Broadblue 346 Review, a 33-Foot Cat That Fits the French Canals

Voyager 10, Broadblue 345, Broadblue 346

The Broadblue 346 has had more names than most boats have owners. Yachting Monthly's David Harding traces it back to the Voyager 10, launched in 2007 and tested on the Solent in 2008, the brainchild of Mark Jarvis of the Emsworth catamaran broker Multihull World. The boat then became the Broadblue 345. When Broadblue went through a difficult period and was later revived, production moved from China to Poland and the 345 returned in tweaked form as the 346.

Broadblue announced the 346 as new in March 2018, when Multicoques magazine nominated it for its Multihull of the Year award in the under-40-foot class. The yard said the 346 replaced what it called the most successful modern catamaran under 10.5 meters in Europe, adding a new owner's aft cabin, a wider choice of engines and improved performance. In 2026 it is still listed in Broadblue's cruising range alongside the 385 and the newer 425.

For used buyers that history matters. A Voyager 10 or Broadblue 345 shares the basic concept but not every detail, so check the hull identification and the build year rather than relying on a listing title.

A design that starts with the 5-meter canal limit

The 346's proportions are dictated by one number. Its beam of 4.85 meters (15 feet 11 inches) sits inside the 5-meter limit for the French canals, so an owner can motor from the English Channel to the Mediterranean through France rather than sailing around Spain. The same beam lets the boat take a marina berth meant for a 14-meter (46-foot) monohull rather than an expensive multihull slot.

Because stability and sail-carrying power on a cat depend largely on overall beam and on a length-to-beam ratio near 2 to 1, that beam set the length at about 10.2 meters. Narrow hulls give more stability than fat ones, but they sit deeper, so the designers added freeboard to keep buoyancy forward without a bluff bow. Add the goal of full standing headroom in the saloon and a bridgedeck high enough to avoid slamming, and you get the 346's tall, boxy profile. It is not elegant, as Harding admits, but every inch is there for a reason.

Draft is only 1.01 meters (3 feet 4 inches) on long, shallow keels that let the boat dry out on a beach or a drying mooring, which opens up creeks, Bahamas banks and shallow anchorages that a fin-keel monohull cannot use.

A raised cockpit and the sail station

Unusually, the cockpit sits a couple of steps above the saloon. That small rise gives the helmsman a view over the coachroof without a separate flybridge-style helm, keeping the skipper in the cockpit with everyone else. The mast is stepped on the coachroof almost directly above the forward end of the cockpit, which Mark Jarvis likens to the proportions of a center-cockpit monohull.

Broadblue calls the arrangement a sail station: every working sheet and halyard comes to a single forward-facing bank of 12 clutches and two winches beside the wheel. One person can reef both main and headsail without leaving the cockpit, and with the full canopy fitted you can sail entirely enclosed. Twin mainsheets replace a full-width traveler and control twist and boom position, though they need attention in frequent tacking.

The cockpit itself is huge for 33 feet. The owner of Yachting Monthly's test boat, who had moved from a Bavaria 37, said it held far more people comfortably than his previous boat.

Speeds from two Solent tests, 16 years apart

Yachting Monthly sailed the design twice. In 2008, as the Voyager 10, in 22 to 30 knots against the tide with reefs in both sails, it made about 6.5 knots to windward until short, steep seas slowed it to 3 or 4 knots, and it ran downwind at up to 9 knots. It would not tack through less than about 90 degrees.

On the follow-up test in the autumn of 2024, published in 2025, in 7 to 12 knots of breeze and flat water, the 346 made 6.5 to 6.7 knots on a reach under its lightweight reacher with the apparent wind at 60 degrees, peaking at 9 knots in a 17-knot gust. Hard on the wind under the self-tacking jib it sailed at 4.5 to 4.8 knots in 12 to 14 knots apparent, enough to keep pace with a couple of sporty 28 to 30 foot monohulls.

Those are not racing numbers, but for a cat that offers this much space, they are respectable. Dropping the main is as simple as going head to wind and releasing the halyard.

• Sail area main and self-tacking jib 47 square meters (506 square feet); Broadblue lists a 28 square meter main and 19 square meter jib
• Reacher 45 square meters and spinnaker 98 square meters per Broadblue's specification
• Displacement 4,800 kg (10,582 pounds), displacement to length ratio 135
• Twin keels, 1.01 m draft, CE Category A (Ocean)

Twin Betas or a single outboard

Broadblue offers three engine solutions: twin 16 hp Beta diesels on saildrives as standard, twin 20 hp Betas, or a single 25 hp four-stroke outboard. The Betas are the same engines fitted to the Voyager in 2007, and they are usually paired with Brunton Autoprop variable-pitch propellers, which cope with the two engines running at slightly different speeds.

With both 20 hp engines at 2,500 rpm the boat makes about 5.7 knots, and wide-open throttle gets it close to 8 knots. Running on one engine costs little speed, which saves fuel and engine hours, and the wide prop spacing lets the boat spin in its own length. Engines are reached by lifting the bunks in the aft cabins. Fuel capacity is a single 200-liter tank, about 53 US gallons.

Galley up, owner aft and up to eight berths

Putting the galley on the bridgedeck rather than down in a hull is a Broadblue trait and rare on cats this small. It sits aft to starboard with two sinks, an oven and grill, a stainless fridge and a sliding window to the cockpit, so the cook stays part of the conversation. The saloon has more than 6 feet of headroom, panoramic glass windows rather than acrylic, L-shaped seating around a table and a forward-facing chart table. Joinery is light oak, more of it than on the original Voyager.

The owner's cabin is aft in the starboard hull with a 2 by 1.6 meter (6 foot 6 by 5 foot 3) fore-and-aft double, seating, storage and a hatch onto the stern platform, and the head and shower occupy the forward part of that hull. To port there is a slightly smaller aft double, a midships space for stowage or an optional single berth, and in the bow an optional second head and another single. With the saloon converted, Broadblue says the boat sleeps eight with two heads and two showers.

Who the 346 suits, and buying one from the US

The 346 fills a gap the big builders have largely abandoned. Few new cruising cats under 35 feet are built today, and none of the mass-market brands offers this combination of canal-legal beam, drying keels, standing headroom and an Ocean rating. Yachting Monthly compared it to a modern equivalent of Prout's much lower Snowgoose 34, with several times the accommodation.

It suits couples and small families who want to cruise the European canals and coasts, or the Bahamas and Chesapeake in the US, without the cost of a 40-foot cat. A US buyer will usually need to import one, and should budget for shipping, duty and any electrical changes. Annual running costs are low by catamaran standards, typically $12,000 to $26,000 for slip, insurance, haul-out, engine service and sails, helped by the ability to use a monohull-sized berth.