Axopar 29 CCX Boat Review

From the deck of his new 29-CCX center console, Axopar’s fit, bearded Finnish Founding Partner Jan-Erik Viitala made a bold statement at the Cannes Yachting Festival: “It’s one of the best driving hulls of any 28, 29 foot boats on the market.”

Now, there are many 28 to 29 foot center consoles on the market—and given today’s laminar flow science, computer-aided design and seat-of-the pants engineering, most perform nicely. Amidst stormy and wake-churned seas, I’d put Viitala’s claim to the test.

The “X” in the CCX name stands for crossover. To hear Viitala tell it, Axopar saw an opening in the center-console market that they felt America’s juggernauts hadn’t fully tapped. Viitala calls the CCX a “Swiss Army Knife”—a comparatively inexpensive fishing, watersports and entertainment-focused vessel with lightweight, modular construction, a vast array of features and options and even a weekending berth.

To me, putting the CCX under the microscope provides a window into the worldview of Finnish engineers. Luxury comes not from mirror-finish chrome or deeply glossed mahogany but versatility and functionality. Stepping aboard, one of many seriously cool touches is a pad-covered portside stern hatch. A flick of a latch reveals dual bamboo cutting boards, which double as covers for a small sink and a top-loading fridge. Rather than a typical strut, the hatch is supported by a novel ultra-lightweight rigid spring. To close it, a push collapses the spring and down goes the hatch. To the immediate right, a Magma propane grill snaps into a holder and can be swung inboard or out over the gunwale.

Viitala demonstrated how the comfy helm seats not only convert to leaning posts, but rotate 180-degrees to face the cockpit table. Beneath those seats lie another freshwater sink and a fridge. I jokingly asked Viitala if he ever engineered VW’s brilliantly conceived Westfalia campervans, he replied, “No, but it’s the same kind of philosophy and idea.”

Forward, there’s another table and u-shaped entertaining/lounging area along with a comfortable forward-facing double seat that lifts to reveal a generous cabin equipped with a sink and a head. At the starboard bow, you could opt to replace a sizeable under-bench storage area with an insulated fishbox (33- and 18-gallon rear live-well options are available, too). Grabrails are well-situated throughout and recessed. The down-raked top is also capped with a solar panel and a nice black powder-coated six-rod rocket launcher that gives an angler a nice arsenal. The forward-raked windshield does its job while overhead a ventilation hatch directs airflow down to the helm, even at low speeds. This model featured a bow thruster that made easy work of fine-point maneuvering with a single Mercury 400 Verado that was said to push the boat to 47 knots. Considering the conditions, this possibility made me nervous.

I needn’t have been. Between a building southerly and chop from all the other vessels out sea-trialing—the Baie de Cannes was agitated. Viitala first wanted to demonstrate this twin-stepped hull’s remarkable ability to track straight at low speeds. Some v-hulls wallow at pre-planing speeds, with plenty of bow lift and a corresponding reduction in forward visibility. There was none of this. I released the wheel—and even a few knots off plane in the bouncy seas, we tracked arrow-straight. “We created a bit more bowlift on the 29 generation,” Viitala said. “And we raised the bow ten centimeters. So you’re able to pound those really bad waves.” The GRP hull too, he added, was about a third lighter than most comparable American hulls. He acknowledged that many have been skeptical of Axopar’s plum-bowed forward hullshape. “When we tried to compare Axopars with the shape of American boats, people went, ‘that can never work.’ Well yeah, it would never work if you made them the same weight with the same way of constructing the hull.”

And he was right. The boat’s handling was phenomenal. Some flared bow v-hulls deal with bigger waves by pounding through them. The CCX skipped and bounded right over them in a very controlled fashion. Laying her over hard into a series of turns, she lost very little speed and it was both impossible to slide her out or deny the remarkable grab and shock absorption this 22-degree deadrise “sharp entry” hull delivers. We topped out just north of 40 knots given the conditions, but if I had the guts, her 47-knot top speed seemed obtainable. She was also efficient. Even at 33 knots, she was only sipping between a half and three-quarters of a gallon per nautical mile. And those consumption figures remained remarkably stable, whether she was running at 15, 25 or 30-plus. With a 158-gallon fuel tank you could run her 300 nm at a 25 knot cruise.

For the American market, Axopar plans to offer a CCX with dual 200’s. Viitala hopes to see serious interest in the boat—particularly given a starting price of around $210,000 in the U.S. “We’ll be an alternative,” he said. “We would never go head to head against center consoles or tournament fishing boats in the U.S. They do a terrific job and they’ve been doing it for decades. But we’re just trying to give this Swiss Army Knife way of thinking.”

This was one of the most fun and capable center consoles I’ve ever driven. Axopar should have a hit—in a new niche—on its hands.

Axopar 29 CCX Specifications:

LOA: 30’9”
Beam: 9’10”
Draft: 2’8”
Displ.: 6173 lb.
Fuel: 158 gal.
Water: 11.1 gal.
Power: 1/400, 2/200-hp Mercury
Price: $210,000 to $245,000

This article originally appeared in the December 2024 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.

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Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/boats/axopar-29-ccx-boat-review