Innovations

Buzzards Bay 42 Design Innovations

Dinghy Storage and Handling

Dinghy storage and launching from the transom, even when powered with outboards!  With the new Buzzards Bay 42 retaining the option to be powered with outboards, we knew we had to overcome  the limitation of not being able to carry  a dinghy at the transom when powered by outboards.  After all, the larger the vessel, the more people want to bring along a good dinghy.  So we went to work and came up with an all new transom design for a Buzzards Bay.  We liked this design so much in fact that its now available on the 34's.  The design uses a very wide (6 foot) transom opening on the vessel centerline.  In combination with an oversize T-shaped swim platform suspended over the tunnel, there is enough length and support to store your dinghy in the fore and aft position right on the swim platform, always just a shove away from the water.  No messing about with the expense, weight, (remember, every lb saved improves fuel efficiency),and complexity of roof cranes, along with the associated risks of raising and lowering a 300 lb swinging object on a windy day.  The beauty of this design is its ease and simplicity. AB makes a great, lightwight yet sea-worthy and tough dinghy, the aluminum bottomed 10AL.  Powered with a 15HP outboard, she flies along on plane, yet she's still pretty light, and fits our new transom design perfectly.  A keel roller integrated into the end of the swim platform and some Ultra High Molecular Weight Plastic strips makes launch and retrieval truely childs play.  

Protected Companionways

By virtue of a catamarans natural twin hull configuration, all cats have two companionways leading down into each hull.  In every design we've ever come across, these stair wells are open to the salon, the main actvity center of the boat, creating an ever present danger for inadvertably falling down these steep openings.  With the Buzzards Bay 42, we found a better way, by simply removing the companionways alltogethor from the high traffic salon.  To go below decks, you walk forward, past the helm to an athwarthship (cross vessel) passage, and from there you decend down a set of proper stairs designed with home style tread heights.  What about the space lost by the athwarthsip passage?  This has been minimized by placing the passage way at the very base of the pilot house sloping front windshield, and being two steps lower than the pilot house floor, the passage way has proper head room that would be unavailable otherwise, so a pretty good design without much compromise made.