This week at France’s Cannes Festival of Yachting, the Polish builder of sport cruisers unveiled a surprise for the cruising market, the all-new Galeon 430 Explorer. The new 43-footer is their first boat in the long-range trawler style and promises to open new audiences for the builder.
The design has a purposeful trawler styling with a fly bridge, a high saloon with expansive glazing and a large aft cockpit and swim platform. This last feature is enhanced by fold-down bulwarks on both sides that almost double the cockpit’s deck area.
The helm at the front of the saloon is up three steps and has a double seat at the wheel to starboard and a second lounge area to port. Visibility forward from the helm is excellent and is it good to see that there are doors on both sides for quick access to the side decks and bow.
The bridge will be the fair-weather social area and has a lounge, upper galley and grill. An optional Bimimi top will provide some protection from the weather.
Below there are two cabins and a single head. The master cabin is in the bow and has a centerline double and plenty of storage. The guest cabin to port has a double berth right up against the hull. These share a large head and shower.
The initial powerplant spec’d for the 430 is twin Volvo D6 480s that will pack a lot of punch. Although the builder does not predict performance numbers, one can surmise that the 430 will have a fast cruising speed in the mid 20s.
Galeon has supported the explorer theme buy providing fuel tanks with 300-gallons of capacity. At fast cruising speeds this will give the boat a range of 500 to 700 miles. But, throttle back to more modest trawler speeds of say 12 to 15 knots and that range will expand dramatically.
The new Galeon 430 Explorer is a go-anywhere cruising boat that looks the part. No doubt the cruising audience at Cannes will be very pleasantly surprised the by the boat’s unveiling.
