The German builder Hanse’s new 590 cruising sloop is a big boat in all ways but was conceived by its designers to be a couple’s cruising boat even a lone watch stander can manage. The key to this achievement is both the relative simplicity of the Solent-style rig and the functionality of the cockpit and sail trim systems. Electric winches and the robust Jeffa steering and autopilot are the workhorses that make everything else happen.
The 590 looks handsome and streamlined in profile and does not have the high slab sides of earlier Hanse’s in this size range. The hull glazings break up the expanse of the topsides and provide natural light to all interior spaces.
The bow looks purposeful and matches the squared off transom. Altogether, the 590 is one of the best looking Hanse designs in years.
Hanse uses a digital “configurator” that lets customers design their own, unique version of their boats and the 590 has a total of 36 different iterations. Many of the options are based on the number of cabins and heads you need. But in the end, a new 590 will be very much the owner’s unique boat.
There are a long list of options that have been assembled to enhance crew comfort and relaxing times aboard. The cockpit, with twin wheels ands twin tables, has a targa-style arch over the companion that keeps the main sheet safely out the way. A full cockpit hard top with a sliding sun roof can be added and this will offer sun and rain protection while still providing reasonable views of the sails. It is hard to make a hard top look natural on a sailboat but this one looks fairly streamlined and fits the lines of the boat well.
On the fore deck, you can add a full sun awning that will make lounging on the forward sun beds on hot days all the more bearable and will keep the forward cabin cool in the midday sun.
An ingenious innovation is the dinghy garage under the cockpit sole that is accessed by folding down the full-width stern platform. Hanse has created an articulated crane and hoist mechanism that will lift the dinghy out of the water and then pivot and retract to place it neatly on its chalks inside the garage. This crane with push button controls perfects the usefulness of an under-cockpit dinghy garage.
I have sailed Hanse-built production cruising boats offshore, one passage being a transatlantic on a 50, so I have complete confidence in the German engineering, the high level of build quality and seakindliness of the hulls. The new 590 makes for a really attractive, big cruising boat that a couple can manage.
