X-YACHTS Xc47 + ARCONA 50
Two particular yachts making their debut at the show looked more like a Scandinavian derby than any others at the show. Rivals X-yachts and Arcona were going head to head with two similarly sized boats both aiming at the 45-50ft blue-water cruising market. Both the Xc47 and Arcona 50s aim at the performance end of the offshore cruising sector, and are built to similarly high levels of construction, quality, comfort and finish. I’ve covered the Arcona 50 in these pages for you before, and hope to test her in due course, but it’s worth taking a second look, given that she’s just won the coveted 2024 European Yacht of the Year Luxury Cruiser category.
For X-yachts this is the first all-new boat since the retirement of X-yachts founder Nils Jeppessen, albeit drawn by the same in-house design team. The boat is intended as an offshore cruising boat, built for good passage speeds in comfort and safety. Commensurately, she’s heavier with a bigger rocker and deep v-shaped bow sections than the Pure and Performance ranges, and she retains the same distinctive stern overhangs as other boats in the Xc (X-yachts cruising) range, all of which contributes to sea-kindly motion. She’s still got X-yachts blood in her though, and will keep moving in 5 knots of breeze, as well as enjoying cruising speeds into the the eights and nines.
Unusually, this is the first X-yacht with a deck-saloon style coachroof (though not a true deck saloon), matching distinctive diamond-shaped hull windows. Below, every inch of space is used for well-thought out stowage and systems, with her epoxy hull and steel keel matrix frame ensuring an incredibly stiff hull.
Over at Arcona, Urban Langneus was on the hunt for a designer to replace the late Stephan Quivberg, and who should pop up but a newly retired Nils Jeppesen looking for projects to fill his time alongside partner in crime Ariadna Pons. The result was a new flagship for the Swedish yard – the 46 was their largest boat before this).
It represents a significant departure from the understated, but sharp, fast coastal performance cruisers in favour of a boat capable of carrying a high payload without sacrificing sailing ability. Displacement is just over a tonne and half lighter than the Xc47 with nearly 20m2 more canvas.
The hull shape is dramatically fuller than earlier Arconas, and sports twin rudders for the first time, but she claims to have lost none of Arcona’s typical performance or precision on the water. Below, the design is luxurious, comfortable, and fully up to date, without eschewing any Arcona craftsmanship.