Hunter 41 Deck Salon

The 41 Deck Salon is the Hunter built for people who wanted to see out. Glenn Henderson took the yard's aft-cockpit 41 — high freeboard, plumb stem, a deep fin or a shoal wing keel — and lifted the coachroof into a glazed saloon with 6 ft 10 in of headroom under it. Over that sits Hunter's backstayless B&R rig: swept spreaders, a stainless arch across the cockpit, and the generous-roach mainsail the rig exists to carry, which most hulls traded away for in-mast furling. Two cabins, two heads, hand-laid at Alachua, Florida. Henderson called it the slipperiest boat Hunter had built, and Cruising World's 2006 judges gave it both Best Production Cruiser 40 to 44 feet and the overall Best Value prize. It was drawn to be sailed short-handed by a couple, not raced.

The bill comes glazed. Owners report the big fixed saloon lights weeping at the lower aft corners, and the repair that holds is cutting the lens out and rebedding the frame rather than laying another bead of caulk over the failed one; owners who have done the job twice will say no bedding is permanent on a panel that size. Sun and wind get the same purchase the view does — a cabin that bakes without shore power, and windage that makes a breezy slip something to plan for.

The other complaint reviewers make is with the rig, not the hull. In-mast furling hands back precisely the roach the backstayless B&R exists to carry, and swept spreaders stop the boom squaring off, so off the wind this is a broad reach and not a run. High topsides want a step or a stern-to approach at a low dock. Anyone whose miles are dead downwind, or who does not want a rebedding job standing in the calendar, should buy something else: the same water without the greenhouse is the center-cockpit Passage 42, the rest of what Hunter holds on our shelf sits alongside it, and the wider fleet is on the sailboat shelf.