Sweden Yachts 36 Review - Part1: Above Deck

I had a nice mail from a guy who reads this blog. He was considering purchasing an SY36 and he asked if there was any insight I could share after a few seasons of ownership. I thought I should write an honest owner's review. I think it will likely follow 4 parts:

1. Above Deck
2. Down Below
3. On the water (Sail and Power)
4. Conclusion

Part 1: Above Deck

The first thing you notice about the 36 (and indeed any Sweden of this vintage) is her stunning good looks. I know that every owner appreciates the beauty of their boat, but I really do think she has beautiful lines: It's the way that the coach roof sweeps down to join the side decks giving her the appearance of an arrowhead. 

Also I've always loved the shape of IOR inspired boats - it's that pinched transom. We frequently have passers by admire her and I've been asked several times if she's a 

Swan.

Sweden's were built with amazingly thick deck - even after 25 years we've still got 10mm left. Pretty amazing when you consider the 6mm that builders of AWBs (average white boats) appear to be spec'ing these days. Ours will need some maintenance soon: We'll probably re-caulk and lightly sand the deck in the next year or so.

The main sheet is lead back to a self tailing Lewmar winch to the port side of the companionway. This works pretty well for cruising, but might not be as great for an inshore race crew scenario.

The traveller is another story. It's mounted on a sturdy stainless steel bridge, just forward of the companionway. The 4:1 arrangement is reasonably high friction and can be tough to operate even when not under load. It's secured by clam cleats either side of the companionway. Unfortunately these are really inadequate and often dump the traveller at inopportune times. Jendor's have now been replaced with Spinlock PXR Cam Cleats, which eliminates this problem.

The main halyard has a two-speed winch, which unfortunately is not self-tailing making it less than ideal for short handed cruising. We'll be replacing this in the next refit with a self tailer. There are also a pair of secondary winches for the spinnaker or whatever mounted here too. One slight issue with the array of winches mounted either side of the companion way is that when the sprayhood is deployed some of the winches cannot be operated without employing that back and forth short crank waggling motion. The SY38 and 390 have mitigated this by mounting secondary winches on the cockpit coaming.

The main is slab reefed with a winch mounted on the mast. This arrangement works really well. I could see how some might want to 'upgrade' to single line reefing or maybe just run the reefing lines back to the cockpit: Either of which would be a trivial upgrade.

All of the lines running forward are held fast with, by modern standards, relatively primative clutches. We plan to upgrade these at the next major refit.

Moving aft, the boat is helmed by a large 36" edson wheel, which is large enough to allow helming from the side deck, yet small enough to be comfortable when seated behind the wheel. The space could accomodate up to a 44 incher, but I think the 36 may be the sweet spot.

Moving still further aft the back stay is adjustable via a winch handle operated mechanism. This works fine, however we have had one of our expensive winch handles lost to the deep, by a less than vigilant guest.

Under the helmsman's seat, there is the only deck locker. At first glance it appears to be a bit stingy, but in reality it's capacious. At over six foot deep, I could stand in it with the lid closed. In practice it's as much as you need. The picture really doesn't do it justice.

The port side of locker contains the heater and the starboard the gas locker (pictured). 

Interestingly the replacement boat, the 370 has a sugarscoop stepped boarding platform, which I imagine would leave the boat almost without any locker space. It would however address one of my minor niggles with the boat, which is that although the transom is really pretty, it's certainly slightly less practical for family cruising than the more modern integrated boarding platforms seen on the 370 and other mass production AWBs seen these days.

After three seasons with her, I do feel that the only real doubt that I have is the shallowness / highness of the cockpit. There's a pretty good reason for this, (which I'll come onto later), but it can lead to a feeling a little exposed when healed over. This could be somewhat psychologically mitigated with dodgers on the side rails. The other related, but essential upgrade, that we didn't find in our model, was any clipping in point in the cockpit. I suspect that the pevious owner simply attached himself to the steering pedastol which would make me a little nervous. We have now mounted a decent size pad eye in the cockpit floor.

In terms of electronics the boat came to us with ancient, but operational depth and speed as well as an autohelm wheel drive auto pilot. We went into the purchase planning on an electronics refit in the first year or so. It was just as well we did as the speed log packed up a year into our ownership. As a side note, the older transducers were mounted in a narrower guage housing than the now ubiquitous airmar ones, so replacing the transducer involved a change of skinfitting. This was not a massive job, but at the time an unexpected diversion and one that must be left till she's out of the water. The wheel pilot is useless in all but the flattest seas and we plan to replace this with a below decks linear drive system with some more intelligence behind it.

To be continued in Part 2: Down Below