An acquaintance was raving recently about her summer holiday in Finland’s Turku archipelago. She relished the swims in cold, gin-clear waters, quirky food, long days of sunshine, and star-filled, ink-black nights. Days were spent lounging at mökkis, which are summer cottages as vital to Finnish culture as saunas, in which she partook daily.
The reason she was telling me all this was her newfound love of the rugged Scandinavian boats that are the primary means of transport for vacationers. I’m a fan as well, especially after the time I spent aboard flagship models by Sargo and Targa, two brands that are becoming better known to stateside boaters.
These builders have similar origin stories and share decades of success in
Finland, each with continued ownership through generations of the same family. Both brands have a range of models: Sargo builds boats between 28 and 45 feet, while Targa’s fleet starts at 23 feet and goes up to 46 feet. Both builders also offer a range of power options from Sweden’s Volvo Penta, their Nordic neighbor.
The flagship models—the Sargo 45 and Targa 46—make it easy to see why the brands have crossover appeal to a range of boaters while setting a benchmark as sporty sedans. Both have a workboat heritage that can be traced to the rugged, deep-V pilot boats that patrol the Baltic Sea, with walkaround cockpits, well-protected side decks and large, window-filled pilothouses (with forward-facing, reverse-raked panes) for all-season protection from the elements.
My time on the Targa 46 was at our annual Trawlerfest event in Anacortes, Wash. Cardinal Yacht Sales owner Matt Hardin was exhibiting the 46 sedan (a flybridge model is also available) at the show, using her to get back and forth from his home in Bellingham. I met him at the dock as he pulled in on his fast commuter, still on his first coffee of the day.
Hardin also founded Northwest Diesel Power nearly two decades back. It services recreational and commercial craft. He told me he was looking for models to import to his adjacent Cardinal Yacht Sales outfit. A trip to the Helsinki boat show was his first encounter with Targa Boats. He fell in love with the look and thought it would work well in the United States. A mechanic by trade, he then spent the remainder of the show looking at Targa’s engine installations, plumbing, electrical and other systems, which further convinced him to start importing models.
Boarding the Targa 46 via the large swim platform and through a centerline transom door, I liked the gray nonslip finish in the cockpit and on the side decks. It nicely set off the teak handrails. Hardin said teak
decks are optional, but nearly all his clients in the Pacific Northwest have chosen nonslip decks and stainless rails. Her hardtop extends to shade roughly half of the boat’s cockpit, but since she’s a semi-custom build, a retractable shade can be added. A wing station with a multifunction display, wheel, throttles and joystick offers the skipper a well-appointed alternative to marina maneuvers from the pilothouse.
“The market is shifting, we are starting to see more clients coming from a trawler background,” Hardin said as we entered the pilothouse, which is a study in practicality and comfort—traits that trawler lovers value. Headroom is well over 7 feet, and the single-level space is warmed by teak joinery and teak-and-holly soles. The light finishes of the starboard galley’s long Corian countertop, and the boat’s soft goods, also soften the ambience. Doors on either side of the pilothouse flank the portside double companion seat and the starboard helm, which is fitted with a pair of 16-inch multifunction displays. This boat had a hydronic heater and air conditioning, making her a four-season starter.
The accommodations plan stresses comfort and privacy, with the master stateroom and head occupying the forward area. The guest stateroom is aft, and can be a single berth, twins or a double.
A few hatches are near the helm on her hardtop. They open, together with the side and rear doors, to air out the pilothouse nicely. There’s also a significant amount of room up top for kayaks, bikes, stand-up paddleboards or even chocks for a dinghy. Hardin says 90 percent of boats he has sold to date have a solar array that pairs with a
lithium-ion battery bank.
We had an hour or so before the Anacortes Boat and Yacht Show was slated to begin, so we fired up the twin 480-hp Volvo Pentas mated to IPS drives (standard power is 440-hp engines, with 600 hp available as well from Volvo Penta). We peeked at the helm feed from the aft-facing camera for any traffic, and we headed for the San Juan Islands.
In what seemed like seconds, the 46 was effortlessly cruising at just under 30 knots, burning about 32 gallons per hour, good for a range of approximately 450 nautical miles. She burned less fuel at 20 knots and her range hovered at around 400 nm.
As we flanked Lopez Island, I shut the doors and took decibel readings, which stayed under 75 until we hit 30 knots. This is a quiet boat. I then took the wheel and powered the engines up to 3600 rpm, where she made 40.3 knots at wide-open throttle. With calm conditions, the only waves I could find were my own wake, which the 46 pierced and flattened with aplomb. My driving position was darn near perfect, with great visibility even as I executed hard-over turns at more than 30 knots. This is a lithe performer.
A few months later and about 3,000 miles to the east, I sat comfortably in a Grammer suspension seat and looked over the USS Intrepid from the helm of the Sargo 45. Next to me in the triple companion seat was the president of Inside Passage Yacht Sales, Brian Krantz. Based in Anacortes, Krantz had the flagship Sargo sent to the East Coast so he and his family could enjoy a multiweek voyage up New York’s Hudson River to the Erie Canal, across Lake Ontario and onto the Trent-Severn Waterway. Krantz planned to showcase the 45 along the way before she would be trailered west from Duluth, Minn., to her home waters near the Salish Sea.
I soon discovered that she had the turning radius of a much smaller vessel. After looking over my shoulder to be sure I had a clear shot in the Hudson River traffic, I blasted the 45 hard over at 30 knots. She dug in and turned 180 degrees in less than three boat lengths, with a slight drop in speed. The boat is ideally matched to the Volvo Penta Aquamatic Sterndrives (mated to 440-hp D6s), perfectly placed within her hull and paired with the Humphree trim and stabilization system. Krantz said IPS drives are also available, but this combination would be hard to beat.
She topped out at just under 34 knots and was confident and quiet (60 decibels) at 15.2 knots, with a range of 321 nm at this speed. The sun’s glare was no match for the solar screens on the forward and side-facing windows. I spent the rest of the time on the river attempting to unnerve her at 24 knots, to no avail, so I headed back to Jersey City’s Liberty Landing Marina.
The 45 made her debut at the Düsseldorf boat show in 2022 and, according to Krantz, quickly sold the first 20 hulls. He said they would have sold more if Sargo hadn’t stopped taking orders. Looking at her well-proportioned profile at the dock, I imagine that many buyers were smitten with the graceful arch of the bowrail and bulwarks, which slope down toward her bow. To my eye, her pilothouse is perfectly proportioned to her size, with the reverse-rake windshield a fine counterpoint to the long run of the hardtop, which shades the entire cockpit.
I boarded her at the amidships door, which aligned with the pilothouse side door and helm, and then I walked aft to the cockpit as Krantz opened the electrically actuated engine-room hatch. A Seakeeper stood sentry near the power plants, with a Northern Lights genset far forward. It was a well-organized space with a small hatch for the skipper to eyeball the mains and belts without having to open the big hatch.
There’s also an abundance of stowage here, with a deep hatch in the swim platform and a fitted area abaft the cockpit’s L-shape settee. That fitted area holds a half-dozen custom fenders. A locker built into the rear bulkhead of the pilothouse holds the deck cushions and a few chairs. A wing station to port with a joystick rounds out the cockpit’s features.
Entering the pilothouse and salon, I noted that the sunroof was open and its retractable screen was engaged. It also had a sunscreen, both excellent additions. While some models have a trio of fixed glass in the after section of the hardtop, this boat had just one fixed panel in the middle above the C-shape seating area to accommodate the roof’s solar array, with feeds into a Mastervolt LiFePO4 battery bank.
The three-stateroom boat was split, with access via a companionway to a forward master and a double-berth VIP that share a head. For a minute, I was at a loss for how to access the amidships stateroom, until Krantz folded up one of the triple companion seats, revealing the stateroom and its convertible twin berths. Recessed LED lighting throughout the vessel set a nice mood.
After spending time on both Finnish vessels, I can see why the combination of speed, accommodations and rugged looks have been turning a lot of heads. At first, I balked at the nicknames both manufacturers have given these sporty vessels (Targa calls itself “The 4×4 of the Sea” and Sargo’s moniker is “The All-Season Boat”), but both vessels’ attributes equal more time on the brine for our busy lives. Isn’t that what we are looking for, after all?
SARGO 45
LOA: 47ft. 9in.
Beam: 13ft. 11in.
Draft: 3ft. 9in.
Construction: FRP
Displacement: 26,460 lbs.
Fuel: 423 gal.
Water: 105 gal.
Engine: 2x 440-hp Volvo Penta D6 DPI
Optional engine: 2x 480-hp Volvo Penta IPS650
Info: www.sargoboats.fi
Targa 46
LOA: 49ft. 7in.
Beam: 13ft.
Draft: 3ft. 7in.
Construction: FRP
Displacement: 24,250 lbs.
Fuel: 525 gal.
Water: 92 gal.
Engine: 2x 480-hp Volvo Penta D6-IPS650
Info: www.targa.fi
This article was originally published in the November/December 2023 issue.
