VIKING GODDESS

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Öppna Varv

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This past weekend we attended Öppnna Varv. It is an in water boat show at the Hallberg-Rassy boat yard in Ellös Sweden. Hallberg-Rassy invites other boat manufactures there as well. So there were boats from Bavaria, Hanse, Jeanneau and many others.

Hallberg-Rassy also had the production shop open so that you could walk around and see the boats being constructed.

We have been debating about if we wanted an aft cockpit or a center cockpit. After looking at them we have decided that a center cockpit is what we want. We get a bigger aft cabin and to us, it feels like we are more protected and secure having the cockpit in the center.

Saturday was a nice sunny day and there were a lot of people there. I guess that is because it was suppose to rain on Sunday. But this worked out to our advantage. After we went around on Saturday looking at all the boats, gathering information, we had a some questions that we wanted to get answered and planned to talk more details with HR and Najad on Sunday.

To our relief, it did not rain like the new predicted and the crowds disappeared. There was only a light drizzle early in the morning and then nothing the rest of the day :-) After talking to the sales person on the HR 40 MK II, we went over to look more at the Najad 411cc. Unbeknownst to us, the VD of Najad was there showing the boat to people. We went below to look at the interior and he started asking us what we were looking for. After explaining what it is that we are wanting to do, he offered to take us to the Najad workshop to show us a Najad boat that was under construction.

This was great. We got to see how well the Najad boats are built and Anna and I were impressed with how well Jörgen Ottosson answered all of our questions. Jörgen also told us about a new design that is coming out soon, 395cc. After hearing about this model, it sounds like this will be a perfect fit for us. Needless to say, we can say that we are sold on Najad and we will be getting a Najad.