Meridian

Home Sweet HomeThe Meridian 541 takes interior furnishings and layout to a uniquely residential level.What I saw at the top of the stairway pegged my practicality meter, but not in a good way. Over the years, I’ve come aboard any number of midrange cruisers with residential furniture in the saloon, much of it either unsecured to the underlying deck or secured in

A lot of boatbuilders struggle to find their groove. They just can't settle on exactly whom they want to appeal to. In fact, they seem to want to be all things to all boaters.Meridian appears to be one of the few builders that really knows its target: average cruising couples and families. Not gold-chainers, 'round-the-world dreamers, or YAH-ting wannabes with blue blazers and khaki pants.

Docking’s a big deal to me, mostly because back when my wife and I were living in Connecticut and I was struggling to learn how to dock midrange cruisers, parking the darn things scared the livin’ daylights out of me. Not that merely driving out of a slip engendered fear—I seldom experienced difficulties going straight ahead. It was close-quarters maneuvering that gave me fits. I can still

Although this is a test of Meridian’s new 368 Motoryacht, it’s impossible to talk about the boat without talking about the company that builds her. In fact, you could say this article is as much a report on the builder as it is on the boat.Meridian was born in an unconventional manner when Brunswick, its parent company, decided to relaunch Bayliner’s motoryacht line (basically everything

"Hey Bill," a guy asked recently, "what makes a test boat good?" The question seemed to have philosophical significance, at least at first, so I waded right in. What the heck?Aesthetics got dispensed with immediately—beauty's the purview of beholders, not boat testers. Then I tried the wise, Socratic-type approach, a serious challenge for me, due to a lifelong propensity to blather

Maximizing room and comfort aboard is a daunting task for designers and builders. Big boats obviously have big space to work with, but when you get down around 40 feet, just a few feet—and in some cases even inches—can make a world of difference. So just how much space can you build into a 40-foot aft-cabin cruiser? In the case of Meridian's 408, the answer is plenty.The 408 is