NAVAN S30

It has taken its time coming but has Brunswick's new sportsboat brand got the power and the quality to mix it with the latest class leaders?

- HUGO ANDREAE

The Brunswick Group used to dominate the sportsboat market. Thanks to its efficient production lines and multi-brand strategy, comprising Bayliner, Quicksilver, Sea Ray and Boston Whaler, it had all the bases covered. Then two seismic events changed everything.

The first was the invention of the RIB, which became the go-to choice for first-time boat buyers during the early 2000s. The second was the launch of Axopar in 2014. This new breed of modern centre-console boat looked cooler, went better, offered a wider variety of choice and cost less than nearly all of its competitors. Not surprisingly, the competition raced to catch up; Nimbus, Saxdor, Quarken, Wellcraft and Ryck all jumped on the new outboard-powered centre console bandwagon but it wasn't until 2023 that Brunswick finally joined the party with this boat, the Navan S30. The question now is whether Brunswick has missed the party altogether or built something even better?

OPEN AND SHUT CASE

It has taken us a while to answer that question, partly because Brunswick's UK dealer network didn’t exactly leap at the chance to take on yet another brand. Now, however, Land & Sea has taken on the mantel of UK distributor for Navan, and sold its first allocation of boats within weeks of them arriving. We caught up with the $30 shortly after its UK debut at the British Motor Yacht Show to see what all the fuss was about. The first thing you need to know is that it's available as both an open boat, called the S30, and an enclosed cabin model, called the C30. Although they share the same hull and lower deck layouts, the configuration of the two main decks is very different – see pg 63. That enables both versions to make better use of the available space, rather than compromising one of them to save on costs, and gives each model its own look and identity.