SunCamper 31

An example of the new breed of river cruiser, the SunCamper 31 looks unlike anything most of us have seen before-but there's a very good reason for that, as David Harding explains.

- David Harding

ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Harding has been testing boats for more than 25 years and has sailed over 500 types of boat, from dinghies and dayboats to fast multihulls and offshore cruisers. He's also a marine photographer and runs his agency, Sailing Scenes. His work regularly appears in the yachting press, including Practical Boat Owner, Yachting Monthly and Yachting World.

When a sailor describes a boat as looking like a floating caravan, it’s not usually meant as a compliment.

So bear with me when, as a sailor, I describe the SunCamper 31 as looking like a floating caravan. Actually it’s more like a floating motorhome, since it’s self-propelled, but that’s a detail.

When sailors speak in such terms about a sailing yacht, they mean that it’s boxy, bloated and perhaps not the most aesthetically pleasing they have ever seen. They're also suggesting that it probably wouldn't sail particularly well and is not a vessel in which they'd choose to venture far from land.

In the case of motorboats, especially those designed for inland waters, perspectives have to be rather different.

For cruising up and down the non-tidal Thames, for example, isn’t a floating motorhome exactly what you want? It doesn't have to cope with rough weather, it's not allowed to go faster than 4 knots and, when you want to stop, you pop into a marina or moor alongside the riverbank.

Such a boat has to have a degree of manoeuvrability and to fit into locks and marina berths, and it's better if it doesn't kick up an enormous wash. Those constraints apart, it can be designed purely for maximum space and practicality below and above decks. Ideally it would be like a motorhome with a popup conservatory tent, a patch of garden behind a windbreak, an outside decking area and somewhere to keep your bicycles. Everything except, please, the fairy lights.