Three to six months is the hump to get over for new boat ownership. It’s long enough to take the showroom sheen off a purchase, the owner will have broken a thing or two on board, the storage bills will be coming in thick and fast and many of the boat’s foibles or failings will have made themselves known. It’s also getting towards autumn if you bought it in the spring.
So conducting a ‘new boat test’ in the company of its nearly new owner and hearing what they have to say about it after some months of ownership should, in theory, be much more illuminating than venturing out in an utterly pristine example fresh out of the mould.
It was with this in mind that we met for a sail with Paul Simmonds, proud first owner of Gi Gi, a four month old, Polish-built Viko S-21 on the second hottest day so far of a record-settingly hot summer of 2022.
The Viko 21 hit the UK market in 2017 to gasps of incredulity surrounding its price. Here was 21ft (6.4m), very spacious, entry level family cruiser, with pretty, contemporary, wedgy styling and an aft double berth for the seemingly unachievable price of £23,000 in the UK. It begged the question of ‘what’s missing when it arrives?’ Sails? Winches? Berth cushions? Its keel? One UK boatbuilder was even heard to utter that his materials cost alone was more than £23,000 for a similar length boat.
The Viko does come with all those things, although not a lot more, and despite the fact that its base price has now risen to north of £29,000 with the ‘comfort pack’ and keel featured here, it’s still, undeniably, a lot of boat for the money. It also swims in a pond with not very much competition. If you don’t particularly want a ‘modern gaffer’, but you want a four-berth sailing cruiser for short passages, overnighting, trailer-sailing and perhaps a little informal club racing, but you don’t want to buy second-hand,
