Quarken 27 Cabin sea trial review: Behind the wheel of a pitch-perfect pilothouse

Can Quarken’s new Cabin variant match the award-winning T-Top? MBY’s Alex Smith heads to Finland to test the Quarken 27 Cabin…

Established in 2021 by three highly respected Finnish boat builders, Quarken has enjoyed an almost comically auspicious start to life. Its debut model immediately scooped
the Best Sportsboat gong at the 2023 Motor Boat Awards for its great looks, keen pricing and brilliant dayboating flexibility.

That has since been joined by a T-Top V2 model, which addresses the original T-Top’s absent cooking facilities with a transverse wet bar at the transom. And another new model has now emerged, the Quarken 27 Cabin, again on the same 27ft platform, but this time with all the four-season practicality that an enclosed pilothouse brings.

As on the T-Top model, rather than opting for a full walkaround design, Quarken has offset the wheelhouse to starboard to create more space inside the cabin at the expense of a starboard side deck. That leaves room for a deep walkway along the port side, linking the aft cockpit with the more spacious foredeck lounge up front.

And while that aft cockpit looks a bit basic and limited on this pilothouse model, there’s actually much more to this design than first meets the eye. At the heart of the cockpit sits a central fender box topped with soft-touch decking so a couple of people can take a seat and face forward.

This backs onto a pair of slightly raised swim platforms and a stainless steel towing arch that frames the cowling of that single Yamaha F300 outboard. There’s a swim ladder to starboard and a stern anchor to port, and the towing arch does a great job as a grabbing point to make your way from one side of the boat to the other.

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Ahead of the cockpit, a set of full-height, three-blade glass doors slide to port to give access to the pilothouse’s starboard companionway.

Cleverly though, the doors can also be secured to starboard, enabling you to flip over the backrest on the wheelhouse’s stern bench and create a more sociable face-to-face seating area for four people at the threshold between the internal and external spaces.

To read Alex’s full review of the Quarken 27 Cabin, pick up the November 2023 issue of MBY, which is out now.

Quarken 27 Cabin specifications

LOA: 27ft 5in (8.35m)
Beam: 8ft 6in (2.59m)
Draft: 3ft 11in (0.85m)
Displacement: 2,700 kg
Fuel capacity: 300 litres
Engines: Single Yamaha F300 outboard
Top speed on test: 43.2 knots
Fuel consumption: 37.5 lph @ 20 knots
Cruising range: 128 miles @ 20 knots
Noise: 80.8 dB(A) @ 20 knots
RCD category: C for 8 people
Starting price: £114,629 (ex. VAT)
Price as tested: £189,473 (inc. VAT)