AXOPAR 37XC
Stand up paddleboarding is the new cool thing to do so we grabbed a board and saddled up an Axopar 37 to see what all the fuss is about
One of the more positive byproducts of the restrictions on travel we’ve experienced in 2020 has been a boom in watersports. People, hamstrung by not being able to enjoy their usual foreign holidays, have taken to the waterways and shorelines of the UK like never before and a pastime that has experienced a particular boom is stand-up paddle boarding. It is the hobby of the moment, so much so that back in July you’d have had more chance of happening upon some rocking-horse excrement than you would a paddle board in stock. MBY editor Hugo, being a finger on the pulse sort of chap, thought it a good idea that I join the masses and see what all the fuss is about. I agreed, naturally, because how hard can it be? Okay, this journalist’s physique may be more suited to rugby scrums than SUPS but if my 63-year-old father can make it look so easy, surely I’d be able to master it?
With a plan in place to break my paddleboarding duck we needed the right boat for the job and there aren’t many better than the second generation of Axopar’s 37.
Axopar fancies itself as an adventure brand as much as it does a boating brand these days, so much so that it’s just struck a partnership with Dutch watersports equipment manufacturer Jobe. Such is the popularity of SUPS that Jobe had to supply a 2021 board for the purposes of our little adventure as worldwide stock of 2020 boards had completely sold out. No chance of this workman blaming his tools then, unfortunately.
My plan was thus: pick up the boat from Hythe Marina, Southampton, head to the Needles to see how the boat performs, take to the water on the board – swan-like, of course – to get some pictures of the board, boat, and iconic landmark together and, in the process, hopefully, gather some understanding as to why so many people have fallen for scooting themselves across the surface of the water on a thin strip of rubber.
FROM BOAT TO BOARD
The new 37, like the old, comes in three distinct body styles: Spyder (open), Sun-top and XC (cross cabin). The cabin version is the most popular in the UK, no surprise given our weather, and it was indeed an XC that we had for our test. Sun-top and XC boats have the option of a bespoke roof rack to carry water toys or bikes but our test boat went without. No bother with our Jobe Yarra 10.6 board, which, being inflatable, packs down into a backpack about the size of a large bergen for easy transportation and storage, the 37’s dedicated watersports locker beneath the cockpit proving the perfect place to stash it for the journey.
There was a lot of good stuff about the original award-winning 37 so Axopar hasn’t thrown the baby out with the bath water in updating it. The hull is exactly the same dimensions as the original and the engine options still top out with a pair of 350s. The most obvious change is on the foredeck where a pair of gull-wing doors now spring up Mercedes Sl-style offering access to the cabin from both sides of the deck and much-improved light and ventilation for those below. You can now have a separate toilet and shower cubicle partitioned off from the main cabin by a translucent bulkhead. There is still the option to have a separate double cabin on the aft deck as well, so four people can sleep in proper berths, but it has no toilet and feels a bit coffin-like. Most would use it as a big storage locker and take advantage of the sun pad that you get as an added bonus on deck. That said, there is a separate layout option with a shallow storage locker and sun pad on top or the wetbar option that our test boat had. It’s a seriously flexible boat, the 37, and through all the various permutations there will be a layout to suit most boaters.
The beauty of the XC is its turn-key nature. With no covers to mess about with you can just slide open the two large side doors, peel the sunroof back and hit the water within minutes. With these three opening sections and so much glass in the wheelhouse, the view out and connection to the outside is excellent but equally, you can shut the cabin tight and pump the heating up to extend your boating season well into the winter months. The driving position always was a 37 strong point so there was little to improve on here. You drop down in front of the dash with the steering wheel mounted almost at chest height. The design is more for the open boats where this sunken position allows the windscreen to provide better protection, not an issue you face on the XC. The dashboard is clean, clear and sensibly laid out with various cubbies within easy reach to stow loose items. The main controls fall to hand comfortably and, thanks to the side doors, if you’re boating alone you can easily pop out onto the side deck to fix a line amidships when coming alongside. The optional joystick is useful, if not for manoeuvring then for Skyhook, the system that holds the boat in place allowing the skipper to attach lines and fenders in the knowledge that the boat won’t move from its fixed position.
You are so well insulated from the engines on the XC. These Mercurys are smooth and quiet as is but add the extra insulation of a GRP and glass box and you can barely hear them at all. This makes cruising, even at high speed, extremely refined. In calm conditions, it’s laughably easy to look down and find yourself
cruising at 40 knots without knowing it. There is so little commotion, or even a rising of the bow, as the boat transitions from displacement to planing speeds that a cruise of 30 knots feels positively sedate. As a quick mile-muncher, the 37 is hard to beat, confirmed by the pace and ease with which it whisked us from Hythe to the Needles.
Below the waterline is where a lot of the hard work has gone in, principally to reduce the boat’s time to plane, improve cruising efficiency and boost range. Axopar claims that thanks to its hull tweaks and the efficiency gains of the latest generation of Mercury outboards, the 37 is 30% more efficient between 20 and 40 knots than the old model. Compare the figures for this boat to the ones we recorded during our test of a 37 Sun-top with similar twin 350hp engines in Mallorca back in 2017 and they make interesting reading. The XC is a heavier boat yet there is a clear improvement in efficiency but mainly at higher speeds. At 30-35 knots the difference is marginal but over 40 knots the new version begins to pull away, consuming just 3.87 litres per mile at 45 knots compared to the 5.41 litres per mile of the previous model – a whisker off Axopar’s claimed 30% improvement. Considering how comfortable the boat feels cruising at these higher speeds, it’s of real benefit that there isn’t a significant price to pay in fuel consumption if you want to get a move on.
BOARD GAMES
So far, the boat had performed its duties faultlessly but it was my turn to prove my mettle. With the anchor bedded in, we retrieved the board and began the process of pumping it into life, a task that isn’t back-breaking but is hard enough work to get the heart thumping. The 37’s decks are well suited to this sort of exercise, with enough space in the cockpit and on the foredeck to spread the board out and allow it to inflate relatively quickly. The low freeboard also makes lowering the SUP into the water easy and the open transom with unobstructed platforms is a good spot from which to mount the board. Tentatively, I take to the board on all fours and push off, adopting the position of a dog mid inspection by a judge during Crufts. The sea state that seemed