This is a bit of a rant.
Somebody at Four Winns really needs to go look inside some sailboats and learn some lessons about space savings.
There are HUGE amounts of wasted space in our 348. For example:
- Behind the sofa in the main cabin
- All around the galley in general
- Within the side and rear gunwales
- Under the swim platform
There's never enough room on a boat, no matter how large a vessel. Stuff just seems to expand to exceed whatever space is available. And yes, you generally should try to avoid adding more stuff and it's weight to a boat, especially at today's gas prices.
I've got few pet peeves about not being able to stow a couple of things:
- the cockpit table and it's cushion
- the foredeck cushions
- those LONG side curtains from the bimini.
A couple of niggling design flaws:
- the starboard closet in the forward berth, that vertical space is useless as it's not tall enough to hang anything but too tall to stack things neatly.
- the aft closet next to the head has a hanger rod that's not far enough back to actually allow hanging clothes without them sticking out of the closet.
- Route out the center hole in the frame under the sofa so the center filler cushion would actually FIT in there, that's just a stupid design flaw.
It would help if they added some sort of access from behind the sofa. There's a few things like pots, pans and serving trays that'd be really handy to stow back in there.
How about making it possible to hinge up the starboard cockpit seatback to stow the cockpit table down into the starboard gunwale? It's just plain unsafe to have something that large and heavy stowed in the cabin. Yes, I could lay it on the forward berth, but if it shifts going over waves/wakes it'd be like smacking a hammer on those nearby cabinets. Using the shorter legs turning it into a 'sun pad' doesn't make that as secure a seating area as I'd like for rough condtions. It's better get people sitting in the seats with their feet planted on the floor rather than spread across a cushion. There's a stow space for the cabin table, why not the cockpit table?
Speaking of which, move the mounting hole for the cabin table toward the center an inch, we're not getting any thinner and could use the room when seated at the table!
That integrated swim platform is great, but why put such shallow storage lockers on it? Make 'em deeper at least! I realize it'd be risk to make them hatches into the engine compartment (wake catching up, swamping a hatch left open...) but it'd sure be nice to have a place to stow messy stuff like a 3hp dinghy outboard, fishing gear and the like.
And how about actually making a transom rail that a grill could be mounted on? The recessed one might be good for clipping down the canvas covers but it's useless for mounting anything.
I could go on, but basically they ought to go spend a few hours inside a couple of sailboats and learn how remarkably well those interiors make use of space. And this isn't just a Four Winns issue, I've seen similar wasting of space in plenty of other brands of powerboats.
We love the boat otherwise, and it's only when you've spent some time in a boat that you start to learn what could use improvement. So don't get the impression we're at all unhappy with it, we LOVE being out in it!
C'mon folks, get it together!