Toy 36 Boat Review
Toy’s Story
Toy Marine is well established in Italy, but is making a push into the domestic market with a 36 that deftly melds Old Word and New.
There is a lot to be said for commuting by water. Some of the most beloved boats from the days of yore were the commuters that whisked robber barons and their ilk up and down the Long Island Sound from Manhattan to the Gold Coasts of Long Island and Connecticut. Unsurprisingly, the Italians understand the glamorous appeal of this form of commute as well, with boats still acting as a viable means for many to escape the country’s notoriously hectic traffic. Indeed, some of Italy’s oldest and most storied families are known to take boats to the office. And some of them do it in a Toy 36.
One thing to get out of the way early—yes, it’s a tough name. There has perhaps not been a harder boat to Google in America since Motoryacht A. But while “toy” is a common word in English, in Italian it has an air of the exotic. And the builder’s name is not the only thing it has borrowed from outside of Italy. The Toy 36 has classic Down East lines. Somewhat counterintuitively, Downeasters have gained a loyal following in Italy despite being arguably the single most American style of boat (behind sportfishermen). You could liken the fascination to the way that Europeans treasure Levi’s jeans as a marque of iconic American style.
It only seemed natural, then, that when I came across the Toy 36, I gave it a bit of a commuter run myself. It was a notion only bolstered by coming to understand that the boat’s home base is in Stamford, Connecticut, which is a five-minute drive from my house. When I followed the GPS to the boat one Monday morning this past summer, I was a bit amused to find that it was docked at the Hinckley facility in Stamford. The Toy has some distinct stylistic departures from Hinckley, and with a base right around $700,000, retails for significantly less than the Picnic Boat 37. Nevertheless, it’s still working in the same market segment, and Hinckley doesn’t seem to mind that the Toy 36 was there and neither did I.
The first thing I noticed about the boat was that its aesthetics are a tad more modern than many Downeasters. These classically styled boats favored by Rockefellers and modeled after the lobster boats of Maine tend to be, to my eye, old-fashioned looking by design. For example, many Downeasters are absolutely laden with handrails. Now I am a big proponent of handrails in general—few things in boating are more needlessly irksome than trying to nudge your way up a narrow side deck with nothing to grab onto. But they can also be unsightly. Toy solved this problem by hiding the handrails in concave dugouts along the hardtop and on the foredeck. It’s smart design choices like this, along with a pilothouse design that is decidedly rounder and cleaner than much of the competition that pegs this model as a younger man’s boat. If the typical Downeaster is a Mercedes S Class, the Toy is more along the lines of an Audi A7.
I climbed aboard the 36 with my stomach rumbling, as the itinerary for the day was to shoot along the course of commuters of old and head to New York City. Of course, since I work from home and have no office to travel to, Toy’s U.S. representative James Knight and I decided that lunch would be a serviceable stand-in—Italian of course. We’d be hitting Emilio’s Ballato on Houston Street, an old-school, red-sauce, celebrity-friendly spot that was Carbone before Carbone was a twinkle in its mama’s eye.
Soon the twin 320-horsepower Yanmars were rumbling as well, and we rid ourselves of lines and fenders and puttered out through the harbor. James Knight is a British ex-pat with a serious sailing pedigree who is representing Toy as it makes its push into the U.S. domestic market. During this portion of the journey, I sat on the aft sunpads and picked his brain about the brand. Despite almost zero name recognition in America, he pointed out that this brand is over two decades old. The 36 is hull number 42 out of the builder’s factory in Savona, a close neighbor of the Italian giant Azimut. Knight brought this boat over (as well as a 51 Flybridge) and plunked it in the 2024 Palm Beach show with plans to put the 36 in the Newport boat show as well. He’s had to make some small U.S. adjustments himself, such as the stainless steel Edson cupholders screwed onto the amidships bulwark—initially there were none, and we Americans love a good cupholder.
Another upgrade Knight is pushing for is installing 370-horsepower Yanmars on upcoming boats. It’s a decision I agree with. When I took the wheel out in the Sound, the boat felt slightly sluggish with the smaller 320s. The top speed I saw was 28.4 knots, though a 31-knot top end is reported by the builder. With a larger power package, the boat should hit 34 or even 35 knots with the hammer down. That said, the 36 cruised smoothly and ably at 23 knots, where her range is just north of 300 nautical miles. She also exhibits clean lines of sight from the helm, where the captain looks out over a pleasantly oversized stainless steel wheel with twin Garmin screens laid out before him. The 36 handled the short chop of Long Island Sound with aplomb. But when a big Viking blew by us eaving small mountains of water in its path, the Toy bobbed happily over them like a duck in a bathtub.
About an hour or so after leaving Stamford, the familiar sites of New York City began to announce themselves—LaGuardia Airport, the prison barge off Riker’s Island, and then the bridges as we neared Manhattan. Running the East River on a boat is one of my favorite things, and it’s highly underrated by the general boating public in my opinion. As you reach the narrow part of the river by the Upper East Side, your vessel starts sliding through a man-made canyon of some of the most famous structures on Earth. There’s the Chrysler Building, then the Empire State, then the Brooklyn Bridge and the Freedom Tower, and finally, as you round the very southern tip, the Statue of Liberty comes into view, all while slicing through a ripping current, with ferries full of people gliding by and helicopters buzzing overhead. It’s a feast for the senses, and a good reminder that despite what its many detractors say, Manhattan is still magnificent.
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After making the turn into the Hudson on the island’s west side, we tied up at Chelsea Piers. From there it was a quick yellow cab down to the restaurant. Emilio’s Ballato is a special place, lined with photos of celebrities who have dined there: Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Warren Beatty, Anthony Bourdain, you name them. It’s the kind of place with newspapers from the ‘70s touting Leon Spinks’ victory over Muhammad Ali lining the bathroom walls, and a hidden back room for high-profile guests should you be among the well-connected. With a no-reservations policy, there is often a line down the block to get a table for dinner, but on a Monday for lunch the place was refreshingly empty. I had the Bolognese and then a pork chop, and everything I tasted reminded me why this is one of my favorite restaurants in a city renowned for them. Afterward, we piled back into a cab, and then back onto the boat. Bolognese and pork chops is not exactly the lightest of lunches and I may have lain on one of the cockpit sunpads and closed my eyes for a bit right as we turned back around the southern tip of the island and lined up the Statue of Liberty with our wake. Eventually it became too hot in the sun, though, so I took shady refuge under the hardtop and then poked my head belowdecks where there is a dayhead, a forepeak “master” that would be suitable for a nap but probably not an overnighter, and a bench seat to port that I suppose could also be nap-worthy. One thing I noted was the excellent woodwork down below. The joinery was fit tight even in places that weren’t necessarily for show, like along the undersides of the teak hatch over the steps. It’s the sort of detail that offers a good indicator of the quality and care that goes into a boat’s construction.
As we pulled back into the Hinckley facility, I felt a Cheshire-Cat grin creep across my face. Yes, my work day consisted of a boat ride on a lovely little vessel and a deliciously heavy lunch. But it was work, so this technically was a commute. And in a lot of ways, it just felt so decadently Italian that I do believe this is exactly what this boat was born to do, even if she was doing it a long way from home.
This article originally appeared in the November 2024 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
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Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/boats/toy-36-boat-review
