Design and Construction
Petterson gave the Maxi 100 a monohull form with a 25-foot-6-inch waterline inside a 34-foot-5-inch overall length and a 10-foot-6-inch beam, an L/B ratio of 2.91 that keeps her lean without going narrow. The hull and deck are both fiberglass, but the deck is a sandwich layup intended to moderate the cabin climate, while the hull carries no core. Her iron fin keel draws roughly 5 feet 1 to 5 feet 4 inches depending on load which lets her into most marinas, and the 36 percent ballast ratio with 3,527 pounds of iron low in the hull gives her a capsize screening value of 1.90 and a displacement-length ratio of about 270 — a figure that places her among moderate racers rather than either heavy cruisers or featherweight sprint boats. The wetted surface runs about 301 square feet, and her immersion rate of 945 pounds per inch tells you how steadily she carries stores and crew.
Rig and Handling
The boat is a masthead sloop carrying 387 square feet of sail on a rig whose SA/D reads 12.2 with the ISO reference sail and 14.4 once a 135 percent genoa is set. That sail-area-to-displacement spread, paired with a displacement-length ratio of 270, supports a theoretical hull speed near 6.8 knots and a Relative Speed Performance index of 18. Her Motion Comfort Ratio lands between 22.5 and 26.8, a band that suggests a tolerable motion profile for a boat of her weight without claiming she is soft-riding. The skeg-hung rudder and fin keel give her the directional control you expect of the type, and the numbers describe a boat built to move under sail in club-racing and weekend-cruising conditions rather than to win line honors offshore.
Accommodations
Below, the Maxi 100 is fitted with six or seven berths, a galley, and a toilet, and the interior is teak — the standard Scandinavian joinery of the era. The berth count puts her in family-cruiser territory for a 34-footer, and the galley and head make her self-sufficient for coastal passages. The cabin volume benefits from the sandwich deck's insulation, which the design intent frames as a step up in livability versus a solid single-skin overhead.
The Verdict
The Maxi 100 is a Petterson cruiser-racer of modest production, well within the moderate-displacement band and built with a practical fiberglass sandwich deck over a solid hull. Her numbers describe a balanced coastal boat: enough ballast and sail to perform, enough berths and galley to cruise, and a draft that keeps her accessible. She is not a voluminous modern cruiser nor a dedicated racer, but a coherent early-eighties design from a prolific Swedish hand.
Pros
- Fewer than 200 built, a finite and identifiable production run
- Sandwich deck improves cabin climate over solid laminate
- 6–7 berths with galley and head for coastal cruising
- Moderate-racer DL ratio and 14.4 SA/D with genoa show real sailing ability
Cons
- Iron keel rather than lead, with the corrosion exposure that implies
- Modest 26-gallon water capacity limits extended independence
- Small production means fewer spares and comparable boats on the market
