Like the Princess V40 presented in 2017 a soft evolution of the V39 which came out in 2012, while an other success is the Sessa C38 which is still doing very well despite its fall 2009 presentation.  Both these models have had a long standing success, and while arguably they offer everything for a typical family of a couple and two kids to go a week cruise, it's worth noting that they did bring nothing new to the table beside a hard-top to say similar sized models from the late nineties and early noughties, and some other soft evolutionary design touches.

Interestingly even Galeon which was the first major production builder to push folding down bulkheads in the aft deck with its 500 Fly model in 2015 to the masses never offered a sport cruiser of eleven to twelve meter in size with this system. Its 405 HTS is in fact an evolution of the Galeon 385 which debuted in 2010.

Where do we go from here, will be interesting.  Like in anything if Fairline's new Targa 40 will sell out the competition it will not be long, before the main competition starts offering similar featured, add drop down bulk-head models.  The good thing is the sport cruiser renewal has started.