Built in the same factory as the Viknes 10 – in fact, by the same people on the same production line with the same hull – this Skilso 35 Panorama adopts a slightly different approach to the needs of the 35ft cruiser. If the Viknes feels like the lovechild of a Targa and a Marex, the Skilso comes from a softer, more open-plan, more leisure-friendly kind of angle.
While the cockpit is broadly similar, the saloon takes the walkway on a dogleg to starboard, shunting the helm toward the centre, where it can be used as a very natural addition to the port dinette. The galley has also been adapted, with a transverse aft section that, paradoxically, seems to help upgrade the degree of integration between the two spaces.
This ‘Panorama’ variant uses huge sunroofs and skylights
Up at the bow, the simple cushion-lined lounger is much more conventional than the twin director’s chairs that emerge from beneath a hatch in the Viknes mouldings. And down below, instead of the Viknes 10’s three cabins, you get two, both accessed by means of the same forward stairwell.
The bow cabin and the three-berth midships guest cabin are divided by a port heads compartment, which makes pretty good use of limited space. And that space is limited because the beds in the midships cabin run fore and aft – a double to port beneath the saloon dinette and a single beneath the plunging deckhead of the big starboard walkway. Each is partially separated from the other by means of a half-length bulkhead with integrated cabinets and, despite the deck variations up above, headroom down here is actually very good.
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The style is quite different here too, because where the Viknes tends to use clean modern angles, the Skilso uses soft curves in the cabinetry and bulkheads for a gentler, more traditional feel.
As for the name of this boat, the reasoning is not quite as simple as you might expect. Like the larger Skilso 39, the 35 is available either as a flybridge-equipped craft or as the Panorama model you see here. And yet the word “Panorama” relates not to the side windows, which are long, deep and plunging on every Skilso model, but to the roof which, in the absence of the flybridge, is fitted with fixed skylights and a vast sliding sunroof, opening up the saloon to a panoramic view of the sky.
There’s a softer, more curved open-plan feel to the Skilso
That’s exactly what you want to see from a non-fly variant, but if skylights are not that critical to you, you might also be interested to know that speccing this boat with the upper deck, including an additional helm and elevated dining station, adds just €20,000 (or around 5%) to the overall package price.
Skilso 35 Panorama specifications
LOA: 34ft 9in (10.60m)
BEAM: 11ft 7in (3.52m)
ENGINES: Yanmar 370-440 diesel on shaft
TOP SPEED: 25-28 knots
PRICE: from £255,660 ex VAT
CONTACT: viknes.no
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