Comfort on display

Allowing Tony Castro to work on the interior has indeed brought a whole new feel to this Maxi, moving away from the more traditional, darker, rather stodgy interiors to a re-energised and lighter space with comfort visibly on display.

Surprisingly, the feature that really blew me away was the heads, which is both generous in size and has a quality finish that is a far cry from shoehorning a plastic toilet into the minimum space possible. At first glance this cabin does not look as if it belongs in a boat; the wash basin is a full-size modern ceramic style and the shower, with wooden slatted seat dropped down over the heads, looks more like a sauna.

The L-shaped galley is neat and compact. It has two fridges – a top loader and a drawer fridge – as standard, a double sink and electric absorber that pops out from above the cooker. This is like an extractor fan, but does not vent to the outside, simply absorbs grease and odours through filters contained inside.

The whole area has room to work and to brace while at sea, though my feeling was there is not quite enough room for stowage. I wonder if I would end up using one of the fridges as a general stowage area if I was making a longer passage.

Both sleeping cabins were generous and light, with lockers and drawers fitted to the shape of the hull to maximise space. There were 12V sockets beside the berths for charging phones, and light switches that can be operated from the door or in bed.

The saloon is roomy and light, there is plenty of headroom and the starboard settee converts into quite a sturdy double berth without too much trouble. There are thoughtful little space-saving details everywhere, such as a wineglass rack in the centre of the table and a hinged seat back, which can create either a chart table pod or an L-shaped sofa. The whole of the interior feels as solid and high-quality as it looks, and under sail it was comfortable and secure below.

As is often the case where a designer has chosen to use the full beam of the boat to create space in the saloon, there is very little stowage behind seat backs. With space under the settees taken up with tanks, there seems to be a general lack of stowage.

The chart table was big enough, but not enormous and very comfortable to brace in while sailing. The main electrics panel contained a really nice touchscreen battery and tank monitor, which displayed a multitude of information in one small location. The test boat did not have a chartplotter mounted in this space, but there would be room to put one in.

Under power

The standard engine for the Maxi 1200 is a 28hp Volvo with a saildrive and two-bladed folding propeller. Our test boat had a 40hp with a Gori prop and the retractable bow thruster that comes as standard with every boat. Needless to say, under power it went whichever way you wanted it to go, but then just about any modern 40ft boat would with that much horsepower and a bow thruster.

The engine was quiet and the installation had good access for maintenance; the engine battery was also accessible. The bow thruster is neatly installed under the forward berth, though I struggle to understand why a 40ft boat that weighs only 6.9 tonnes should need one as standard.

All controls to hand for the helmsman

There are a lot of electrics on this boat, with the mainsheet winch, powered primary winches, two fridges, cooker hoods, bow thrusters and options for much more. All the batteries supplied with the boat are AGM, there is 330ah available for the house and separate batteries for bow thruster and engine. However, this could be a very power-hungry boat – fine if you are tied up to the dock every night, but on a longer passage at sea or hopping between quiet anchorages it might be worth investing in some alternative charging methods.

Specifications

LOA 12.16m/39ft/11in

LWL 10.60m/34ft 9in

Beam (max) 3.75m/12ft 4in

Draught 2.00m/6ft 6in

Disp (lightship) 6,900kg/15,212lb

Ballast 2,470kg/5,445lb

Sail area (100% foretriangle) 84m²/905ft²

Berths 4-6

Engine Volvo D1-30 28hp

Water 260lt/57gal

Fuel 150lt/33gal

Sail area:disp 23.6

Disp:LWL 161

Price ex VAT: €178,000 (£127,000)

Designed by: Pelle Petterson/Tony Castro

www.maxiyachts.com

Conclusion

The might of the Delphia shipyard and its in-house manufacturing has allowed it to produce this boat for an impressive price. The standard boat package comes in at €178,000 (£127,000) and is incredibly comprehensive with a long list of goodies included. Delphia is offering an introductory package for the first ten boats at €190,000 (£135,600) to include heating, autopilot, chartplotter and windlass, among other things. If you were to throw in a furling gennaker, the whole lot would come in at just under €200,000 (£142,800).

What really struck me about the team from Delphia is that it already has a successful and enormous factory in Poland, but in acquiring the Maxi brand it set out to build a boat that would cater for an entirely different customer and has certainly not been half-hearted about it.

The goal with this boat was to tap into the Scandinavian-type cruising market and, to my mind, the Maxi 1200 has exceeded the objective. She has style and quality wrapped up into a Swedish space-saving package.

This is an extract from a feature in the July 2015 issue of Yachting World