Whether you’re sitting topside and beating to windward or relaxing below at anchor, the Bavaria 46 Cruiser offers a skipper and guests room to stretch out. The 46 has three- and four-cabin layouts; we tested the three-cabin version last October in fairly light Chesapeake Bay conditions.

Below, aft cabins with double berths and hanging lockers give way to a head and shower to port and a forward-facing nav station to starboard at the bottom of the companionway. The nav-station desk is shallow if you have a lot of charts to store, but the top has good fiddles, and there’s plenty of room to mount electronics. The use of faux wood in this area is annoying, though.

Forward of the head is an in-line galley designed to let crew pass by while the cook’s at work, which is a nice arrangement while in port but will be a challenge when cooking in a seaway. To starboard is a large table with a U-shaped settee and a couch seat/cabinet amidships. The forward cabin is nothing short of spacious, with a queen-size berth with seats at each side plus two hanging lockers, a shower and sink to port, and a head, shower, and sink to starboard. While the overall workmanship below appeared good, the production-line application of varnish wasn’t impressive.

Topside, the cockpit has ample seating around a solid, fixed-mount table, which unfortunately extends a bit too far astern so that when open, it’s tough to move forward from the twin helms.

Visibility from the wheels is good while standing and sitting outboard. The model we sailed had in-mast furling and a battenless main. Some skippers would likely want to spend a little more to have full vertical battens to improve sailing performance.