Testing boats at the Cannes Boat show is always a treat. As well as enjoying a dose of September warmth I get to review craft like this Beneteau in its home waters. Well, almost. The Grand Trawler 63 is actually built in Monfalcone, Italy, but everyone knows that Beneteau represents the quintessence of French boatbuilding. Pragmatic and keenly priced, practical and well designed, French boats rule the Mediterranean.

Given that the Grand Trawler 62 proved to be such a success for the shipyard – 29 were sold in four years – you might imagine that the development engineers on the GT63 trod carefully to avoid changing anything that contributed to its success. And so it proved. Some alterations are significant, but most are cosmetic. In all fundamental respects, the new model is simply an upgraded version of the old, with its businesslike profile, plumb bow, reverse-raked windscreen, and gigantic flybridge.

Glass transom and hydraulic bathing platform make for a very inviting cockpit

It’s not just the engineers at Beneteau who proceed with caution, but the designers too – not from fear of making ill-advised ‘improvements’ but from the corporate necessity of ensuring that every new project has at least a 40% mould commonality with its predecessor. It keeps costs down. For the same reason, there are very few curves in the interior fit-out, because curves cost money (Beneteau’s designers get very, very tired of hearing that they make ‘flat-pack’ boats).

Radii are standardised, shapes are carefully crafted to ensure they pop out of the moulds easily, and very few multiple mouldings are allowed. The production process has to be as streamlined as possible, for that is how you stay in business building boats. No one knows this better than Beneteau. Come to think of it, no one does it better either.

Xenta steering makes the new GT63 unusually light to helm for a big trawler yacht

GT62 VS GT63

When it comes to the differences between the GT63 and its predecessor, one of the more important improvements is the standard fitment of excellent Sleipner fin stabilisers. Another is the useful Xenta electro hydraulic steering. Beneteau’s new ‘Silent Boat’ option, a system of inverters, solar panels and 2000Ah of lithium batteries, is designed to keep all the electrics running while at anchor – including the aircon, for a while – with the genset switched off.

It was originally offered aboard the ST54, according to Beneteau, and proved popular. The system is monitored from the helm via one of the Raymarine screens.

On a cosmetic level, a lot of black paint has been applied around the cockpit and superstructure sides in an effort, successful in my view, to ‘lighten the profile’ of the boat and give it a more upmarket look. It’s not just any black paint, but quality stuff, RAL 9005, and it can also be applied to the hardtop and its supports if you so wish. Graphite vinyl cockpit headlinings replace white, LED strips replace downlighters, and the hull window framing has also been tidied up with the paint treatment. New Italian furniture options are available for the cockpit.

Inside, what used to be the ‘Luxe’ décor pack is now the standard finish, which includes slatted wood wardrobe doors, padded headboards, and sprung wood slats under the mattresses. Up on the main deck the high-level lockers in the galley are now faced with wood, and tactile checkerboard panelling features on the starboard sideboard and galley bulkhead.

Black detailing lightens the look of the GT63’s profile

At the lower helm station the three Raymarine screens sit on new ‘floating’ brackets, imparting a subtle sense of spaciousness. Finally, the 62’s laminate saloon floor has been replaced with solid hardwood parquet, which extends into the lower deck passageway.

Fans of its predecessor, then, will breathe a sigh of relief on climbing aboard the GT63 when they discover not only that their favourite trawler yacht wasn’t broke, but its builders didn’t try to fix it. It has the same hull, and the same machinery – a pair of six-cylinder MANs of 730hp apiece. These reside in considerable comfort in a spacious and well organised engineroom, reached via a door in the port side of the transom, and through an excellent storage lazarette which, as an option, can be fitted out as a crew cabin.

For rough weather there is another engineroom hatch in the cockpit sole. On the lower deck, customers can choose between three and four-cabin layouts. The Cannes show boat had the former, which provides a spacious full-beam master stateroom amidships. This has good proportions, useful volumes of stowage space, and close on 6ft 7in (2.00m) of headroom (reducing to 6ft 1in/1.86m at the bedhead). It feels comfortable and roomy, with a dressing table to port, a chest of drawers to starboard, and a head compartment that is almost cabin-sized.

Hull windows are pleasingly huge. The bed is a generous 6ft 7in by 5ft 7in (2.00m x 1.70m). This is a suite that sets the tone aboard a confident family cruiser. Divide it into two, as on the four-cabin layout, and the boat wouldn’t seem quite the same.

There are acres of space on the long flybridge deck

Down below

With its offset berth and forward lockers, the layout of the VIP suite up forward – which would be the master in the four-cabin version – is a smart solution to the problem of the bluff bow sections, where the topsides are almost vertical as they converge towards the stem. The bed is slightly longer and slightly narrower than the master’s, headroom is very much the same, the head is a decent size, and although it lacks the floor area of the midships cabin it is still reasonably well off for stowage.

The third cabin is a twin, on the port side, with ensuite access to the day head. It’s the smallest, but doesn’t feel particularly small, having plenty of headroom, especially between the berths, decent locker space and extra stowage under the mattresses. A big window lets in lots of light. The berths, not bad at all at 6ft 5in x 2ft 5in can slide together to make a double.

Glazed fashion plates with wooden slats look classy and help shelter the cockpit

The interior of the 63 can be finished in either oak or walnut veneers, one being slightly darker than the other. Stitched leather handles here and there lend a touch of quality, and there is a confident solidity to the numerous handrails and door hardware. The overhead handrail in the saloon is particularly pleasing. Behind the scenes, too, the pipework and cabling looks secure and reliable, even if it lacks the fetishistic orderliness and labelling that can be so reassuring on more upmarket brands.

Big side windows, light finishes and a sociable layout main deck

Main deck

One of the most successful features of the GT62 was its main deck layout, and the GT63’s doesn’t stray from the true path. Its most noteworthy asset, in my opinion, is the galley. This is set high on the mid deck with a door out to the port side, windows on the interior bulkheads and its doorway opposite the dining table. It feels at once enclosed and open, and sits at the sociable centre of things. The exterior hatch for access to the rubbish bin is brilliantly practical. The sliding internal door is optional, but even without it, this is a sterling piece of design.

The helm station also gets its own side door, and sits behind its serious-looking raked windscreen with the helm seat on the centreline, and a snoozing sofa for the navigator. Also on the port side is the internal flybridge companionway, while the stairs to the lower deck are to starboard. Visibility from the lower helm is good to the sides, not great aft thanks to the elevation and the galley bulkhead, and excellent forward.

The full beam owner’s cabin is reserved for the three-cabin version

Eight can sit at the dining table with four folding chairs augmenting the bench seating, although six might be more comfortable. In the main saloon area the low-level U-shaped sofa on the port side helps accentuate the size of the windows, while over to starboard you can specify a sideboard or another small sofa. Glass doors slide open into the cockpit, over a minimal threshold.

Outside

Wide side decks and two routes up to the flybridge help make the GT63’s external areas exceptionally safe and easy to get around. The cockpit itself, complete with glass transom and sleek new furniture, and sheltered as it is by the long flybridge overhang, will prove to be a popular spot. Up on the foredeck, which is an easy stroll protected by deep bulwarks and tall guardrails, the sunbeds have not one but two adjustable backrests, the forward pair creating an excellent little bench seat over the bow. This would be a great place to sit, whether at anchor or under way.

The bed in the forward VIP is angled across the beam to create more floor space

The big story, of course, is the flybridge, which is enormous. A roomy sofa and dining table sit opposite the bar and grill, augmented by forward-facing seating next to the helm and free-standing seats or loungers aft. There is another padded reclining spot just ahead of the helm console. It’s a full-beam upper deck, in effect, and is almost completely shaded by that substantial hardtop, with its massive fibreglass pillars and stainless steel supports.

If the GT63 doesn’t look much like a planing boat that’s because Beneteau doesn’t really think of it as one. Sure, it’s capable of 20 knots, but a waterline length of 53ft gives it a theoretical hull speed of around 9.7 knots, and a glance at our figures quickly shows how sensible that sort of speed is for long-distance displacement cruising, with a range of around 650 miles (allowing for a generous reserve). Bring it back to 8 knots and fuel economy just gets better, consuming a meagre 24 litres of diesel per hour for a range of over 1,000nm.

The twin enjoys plenty of headroom and light

Under way

Sleipner’s Vector fin stabilisers are now fitted as standard, and you’ll probably want to use them at all times when under way, for the weight of that hardtop is not only considerable in itself but also perched some 20ft above the waterline. These stabilisers are very effective. On our sea trial, conditions were hardly challenging for a boat of this class – a steady breeze and waves of two to three feet – but she didn’t roll, and even under hard helm inputs she went round like a billiard table.

One annoying teething problem with our particular boat, the first of the new 63s, was the proximity of the steering wheel to the upper helm console’s handrail, which produced a painful pinchpoint for the fingers. The reason, it turned out, was simple – the Xenta steering kit, standard on the GT63, is more compact than the system used on the 62, so the wheel sits closer to the dash. This will certainly have been fixed by now.

However, during our sea trial the issue was exacerbated by the fact that in following seas this is not a hull that tracks particularly true. At all speeds downwind it needed a lot of steering, which meant a lot of pinched fingers. In breezier conditions the hardtop’s sail area will also come into play when motoring downhill, and concentration will be required to guard against a broach.

Beneteau Grand Trawler 63 specifications

LOA: 62ft 2in (18.95m)
BEAM: 17ft 10in (5.45m)
DRAUGHT: 4ft 7in (1.40m)
DISPLACEMENT: 28.5 tonnes (light)
ENGINES: 2 x MAN 730hp diesel
FUEL CAPACITY: 3,870 litres
WATER CAPACITY: 840 litres
RCD CATEGORY: B for 16 people

Beneteau Grand Trawler 63 cost & options

From: €1.989 million ex yard, ex taxes
‘Essential’ trim level (includes hardtop, genset, monitoring system, inverter): €96,400
‘Comfort’ trim level (add hydraulic platform, deck wash, searchlight): €142,500
‘Lounge’ trim level (add BBQ, underwater lights, dishwasher, icemaker etc): €166,600
‘Silent boat’ pack: €114,000
Electronics pack: €26.700
Upgraded electronics pack: €62,200
Hydraulic passerelle: €43,000
Air-conditioning: €63,700

This article Beneteau Grand Trawler 63 review: Can you get a better trawler? appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

During its first 15 years in business, you might argue that Princess Yachts developed its skills and reputation by concentrating on relatively workmanlike designs. Then in 1980, up popped design guru, Bernard Olesinski, and the firm’s transition to sportscruisers began. It would take a further 15 years for the original V-class to arrive – and while it did so in style with two models, the V39 and V52, these first generation V-class craft were open boats and so very different to our review boat.

What we have here is a hard-topped 2014 V52 sports yacht on offer with Princess Yachts, Swanwick for £530,000 UK VAT paid. It comes from the second incarnation to carry the V52 badge, which was launched at the 2010 Southampton Boat Show and remained in production for six years.

A mid-life facelift in 2013 also saw the hull’s three vertical glazed hull windows replaced by direct bonded glass to spruce up the boat’s profile and increase interior light. And that production run resulted in around 120 V52s being built. Just a cursory internet search reveals examples as far afield as the Caribbean and Australia, but given its global success, you don’t have to go that far to find one. We found ours in Chichester, where owner Paul Tredwell, showed us around…

“I’ve been around boats all my life and came to Princess after owning a Fairline. We had a Targa 43, which we used a lot until the kids got slightly bigger and the aft cabin they shared wasn’t quite good enough anymore,” said Paul. “So we needed to find something with three cabins to appease the children. We also wanted something a little larger and with the same sea keeping as the Targa 43, which was superb.

Slide-out stools that stow under the table increase the dining capacity to eight

“Apart from space below, the other issue with the Fairline was the canopies, which you would put on and take off quite a lot. As fantastic as it is when you have an open boat, we all know the weather changes in the UK and you end up scrambling to put the canopies on and off. Then at the end of the day, it’s always the person who owns the boat, washing it down and putting the canopies on for two hours while everyone else goes out and enjoys themselves.

“After a while that got a bit tedious so our aim was to find something that we could step on and go. That was our challenge, and in early 2022, we ended up with the V52.”

Family day spaces

The V52 certainly ticks lots of family boating boxes. At the aft end, there’s a standard hi-lo bathing platform big enough to carry a sizable tender. There’s also an aft cockpit with a massive ten-seater horseshoe seating unit, plus a starboard wet bar and grill.

Nestled beneath the seating unit, and accessed by way of steps, is a compact crew cabin which we suspect is more likely to be used for stowing toys and baggage rather than crew. As for sunbathers, they’re best catered for up front, where a pair of hinged sunpads recline at whatever angle you fancy. Access is good too, thanks to sturdy guardrails and teak-clad side decks that gently rise towards the bow.

Sliding aft doors and a single-level deck create a sociable connection between the cockpit and saloon

Moving forward from the aft cockpit, the wheelhouse is entered via a super-heavy but nicely balanced three-part sliding door. Touch and feel is an important factor for premium builders and Princess’s commitment to quality is abundantly clear here. Inside, the saloon is defined by straight unobstructed lines. Running the full length of the port side is the principal indoor dining area, where a second large horseshoe seating unit wraps around a generous dining table. By our count, the settee would comfortably accommodate eight guests, and there are also two extra pull-out pouffes ready and waiting beneath the table.

To starboard, a straight run of Rovere oak-faced cabinets provides plenty of storage and a fridge. It’s topped by a smooth wooden counter top which, just like the table opposite, is reassuringly thick, robust and beautifully finished with a stylish leather inlay. Completing the saloon’s key features is a pop-up TV and an ice-maker below the navigator’s seat.

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The helm keeps on ticking those premium boxes. Twin leather seats? Yes. Adjustable helm? Yes. Anti-glare surfaces? Yes. Excellent all-round visibility? Yes. Crisp and ergonomic control layout? Yes. Among those controls are two Carling switches, which operate the saloon’s ventilation system: an opening side window alongside the helm and a sunshine roof above.

We have seen one or two electric sunroofs that appear a bit worse for wear (possibly due to maintenance shortcomings) but the one fitted to our 11-year-old review boat opened as if it were brand new. And that’s important because it’s an absolutely enormous panel.

The quality of finish at the leather-trimmed helm is typically Princess

Down four steps from the saloon lies a U-shaped galley. Despite its relatively compact dimensions, it packs in everything you could reasonably require – a fridge/freezer, three ring ceramic hob, microwave/oven grill, sink, dishwasher, storage space and plenty of worktop. Forward of the galley are two of the review boat’s three cabins. The first is located to starboard (although on some V52s this space is occupied by a second dinette, which Princess offered as an option).

Even though this is the smallest of the V52’s cabins, it’s far from cramped with full size bunk beds, a three-drawer storage unit, full-height wardrobe, space for dressing and excellent headroom throughout. What this cabin does not have is an ensuite, so facilities are shared with the second cabin, which occupies the forepeak. Thanks to the Jack-and-Jill doors connecting it directly to the spacious day heads, this bow cabin is able to claim ensuite status. And in addition to V-berth beds that can be swung together to form a double, it offers a tall wardrobe and loads of storage.

The galley-down layout may no longer be in vogue but it still works very well

The full-beam master cabin is accessed from a door to the rear of the galley, adjacent to the steps down from the saloon. Two further steps take you past the cabin’s spacious ensuite and down to the bedroom area, which in addition to a king-size double provides a two-seater settee, a full height wardrobe and bags of storage space. Being a post-facelift vessel, our review boat’s master cabin also benefits from the large lozenge-shaped bonded glass windows for extra light.

Proven performance

In terms of propulsion, Princess offered three options for the V52: twin Volvo Penta D11s rated at either 670 or 725hp, or twin 715hp Caterpillar C12s. In our original test of the V52, we drove a model equipped with C12s, which achieved 34.9 knots. But our review boat has the larger 725 hp D11s and owner, Paul, reports a top speed of 36 knots, even with a full tank.

The bonded windows of this later generation V52 bring big benefits for the owner

“At that speed, you’re using around 144 litres per hour per side,” he adds as a cautionary note. “However, drop down to 24-28 knots and you’ll use between 70 and 84 litres, or go down to 18 knots and it falls to 50-60 litres. So fuel economy-wise, the boat’s actually very, very good – unless you open the throttles wide up!

“At 28 knots, it sits really comfortably and will go through pretty much any sea. I remember returning from Cowes when we had sea coming all the way over the top of the boat, but inside, we were relaxing with a cup of tea. No one in the family was worried at any point. The boat just ploughed through it all. Its seakeeping is as good as any boat I’ve ever been on. Slow speed manoeuvring is no problem either – it has variable bow and stern thrusters and the windage is less than a flybridge, so you can put this boat anywhere.”

The day heads sits directly across from the guest twin

The upshot

Although Paul is selling his V52 as part of a plan to move to Med boating, he remains firmly committed to it as the right boat for a growing family in home waters: “The kids now have their own cabin each, and they can bring a friend. We’ve had eight people on board, dining, fishing, barbecuing and swimming on the rare occasions it’s warm enough to get into the sea. It’s brilliant, it just does everything, In fact, in my view the V52 is the perfect UK boat.”

Princess V52 specifications

MODEL: Princess V52
DESIGNER: Princess Yachts with Bernard Olesinski
HULL TYPE: Variable Vee
RCD: B (12 people)
LOA: 54ft 6in (16.61m)
BEAM: 14ft 7in (4.45m)
DRAFT: 3ft 9in (1.14m)
DISPLACEMENT: 13,200kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 2,000L
WATER CAPACITY: 364L
TOP SPEED: 34.9 knots (with CAT C12 715hp engines – fuel figures below are for same engine)
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 166.38l/nm @ 25.4 knots
RANGE: 244nm at 25.4 knots with 20% reserve

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

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This article Princess V52 used boat review: The perfect UK boat? appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

One of the best kept boating secrets in the UK is Spanish builder, Astondoa. Based near Alicante, the firm has been knocking out all sorts of vessels from wooden fishing boats in its early days right up to today’s range of coupés and flybridges, as well as bespoke steel megayachts. It’s a great Iberian success story, but how many people have heard of the brand over here, let alone seen one on the water?

In spite of several attempts to crack the British market, Astondoa never really took off in this country – and that’s exemplified by the fact that our review boat, a 2003 Astondoa Open 40, being offered by Bray Marine Sales for £119,950, sat brand new on the shelf for two years before a buyer was found.

Exactly why this should be remains a mystery. OK, there was competition at the time from manufacturers like Fairline, whose Targa 40 went on to become a modern day classic, but with its sleek, aggressive lines, the Astondoa Open 40 looks equally good and its build quality is also excellent. When we tested one back in 2004, it turned in a more than respectable top speed of 36 knots, and that was with 310hp Volvo Penta D6 engines. The larger 330hp variants would have been nudging 40 knots.

And surely that should have made it a viable contender in this popular sector of the market?

The curved, inward-facing companion seat creates extra headroom down below

In addition to Volvo Penta D6 units, a variety of other power sources were fitted to 40 Opens. We found examples with other Volvo Penta options, including 247hp TAMD74As, 260hp KAD44s and that engine’s successor, the 285hp KAD300. For those seeking greater power, Yanmar’s 6LP-STZE, rated at 400hp, could also be fitted. So irrespective of UK popularity, it appears that Astondoa had all the bases covered.

One thing that certainly impresses on our review boat is the enormous tender garage. Lying beneath a double sun pad, which extends well into the cockpit, the garage is equipped with both an electric winch and an integral set of roller wheels for easy launch and retrieval. Tucked inside our review boat’s garage was a 2.7m dinghy and there was still some room to spare.

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We haven’t tested it ourselves but the word on the street is that the garage is large enough to accommodate a Seadoo Spark and on a boat of this scale, that’s a great asset. But either way, there’s a huge hatch beneath the dinghy space, which lifts to reveal the engines. A second smaller hatch in the saloon offers another way in but the access here is distinctly limited.

Multiple seating zones and unusual angles feel slicker than the equivalent Fairline

The day spaces

In addition to the tender garage, the aft end also offers a compact bathing platform with an integral swim ladder and it’s from here that two steps lead up past the sunpads and into the cockpit proper. Our review boat, which has spent most of its life in fresh water, has had its upholstery renewed and the replacement silver-grey Silvertex fabric looks very stylish.

In terms of layout, the large curved settee to starboard wraps around the table and provides seating for five or six adults. Opposite is a wet bar with a top-opening fridge and storage beneath, and ahead of this is a two-seat unit set at 45 degrees to face the helm.

The skipper gets a fixed double seat, a wood-effect dash and a low-slung screen

This alone puts the Open 40 pretty much at the top of its class but it offers a tad more too. You get a double helm seat rather than a single and it looks as if Astondoa has put a touch more thought into the cockpit design because the seating arrangement, with its elegant curves and easy flow, feels slicker than the angular lines of the equivalent Fairline.

The helm is another stylish spot with white-faced gauges in a wood-effect dash. The double seat is fixed but it’s well positioned for average-sized people and we suspect that most people will choose to helm standing up anyway. If that’s you, be aware that the windscreen doesn’t do much to protect you from the elements – but hey, this is a fast open sportscruiser, so that’s all part of the fun.

The lower saloon takes a hit for larger spaces elsewhere but the quality is lovely

The cruising set up

Stepping through the companionway, four steepish steps lead down into the saloon and galley area. There are curved mouldings everywhere here and as we clamber down the steps, we feel as if we are descending into a very pleasant goldfish bowl.

Having such a large tender garage means something has to give and it turns out that that something is the size of the saloon. Headroom of 6ft 5in is good though. It goes a long way towards compensating for the compact dimensions – and with a plush leather dinette sofa and an array of beautiful cherry wood cabinetry, this cosy section of the boat is actually quite an attractive place to be.

Across from the dinette, the galley is also quite compact. And while there’s a double hob, sink, microwave oven, fridge and storage, what there isn’t is an abundance of is worktop space. Happily though, Astondoa has done what it can to mitigate that with a set of bi-fold wooden covers above the sink and hob, which fold back out of the way once the food prep is done.

The high-gloss cherry wood cabinetry of the owner’s bow cabin feels very welcoming

As for the boat’s two cabins, they are both pretty well sized. Behind the saloon, the guest cabin has good headroom with enough space above its twin beds to allow people to sit up and read a book in comfort. There’s also a centrally mounted bedside unit incorporating a set of drawers and at the foot of the beds is a dressing area, a settee and a pair of lockers.

The master cabin is also well appointed with a central double island bed and overhead lockers on both sides, plus a pair of wardrobes and a useful pull-out drawer beneath the bed. There’s also lashings of that lovely cherry wood, giving the cabin a warm and welcoming (as well as quite premium) appeal. The boat’s heads, meanwhile, is situated between the owner’s cabin and the galley. It’s a fairly big space, with a toilet and shower in a wet area alongside a glass screen to help keep the sink and storage unit dry.

The spacious guest twin gets a handy changing area and plenty of storage

The big question

Clearly then, the Astondoa 40 Open is a boat with an awful lot to offer – and that takes us back to the question of its popularity problems in the UK. One man who bucked the trend and bought his 40 Open four years ago is Thames boater, Lee Reynolds. Lee explained he spends a good deal of time in Spain and was therefore perfectly conversant with the Astondoa brand: “It’s a lovely boat,” he says. “To anybody that’s after a good-looking high-quality sportscruiser, I’d say just go and enjoy it.

There’s plenty of headroom in the guest’s midships twin to sit up in bed and read

“Initially, it was the layout that attracted us. I’ve got quite a large family and the boat has a very social layout. We’ve had large parties on board and it’s always been great. And as for the quality, Astondoa doesn’t skimp on anything. The doors shut beautifully, everything’s really solid and the finish of the wood is really good.

“While I only use the boat on the Thames, I’d say it’s an easy boat to handle. The manoeuvrability is excellent. It’s got a bow thruster and twin engines so it’s very easy to control and it drives beautifully when you get it out on the open water. We’ve been really pleased with it. It’s a great boat.”

A decent size of bathroom/day heads sits between the bow cabin and the galley

If you’re considering an Astondoa 40 Open, the bad news, as you might expect, is that you won’t find much local choice. Look further afield though – to Spain, France, Italy and the Netherlands, for example – and your options will broaden considerably.

While importing a vessel from abroad can have cost implications in terms of transport and VAT, our internet trawl for Astondoa 40 Opens found purchase prices that are more than reasonable. Our review boat, for example, is on the market for around £20,000 less than a Fairline Targa 40 of similar vintage. And given how much it offers, that makes it a very serious contender.

There’s a massive engine hatch in here and (apparently) space for a Sea-Doo Spark

Astondoa 40 Open specifications

HULL TYPE: Deep Vee
RCD: Category B
LOA: 40ft 0in (12.19m)
BEAM: 11ft 7in (3.6m)
DRAFT: 3ft 7in (1.1m)
AIR DRAFT: 11ft 4in (3.46m)
DISPLACEMENT: 8,500kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 767L
WATER CAPACITY: 295L (fuel figures below estimated on the basis of 64L/hr @ 24kn and 12L/hr @ 6kn)
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 2.7L/nm @ 24 knots
RANGE: 230nm at 24 knots with 20% reserve

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

This article Astondoa 40 Open used boat review: Why this Iberian gem beats the big names appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

Does the idea of chugging through bucolic rural idylls at the stately pace of 4 knots while your guests sip a glass of fizz appeal? Then what better way to realise your dream than by investing in a timeless river cruiser?

And guess what – Bray Marine Sales might have just the thing for you: a 2008 Linssen Grand Sturdy 29.9 Sedan situated at Harleyford Marina, priced at £129,000.

Brimming with Dutch boat builder Linssen’s knowledge and experience of what makes a great little river cruiser, the 29.9 Sedan sits alongside its Aft Cabin stablemate at the smaller end of the renowned Grand Sturdy 9-series.

With their all-steel construction and a hefty rope rubbing strake (rubber in the case of the Nordic variant), these boats are called Grand Sturdy for a very good reason. Being a heavy boat – the 29.9 tips the scales at 7,600kg – it’s also a super-stable platform, offering a dependable no-surprises experience, for a simple and relaxing life on the water.

Interestingly, though, when Linssen introduced its 9-series boats back in 2004, it represented the brand’s first real foray into the mass market. The 29.9 was there from the very beginning; an entirely new design built on a new and innovative production line, which Linssen dubbed the Logicam system.

Prior to this, Linssen’s boats had been largely bespoke, but with clear demand for a smaller boat (before the 29.9, the yard’s smallest model was a 32-footer) and a little help from their friends at Dutch design house Vripack, Linssen moved towards a modular interior fitout for use across the range. As a result, much the same cabinetry and furniture units can be found in other 9-series Sedan and Aft Cabin craft of this era.

It may be built on a production line but the quality of the interior is still very high

Boating made easier

While Linssen’s idea for the 29.9 Sedan had been to create an entry-level vessel to encourage people to get into boating, things panned out somewhat differently in the UK. In fact, with Brits being Brits, the opposite appears to have happened.

As Bray Marine Sales confirmed, owners of 29.9s are more likely to be older boaters stepping down from larger vessels rather than newbies – and the reason for this is that the Sedan layout is largely step-free. As broker Lee put it, “It’s a bungalow” – and that’s not meant as a disparaging comment.

Article continues below…

It’s actually a very strong selling point for potential customers who’ve had enough of all that “scurrying up and down a companionway”, as our own writer put it during the 2010 MBY review.

One owner who very much agrees with that view is Chris Fentiman, the seller of our review boat. Having reached the age of 76, Chris has decided that the time has come to hang up his boating gloves. Over the years, he has owned numerous larger boats, including a Westward 35 and a number of Brooms.

Chris and partner, Karen, love the water and it was partly because of a knee replacement that he made the decision to move to a 29.9 Sedan three years ago: “Basically, when we had people on board our other boats, you were up and down, up and down, up and down,” he says. “But with the Linssen, it’s all on one level up to a point. And that makes it quite an easy-going boat.”

The sofa converts to a double bed if you need extra sleeping space for children or guests

For some, downsizing can mean making unwelcome compromises, but that’s not been the case for Chris: “For a couple, it’s great,” he says. “OK, so the sofa does convert into a bed, which is fine if you have a couple of kids but at my age, I haven’t got any young children! We keep the boat on the Thames and live aboard when we go away. In fact, we recently went right up the river for four days and had a lovely time.

“It’s also a lovely looking boat. I think it’s very stylish and that’s a big part of what drew me to it in the first place. It’s a pleasure to live with too. It’s got a great big sunshine roof in the wheelhouse and the hood goes down at the rear so you have somewhere nice to sit. And I’m not the only one who appreciates it.

The aft cockpit can be used all year round with the help of its excellent folding canopies

Whenever I go into the locks, everybody says, ‘I really like your boat!’ And speaking of locks, it’s a very manoeuvrable boat. When I had an aft cabin boat, it was like a sailing boat going into locks. The wind would really take it but the Sedan is nice and flat. It is heavy but it’s a very positive boat to steer and while I’ve had loads of boats, this one is my favourite.”

In terms of accessibility, the 29.9 Sedan scores very highly indeed. Our only gripe on this front was getting aboard in the first place, as our review boat didn’t have the walk-through transom fitted to later examples. That meant
we had to clamber up and over the gunwale, so a small set of steps would help here.

The single helm station also benefi ts from an opening window

But once on board, it’s all plain sailing with just a single step up to the side decks and a flat floor running from the aft cockpit to the helm. Thereafter, two steps lead down to the heads and the boat’s single cabin.

Friendly deck layout

Considering the size of this boat, the aft cockpit is a highly attractive and generously proportioned social space. A wraparound seating unit extends the full width of the beam and round on both sides to the wheelhouse doors and there’s space for a couple of freestanding director’s chairs. Crew moving around the outside for roping and fendering, or perhaps for lowering the boat’s collapsible mast, are well catered for with chunky guardrails as they head towards the foredeck.

There’s only one proper cabin but it’s a very good one for its size

When you enter the wheelhouse itself, it evokes a bygone age of first-class rail travel. The heavy wooden doors, which incorporate oversized rectangular windows set in metal frames with rounded corners, swing open to reveal a saloon clad in wood.

Space is at a premium in here but Linssen has still managed to cram in a decent galley to port, complete with worktops which fold up to reveal a sink and a two-burner gas hob. There’s storage below the countertop and a fridge below the helm seat, but there’s no integrated oven or microwave, so keen cooks may need to add a few embellishments here.

The shower is in a separate compartment to the heads

Opposite the galley is an L-shaped four-man settee that extends the full length of the saloon, but if you want to dine in here, you need to unclip the table from its mount in the aft cockpit and bring it inside. Ahead of the galley on the port side is the helm, which has a single seat, a vertical ship’s wheel and a neatly laid-out cluster of controls, including remotely operated seacocks and the boat’s bow and stern thruster controls. With the wheelhouse being fully glazed on all sides, visibility from the helm is also very good.

The two steps down to the boat’s cabin and heads are mounted in the centre of the saloon’s forward bulkhead. While the heads are limited to just a toilet and washbasin, Linssen has added Jack and Jill doors to create an ensuite.

Heads has Jack and Jill doors so guests can use it

That may have been nice for the marketing bumpf but it hardly seems necessary on a boat that is most likely to be used by a couple, given that the second entrance is directly outside the door. The cabin itself is another temple of wood. The bed is totally surrounded by wooden panelling, which is broken only by the doors and a decent-sized wardrobe on either side. And there’s one more door in the cabin which opens up to reveal a separate shower stall, which is particularly welcome on a cruise.

The steaming mast folds fl at to reduce the air draft when ducking under bridges

Why buy?

As a couple’s weekender for gentle inland fun, the Linssen 29.9 Sedan is a very sweet option. Neither too big to be manageable, nor too small to be comfortable, it ticks a great many leisure cruising boxes. With rivers like the Thames limited to 4 knots, the boat’s 55hp Volvo Penta D2-55 (the only option offered) is more than enough. And with fuel consumption measured in sips rather than gulps, it’s an economical boat to run. As broker Lee puts it, “You’ll be spending more on Prosecco than diesel with a Linssen 29.9 Sedan!”

Linssen Grand Sturdy 29.9 Sedan specifications

MODEL: Linssen 29.9 Grand Sturdy Sedan
DESIGNER: Linssen Yachts/Vripack
HULL TYPE: Displacement
RCD: Category C
LOA: 31ft 7in (9.6m)
BEAM: 11ft 0in (3.3m)
DRAFT: 3ft 3in (1.01m)
AIR DRAFT: 7ft 9in (2.4m)
DISPLACEMENT: 7,600kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 240l
WATER CAPACITY: 220l
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 1.08l/nm @ 6.5 knots
RANGE: 178nm at 6.5 knots with 20% reserve

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

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This article Linssen Grand Sturdy 29.9 Sedan used boat review: Perfect couple’s weekender appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

Surrounded on all sides at the recent Cannes Boat Show show by the wild excesses of modern motor yacht design, Azimut’s big new flybridge boat stood out for its no-nonsense air, its snubbed bow more mission statement than fashion statement.

An absence of unnecessary curvature and those black-glazed horizontals lend a seriousness of purpose to the Fly 82’s profile that is almost military, as if to remind us that for all the Avigliana shipyard’s Seadecks and Magellanos and S-boats, flybridge yachts are the core of the business, as they have been at Azimut for more than 50 years.

Fads and fashions come and go, but this matters. Not getting it right is not an option.

Any sense of seriousness ebbs away as you get closer, however, for at heart the 82 is a great big floating pleasure palace, from the extensive real estate of that broad bow, complete with roomy sunbed and sociable sofa arrangement, to the versatile appointments aft.

The principal focus for outdoor fun and relaxation will be provided by the substantial flybridge, with its dining table and bar shaded by an expansive hardtop, and its spacious seating area aft. The forward sunlounger has a well-padded backrest, and would be an excellent spot from which to watch the world go by.

The outside deck spaces are immense, even by the standards of other 80ft yachts

Carbon superstructure

The flybridge’s long overhang, constructed of carbon along with the rest of the superstructure to keep the centre of gravity down, performs sterling service in sheltering the cockpit, which has paired sofas facing each other across an elegant folding table.

This yacht’s party piece is the hinged transom that lifts up to extend the cockpit. Dubbed Deck2Deck, it’s a €40,000 extra that was first seen in the shipyard’s Grande series of yachts. It does work well, and adjusting the guardrails is not a major inconvenience, but one cannot help wondering whether it occurred to anyone in the design department that simply making the cockpit bigger in the first place was perhaps an idea worth pursuing.

This might also have allowed for a larger tender garage underneath – although there is nothing much wrong with the existing one, which can swallow a five-seat Williams 385.

Freestanding furniture can easily be swapped for a different style

Speaking of optional extras, the list is long and impressive. In common with most boatbuilders these days Azimut feels it necessary to put things on it that you and I might regard as essential, such as a hardtop (€123,850), some nice teak decking for the flybridge (€52,900), a second helm seat up there too (€5,900), a telescopic passerelle (€52,400) and even, these days – this is how spoiled we are getting – Volvo’s clever joystick control package (€75,000).

On the subject of such other essentials as fiddle rails to keep your lunch off the floor, or handholds to keep you from joining it, the extras list is silent. But we mustn’t gripe. It has never been easy to make a profit building boats.

Step-free access leads seamlessly from the cockpit through to the saloon, where you start to appreciate the benefits of all that glazing, and the cutaway bulwarks too, which offer sensational views out over low-profile furnishings.

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That dining table is a cool, circular slab of solid marble. Forward, the helm station is separated from the guests by a full-height bulkhead for a proper big-yacht feel, with a door out to the starboard side deck. This too is a comfortable space, with its little dinette, and shares its dignified seclusion with a rather basic galley, over to port.

A companionway leads down from here to the crew accommodation in the bows, which, even allowing for the fairly narrow corridor, is still a very much more civilised arrangement than the usual vertiginous descent from the cockpit, into what often seems like little more than an upholstered stowage locker next to the engineroom. Crew facilities consist of either two or three single berths, an ensuite head and shower compartment, and a reasonable amount of stowage space.

The cockpit benches and table are arranged longitudinally so nobody ends up looking into the boat

Triple IPS drives

Forward crew quarters are not the norm in motor yachts of this class, but IPS drives allow the engines to be set well aft, clearing space for guest accommodation in the widest part of the hull and allowing the crew cabin to be placed up in the bows, where the VIP is commonly found in a conventional shaft-drive design.

In addition to its enthusiastic adoption of IPS, Azimut has also got into the habit of fitting three smaller engines instead of two bigger ones, to keep the engineroom as short as possible without sacrificing horsepower. This can also lead to fuel savings over the equivalent twin-shaft-drive set-up, and the weight penalty is not as bad as you’d think (see our Azimut 77S report, 2015) – although it’s best not to dwell too much on the extra servicing costs.

Low furniture and tall picture windows bring the outside in

Triple-IPS thinking seems to have worked so well for Azimut that it has moved on from the sporty and narrow-beam S-class boats, into the Seadeck models, and now to the two largest yachts in the Fly line-up. Volvo D13s might be slightly narrower than, say, MAN V12s, but even in a hull with the 82’s generous beam, once you’ve crammed three of them in side by side there is very little room for anything else, least of all a mechanic. But on the plus side the owner’s and guest cabins have plenty of breathing space.

Guest access to the lower deck is amidships on the starboard side, down a companionway that deposits you at the door to the master cabin. With its walk-in wardrobe and head compartment arranged across the aft bulkhead to insulate the cabin from the machinery space, along with a sofa to starboard, plenty of floor area and panoramic windows, it is every inch the luxe retreat.

Cutaway bulwarks offer sensational views out over the low-profile furnishings

From here a slightly unusual corridor leads you around a right-angled turn and up a couple of steps to the twin berths of the port guest cabin, and the double cabin across the corridor. Further forward, through a door and up a couple more steps, and you find yourself in the VIP.

The owner’s cabin is as big and luxurious as you’d expect

Sharing the bow sections with the crew, this forward suite has been offset to the starboard side, which gives it a squarer and more comfortable floorplan than a conventional V-shaped VIP in the bows. It is far less impressive than the master, which is hardly a surprise, but its diagonal layout is practical and pleasing, and with two good hanging lockers it is pretty well off for stowage space.

Four ensuites

All three guest cabins have their ensuite facilities, and for space and comfort there is little to choose between them. Headroom throughout the lower deck is a creditable 6ft 6in (1.98m) and all the beds, too, pass the crucial length test at 6ft 5in minimum (1.96m), although at just 27in wide (68cm) you might want to reserve the twins for your younger or slimmer guests.

The owner’s ensuite bathroom

The level of detailing is impressive: fine workmanship, and neat little features like the notches cut in bedside locker lids for your phone’s charging cable, and drawers with interior illumination, all of it complemented with a pleasing mix of materials and textures. The decor options list is limited, but includes choices of marble over natural or synthetic stone on some of the floors and surfaces, and you can have a quartzite galley worktop in lieu of laminate.

Otherwise the interior design is pretty much as prescribed by the Milan studio of Fabio Fantolino, who will also be happy to design you a house, style your restaurant or cheer up your office space. This is his third project for Azimut. If I thought for a moment that my critique of an interior design had any value, I might say that the inside of Azimut’s Fly 82 looks a bit beige. But a colourful cushion or two will work wonders.

The starboard double is much the same size as the forward VIP

Alberto Mancini’s design team were responsible for the 82’s exterior styling, while Pierluigi Ausonio took care of things beneath the waterline. The hull is an easily-driven medium-V, with 16.3 degrees of deadrise aft, and what a powerboat racer would call a ‘pad’ flattening the central section right aft, not for stability at 70 knots but to accommodate the middle IPS unit. With a gentle twist, the hull bottom sections sharpen up as they lead forward to culminate in a fine forefoot.

A triple-IPS installation is never going to be dull, even in an 82-footer, and our test boat was fitted with the larger of the two available engine options, providing no less than 3,000 horsepower. First thing in the morning at the Cannes show is usually a period of calm, before the crowds come down and the land heats up, but the previous evening’s Force 3 to 4 had continued through the night, and although it was coming off the land it was raising chop on the water.

The foredeck lounge is almost as big, versatile and inviting as the flybridge

Nothing to worry our 60-tonne pleasure palace, however. Although a notional MAN-powered Fly 82 with two V12s might have 600 more horsepower, our Azimut managed very well with its triple-IPS1350 power plants, even with a significant load of fuel and water aboard, not to mention a crew of 12 that included a number of time-served journalists who would probably admit to a largely sedentary lifestyle.

Impressive handling

The IPS drives shrugged off the weight and the 82 accelerated keenly, leaning well into the turns in spite of the Seakeeper – which we kept on, along with the automatic trim system – and even the hardest helm inputs hardly scrubbed off any speed. Volvo’s IPS1350s might lack the torque of MAN’s V12-1800s, but I doubt that any Fly 82 owner would find anything amiss in the way this yacht handles and performs. Whether the IPS1200s would make an equally positive impression is open to question. The 1350s certainly felt like a perfect match.

Fun as it was to drive the 82 – way more fun than boats this size usually are – there came a time when we had to straighten up and sharpen our pencils. The 3ft chop had no effect at all on our progress, and although the odd creak could be heard from the lower deck, we could easily have powered on all day at 25 knots with little discomfort and no complaint.

Top speed averaged 32.2 knots, spot on the advertised figure. More important was the 82’s willingness to remain on the plane at around 18 knots, a useful trait when the water gets properly choppy, so that with very little change in trim you can select a cruising speed according to comfort or economy from the high 20s all the way down to the high teens.

Azimut 82 specifications

LOA: 81ft 3in (24.79m)
BEAM: 19ft 3in (5.87m)
DRAFT: 5ft 7in (1.70m)
DISPLACEMENT: 63.2 tonnes (full load)
ENGINES: 3 x Volvo Penta IPS 1200 or 3 x Volvo Penta IPS 1350 diesel
FUEL CAPACITY: 5,700 litres
WATER CAPACITY: 1,100 litres
RCD CATEGORY: A for 16 people
CONTACT: www.azimutyachts.com

Azimut 82 costs and options

From: €4.5 million ex taxes with IPS1200s
Upgrade to IPS1350: €95,150
Seakeeper 26: €314,200
Bow bimini with carbon poles: €47,650
Deck 2 Deck cockpit extension: €40,500
Platinum electronics package: €58,350
Tender launch system: €22,650

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

This article Azimut 82 review: 'Excels in every department' appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

You have to wonder how far into the future Sunseeker founder, Robert Braithwaite, was looking when in 1969, he launched what has arguably become the best known brand in boating. The Poole-based firm asserts that in the early 1970s, there were simply no big builders of boats for the UK sports and leisure markets. We’re not sure Princess, Fairline and Fletcher would agree, but Braithwaite set out to fill the gap.

While its models started off small, Sunseeker’s boats grew larger and more aggressive as performance and style became key. Creature comforts below decks sometimes played second fiddle to speed but that’s not quite the full story, because in the mid 1970s, the Sunseeker 36 Daycab was launched offering four berths, a galley and a toilet.

It helped kickstart the move into more spacious cruising boats and since then, its extensive range of sportscruisers, flybridges and motor yachts have graced oceans all over the world. One of its most successful flybridge models to date is this boat, the Sunseeker Manhattan 52.

In its five years of production between 2007 and 2011, 111 examples were built, before it was superseded by the even stronger-selling Series 2 model in 2016. The example we tracked down was being offered by Hamble Point-based broker, Parker Adams, for the not insignificant sum of £495,950 including VAT.

A canvas enclosure (right) makes the sociable aft cockpit usable all year round

Half a million pounds is towards the top end of the price spectrum for a Manhattan 52, particularly given that this is one of the earliest 2007 models, so we were anticipating something a little bit special when we travelled to Fambridge Yacht Haven in Essex to view it – and we weren’t disappointed…

The broker had assured us that the boat was immaculate – and while that’s something we’ve heard in the past, in this instance, he was bang on. This particular Manhattan 52 looks as good now as the day it was built, with barely a mark on any of its interior woodwork, nor a snag of note in any of the soft furnishings. Every surface is in close to concours condition.

The owner, Jeff Welsted revealed his initial attraction to the boat: “I’m in the timber game, so I was attracted to the woodwork, which was in absolutely superb condition. My previous boat was a Princess 50 from the same period and I’d say this one is double what that was in terms of its finishing and quality. I mean, it certainly is lovely, isn’t it?”

There’s sociable seating for eight at the flybridge’s aft dining station

Jeff has owned the boat for just 18 months but has decided to sell it following the death of his long-time boating companion. During his ownership, it spent most of its time on the River Crouch: “We would do day trips or sometimes overnights, going as far as Ipswich. The only really long journey I did with her was when we brought her back from her previous berth on the Isle of Wight. We did get into some big seas off Eastbourne, when she was taking them over the top, but the boat was no problem at all. It’s got plenty of power to just drive out of trouble.”

In this case, that power is delivered by twin MAN R6 800hp diesels on shaft drives. That was one of three options offered by Sunseeker, the other two being twin Caterpillar C12s or Volvo D12s. Bow and stern thrusters enhance manoeuvrability, and Jeff says he’s able to spin his boat on a sixpence.

The upper helm gets a two-man bench and a handy forward sun pad

Big social spaces

Able to sleep up to six guests at a time, on board comfort was another key consideration for Jeff – and once again, the Manhattan 52 was more than up to the job. “You’re not getting in each other’s way – there’s plenty of room,” he says. With its combination of three very large and attractive seating areas at the flybridge, aft cockpit and saloon, that’s not hard to believe. On the flybridge, there’s a starboard two-seat helm plus a double sun pad up front and an eight-man U-shaped settee that wraps itself around a dining table aft.

Below, in the aft cockpit, a four-seat bench faces forward, with a table and plenty of space for director’s chairs. The bench, which is backed by an aft-facing sun pad above the bathing platform, also provides access to the boat’s compact crew cabin. Just lift the port cushion and the hatch underneath and you’re in.

When the smoked glass sliding doors to the rear of the wheelhouse glide open to reveal the saloon, the sheer mouthwatering gorgeousness of this boat really comes to the fore. In fact, it’s almost enough to make you pray for a rainy day, just to justify going inside. On entering the saloon, a freestanding beige leather armchair awaits in the rear port quarter.

With its raised seat and wraparound dash, the lower helm is very well arranged

Opposite that is a second U-shaped settee, more or less directly below the one on the fly. This one, however, is clad in leather to match the armchair and fronted by a beautifully finished fold-out dining table. The contrast between the leather and the saloon’s cherry wood interior is simply stunning – and the subtlety of the feature integration is also very impressive. There’s a cocktail cabinet, a pop-up TV, integrated entertainment systems and two large fluted decorative pillars containing the aircon and heating outlets.

At the front of the saloon, a pair of steps leads up to a forward-facing two-man settee and the lower single helm seat, both of which are finished in dark brown leather. Sporting the same darker leather is the instrument console, which wraps around the helm to provide an ergonomically-efficient layout, with all controls within easy reach of your hand.

In the absence of alternative options, this galley-down layoutis common to all Manhattan 52s

Three-cabin layout

From the forward end of the wheelhouse, chrome rails guard the staircase down to the galley, cabins and heads. As you would expect, the galley lacks for nothing. There’s stacks of storage space, plenty of worktop, a three-hotplate electric hob, an oven and a full-height fridge-freezer.

The owner’s angled bed helps open up space at the integrated dressing table

Ahead of the galley are two doors, one to the boat’s second cabin, a generous double in the forepeak, and the other to its ensuite heads, which has Jack and Jill doors so it can be used as a day heads if required.

Moving back through the galley area leads to the boat’s other two cabins: a snug starboard bunk room and the full-beam owner’s cabin. The master is interesting in that its double bed is mounted at an angle. This has the effect of creating a large open dressing space in front of the cabin’s full-height wardrobe, while also allowing sufficient room to move easily along the built-in storage drawers to the integrated dressing table area at the bedhead. It’s as clever as it is unusual and would be very easy to live with. On the opposite side of the bed is a large, fully-fitted ensuite with toilet, washbasin and shower.

In addition to a starboard bunk room, there’s a spacious VIP cabin in the bow

Value for money?

In terms of setting a value, age is probably not the key driver when it comes to the Manhattan 52. After all, Sunseeker was content with its design from the outset, so it never offered any layout variants or gave the boat a mid-life facelift. That means that all of the 100+ examples out there are virtually identical – the only variations relating to propulsion, optional extras and owner upgrades.

Obviously, the maintenance history and ancillary equipment is vital but, providing all is sound, then the manner in which the boat has been looked after and its cosmetic appearance tend to be the chief indicators of price. All of which means that, despite our review boat being of an older vintage, its price seems entirely in keeping with its condition.

The quality and condition of the cherrywood joinery is absolutely first class

Sunseeker Manhattan 52 specifications

HULL TYPE: Deep vee
RCD: Category B
LOA: 57ft 9in (17.60m)
BEAM: 15ft 2in (4.63m)
DRAFT: 4ft 2in (1.26m)
DISPLACEMENT: 27 tonnes
FUEL CAPACITY: 2,200L
WATER CAPACITY: 600L
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 7.47L/nm @ 20.6 knots (with Volvo Penta D11 725hp engines fitted to a next-generation 52, as tested by MBY in 2016)
RANGE: 228nm at 24.1 knots with 20% reserve

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

This article Sunseeker Manhattan 52 used boat review: Still outshines the rest appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

While a significant number of armchair experts insist the name “Trawler Yacht” has been adopted from the fishing industry, reflecting the traditional trawler’s range, stability, and durability, others (like me) disagree. Stability? I once spent a long winter’s day on a commercial trawler fishing out of Brixham, which tottered and rolled like a Friday-night drunk.

The fact that the engine packed up in the pitch black, somewhere between Berry Head and Portland Bill, would lead me to question the durability element too. In the absence of a consensus, it’s probably best to sidestep my own unfortunate experiences and go with Beneteau’s take on what its trawler boats are all about.

Beneteau says the concept boils down to safety, reliability, and something they call ‘autonomy.’ Autonomy is basically the ability to remain at sea for extended tours of duty. There is no doubt that Beneteau has successfully argued its corner on that score. Between 2003 and 2020, it delivered more than 1,300 Swift Trawlers to customers around the world.

The Swift Trawler 30, on offer with Ancasta Lymington at an asking price of £185,000 tax paid, represents the baby of the range when it was launched back in 2015. It was quietly retired from the range five years later but never directly replaced. Instead, it was left to the ST35 to carry the can, although that too is being replaced by the all-new ST37 when it comes on stream next year. Swift Trawlers now run from the aforementioned 37-footer right up to the flagship Grand Trawler 63.

While the forward part of the flybridge is brilliantly sociable, the aft deck is left wide open

Comfort at sea

One potential issue with relatively short flybridge boats such as this is their propensity to roll about a bit when the sea state picks up. This is due to the extra weight up top. But for many, including Ross McDonald, the owner of our review boat, that’s not a deal breaker.

Ross’s background is in sailing, but having dabbled in motor boating with a Sea Ray 255 Sundancer, he elected to make the move to a larger powered vessel. He bought his Swift Trawler 30 in 2021. Having crossed the Atlantic in his sailing days, he knows a fair bit about foul weather too.

We asked him how his semi-displacement Beneteau fares when the going gets tough. “Well firstly, I’d say that compared to the Sea Ray, she is infinitely better!” he stated. “But if I were out and it was above a Force 4, then I would begin to think it’s time to go back.” Ross added that he doesn’t think he would go out if it were more, and if it starts to get lumpy, he slows it right down, perhaps dropping from 15 knots to around 10.

The linear starboard settee needs a couple of freestanding chairs to be seen at its best

Layout options

In terms of accommodation, Beneteau describes the Swift Trawler 30 as a “liveaboard” boat. That’s quite a claim for a vessel that’s just 32ft 9in long with a beam of around 11ft 6in. But the reality is not quite as simple as that because the 30 was offered in two formats. The first was a single-cabin boat with a split bathroom.

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Sealine F530 used boat review: More bang for your buck

Princess 58 used boat review: Cherished flybridge yacht from a "halcyon" era

In this single-cabin format, the heads and washbasin are to starboard with a separate shower room to port. Configured this way, extended stays or even living aboard could be justified for a couple. The alternative layout saw the separate shower room replaced by a compact bunk cabin. This is fine for a weekend with kids but not much more than that.

Regardless of format, though, the Swift Trawler 30 does have a number of features that lend themselves to Beneteau’s autonomy principle. First of all, there’s the master cabin. Nestled in the forepeak, it provides a full-size double bed with small wardrobes on either side. Additional storage is provided beneath the mattress, which hinges up to reveal a generous locker.

There’s nothing like a trawler for serious internal volume

While space is at a premium in this cabin, as evidenced by a centre-split door instead of a full-size one, Beneteau has successfully shoehorned a significant amount into the space.

Internal arrangement

Our review boat was of the split bathroom/shower variety. In this format, both the heads and the shower room enjoy generous proportions—more generous than many larger vessels, which is certainly a plus point for extended cruising. Up in the wheelhouse, Beneteau has worked its space-creating magic again. This is most notably seen in the over-achieving galley.

The galley provides plenty of workspace and storage, plus an oven, a two-burner diesel hob, a fridge/freezer, and a one-and-a-half bowl sink. Sharing the port side of the saloon aft of the galley is a floor-to-ceiling storage unit, which is also home to the boat’s television. The starboard side of the wheelhouse is mainly taken up by a bench seating unit capable of accommodating three to four people.

The test boat’s split facilities are ideal for liveaboard duties

This seating pairs up with a free-standing table that has wings that fold out to convert into a dining table when required. It’s perhaps not the most spacious or attractive dinette arrangement, but it’s perfectly adequate, especially when you remember the dimensions of this boat. One thing we weren’t particularly fond of, though, was the fact that the heavy table has to be lifted out of the way to access the engine.

This heavy table is fine for two people but a bit of a grunt for the single-handed mariner. Furthermore, the floor itself uses an oddly slippery wood-effect surface, which means you need to pick the right footwear. As for the double-seated lower helm, we have no such reservations. It’s very workmanlike and functional, and there’s a comfy hinge-down foot brace below the wheel. Visibility is excellent and there’s a door to starboard, providing instant access to the side deck.

A hinged ladder and twin transom gates make the deep-set cockpit much more versatile

Cockpit and flybridge

Leaving the wheelhouse via the three-part aft sliding door takes you to the aft cockpit. Once again, every effort has been made to maximise the space here. The flybridge ladder, for instance, is hinged at the top and can be folded flat against the saloon doors to increase deck space.

The transom, meanwhile, uses two doors, which swing outwards, connecting the cockpit directly to the bathing platform. The panels on our review boat were also fitted with optional flip-down seats, providing a further seating possibility for this highly versatile spot. For such a compact boat, the flybridge is surprisingly large with a single starboard helm position.

The skipper gets direct side deck access, a huge wheel and great visibility,

This helm can be folded flat to reduce the air draft when passing under bridges. It also has an integrated coffee table on its left, which butts up against a four-seat unit, thereby connecting the helm very neatly with the guests. However, the space behind the helm has been left empty for free-standing furniture or deck storage. There’s just about enough room for a small table and a couple of directors chairs.

The absence of a wet bar and grill means that any food would need to be prepared in the galley and then hauled up the fly’s seven-step ladder.

The port galley achieves way more than you would expect of a 33ft boat

Engine options

The Swift Trawler 30 is a single-engined boat, which makes the optional stern thruster (and bow thruster) highly advisable. Our review boat had both and was equipped with a Volvo Penta D6-370 diesel. This sees it top out at just over 20 knots.

Other power outputs included the D4-300 and D6-480. While a small flybridge boat always needs to be respected in a big sea, the 30 is a versatile and attractive example. It is a compact and modern trawler-style motoryacht at a relatively accessible price.

A tender and a set of cockpit canvases add some useful extra practicality to the mix

Swift Trawler 30 specifications

MODEL: Beneteau Swift Trawler 30
DESIGNER: Beneteau Power-Micad & Andreani Design (interior)
HULL TYPE: Semi-displacement
RCD: B (8 persons)
LOA: 32ft 9in (9.99m)
BEAM: 11ft 7in (3.53m)
DRAFT: 3ft 5in (1.05m)
DISPLACEMENT: 6,000kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 720l
WATER CAPACITY: 300l
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 4.09/nm @ 19.1 knots
RANGE: 140nm at 19.1 knots with 20% reserve

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

This article Swift Trawler 30 used boat review: Big boat space in a smaller hull appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

There’s no question that boats like the Sealine F530 are perfectly at home in the Med and other sunspots around the world. But in the UK? Well, that’s up for debate, especially for those who do their boating in places such as Britain’s south coast where marina space is at a premium – not just in terms of cost but also with regard to pontoon availability for plus-size boats.

At a shade over 16m in overall length, the Sealine F530 may not be the biggest boat in the ocean but it’s plenty long enough to warrant forward planning when it comes to looking for a visitor’s berth.

However, finding a berth was not a concern for us as we tickled our way along the Hamble for a photoshoot on a baking summer’s afternoon. On days like this, the appeal of the big Sealine becomes immediately apparent.

As we surveyed all around us from our lofty, expansive and sun-drenched flybridge perch, Richard, our broker from Solent Motor Yachts, who is offering this vessel for £649,950 VAT paid, fiddled with the Dynamic Position System (DPS) to hold the boat rock-steady as another vessel inched past us on the river’s narrow and crowded channel.

The flybridge dining station is easily big enough to seat nine people

Despite the Hamble’s notorious tide running fast, the DPS performed its task admirably, impressing not only us but also the somewhat nervous-looking helm of the passing vessel.

Richard just grinned: “Good, isn’t it?” he said. And yes, it was.

Bang for your buck

DPS is just one of the many impressive features of this boat. Pretty much everything about the F530 is big and arguably you get more for your money here than with any other 50-footer of its era.

For starters, there are no fewer than three outdoor entertaining areas. Occupying around half of the boat’s length, the flybridge is the largest of these.

Even without the canvases in place, the sociable aft cockpit is well sheltered by the flybridge

Accessed via a set of seven steps from the aft cockpit, the rearmost section of the fly features an enormous U-shaped settee, capable of seating up to nine people very comfortably.

Fronting the settee is a king-size fold-out table with five drinks/bottle holders integrated into its top. Butting up against the aft edge of the settee is the boat’s wet bar and grill.

This means the entire upstairs catering and dining are seamlessly connected but also neatly separated from the fly’s business end.

In fact, it’s not all business up front, as opposite the double helm seat and fully-appointed helm station is a second double seat, ahead of which Sealine has added a spacious double sunpad so you can keep the skipper company.

The galley is positioned aft, very much in the fashion of the latest flybridge cruisers

Extra outdoor fun

The second outdoor entertaining space is the aft cockpit. Nestled beneath the rear end of the flybridge, it feels wonderfully well protected and makes full use of the F530’s wide beam.

There are two integral three-seater couches and bags of room for free-standing chairs around the other two sides of the floor-mounted fold-out table, which, like its upstairs counterpart, also incorporates a five-glass/bottle holder.

With the saloon’s rear doors open, the aft cockpit links directly to the galley area and a fold-out countertop completes the connection, making serving very easy.

In inclement weather, the aft cockpit can be sealed from the elements with wraparound canvas covers.

The skipper gets great views and easy deck access on both sides of the boat

Keeping the warmth in the main saloon is then simply a matter of closing the folding glass doors. To find the third outdoor entertaining zone, it’s necessary to take a trip along the boat’s wide and well-protected side decks.

For the first half of the journey, the side decks are step-free with gunwales that are almost waist high. Thereafter, three steps and a set of beefy handrails lead up to the bow.

There’s a tremendous sense of safety and security throughout this boat – and that’s just as well, as we imagine countless bottles of Prosecco must have travelled this route in order to reach the guests lounging at the foredeck’s large horseshoe settee.

While there’s no fridge up here, there is a very accommodating table. Returning to the saloon, the galley occupies the rear section abutting the aft cockpit.

This is a large, well-appointed space with a full range of appliances and storage space integrated into high-quality, high-gloss cabinetry. On our review boat, a sleek black worktop added greatly to the galley’s look and feel.

Light, views and integration with the outdoor spaces are superb for a boat of this age

Acres of glass

Moving forward, the single most striking feature of the saloon is the amount of glazing. In fact, the sides of the saloon are almost entirely made of glass and the result is one of the brightest and lightest spaces you’ll find aboard any boat.

In MBY’s original review of the F530 back in 2016, our writer noted that the windows are fantastic on the inside but, in his opinion, would take some getting used to from the outside.

Today, however, those comments seem less relevant, as vast glazing panels have become the norm. Perhaps the F530 was just ahead of its time but either way, the effect of all this light is stunning.

The unusual flip-over helm seat creates an aft-facing chaise longue

There’s another huge seating unit and table in here and dining in an environment like this would undoubtedly be a real pleasure.

Positioned to starboard, the lower helm affords excellent views all round. Side doors on both sides of the boat allow quick and easy access to the side decks, as well as improved ventilation.

The lower helm seat also has an unusual trick up its sleeve. Pull the metal lever protruding from the side and it can be folded down to provide a chaise in the dining area.

The high-spec owner’s cabin gets impressive views and an attractive breakfast bar to port

Accommodation

Four steps down the companionway, three cabins await. The entrance to the master is to starboard.

As you enter, a corridor runs aft past the ensuite to the cabin proper – a full-beam midships affair, luxuriously equipped with a large double bed, wardrobe and dressing table plus a two-seater table unit to port.

The VIP cabin is in the forepeak. This also has a large double bed and plenty of storage space.

The ensuite comes with Jack and Jill doors, allowing it to be used as a day heads, and by the occupants of the boat’s third cabin, which came either with a double bed or a pair of singles.

The VIP comes with masses of storage and an ensuite that’s shared as the day heads

Performance

For propulsion, Sealine opted to fit Volvo Penta IPS drives as standard on the F530. Featuring forward-facing counter-rotating props on steerable pods, it offers several advantages over shafts in terms of fuel efficiency, speed, handling and quietness.

We certainly had no major complaints in our original F530 test – and that’s despite our (prototype) boat being equipped with IPS600s.

Later production models had either IPS700s with a top speed of 30 knots or IPS800s, which could achieve around 34 knots.

Whichever rig you chose, the space aft of the engine room was also well used with one of three alternative options – a no-frills empty space, a large lazarette or a compact crew cabin.

You could spec the third cabin as a dedicated twin or as an all-over double

Sealine F530 specifications

DESIGNER: Dixon Yacht Design/Sealine
HULL TYPE: Variable V
RCD: B (12 persons)
LOA: 52ft 11in (16.13m)BEAM: 14ft 11in (4.56m)
DRAFT: 3ft 11in (1.2m)
DISPLACEMENT: 20,370kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 1,560l
WATER CAPACITY: 766l
TOP SPEED: 30 knots (with Volvo Penta IPS700 engines – Sealine figure)
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 7.06L/nm @ 21.1 knots (all fuel figures derived from 2016 MBY test of the prototype, which (in contrast to subsequent production models) used the smaller IPS600 engines.
RANGE: 176nm at 18.5 knots with 20% reserve

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

This article Sealine F530 used boat review: More bang for your buck appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

When Princess began building boats 60 years ago, the firm was known as Marine Projects (Plymouth) Limited. Its first boat, the Project 31 was a handsome 31ft cabin cruiser launched in 1965 but it wasn’t until 1969 that the Princess name first appeared on a new 32ft design. The first flybridge model, the John Bennett-designed Princess 37 followed for years later at the 1973 London Boat Show.

The Princess 58 featured here is a direct descendant of that 37 and was built from 2006 to 2010. It was replaced the following year by the Princess 60.

At the time of its launch it was considered the pinnacle of modernity with a lavish full beam owner’s cabin featuring triple vertical hull windows, two further guest cabins and a large saloon divided into an informal lounge area aft and a more formal dining area forward.

It still looks good today, especially that elegant exterior design with its flowing lines, relatively low slung flybridge and distinctive two tier saloon windows. The only thing that gives its age away is the location of the galley on the lower deck. These days cooking is seen as a social activity so the galley tends to be located on the main deck, often at the aft end so it ties in with the cockpit.

Extensive array of flybridge seating is perfect for big groups of day guests

From the outset quality has been a hallmark of the Princess brand and today there can be no doubt that the company continues to make some fabulous boats. For many though, the late noughties represents the halcyon days when sumptuous furnishings, curvaceous mouldings, real wood cabinetry and deep gloss finishes ruled the roost. And that is good news for discerning boaters with half a million pounds to spare.

This 2009 model 58 is on sale with Swanwick-based Solent Motor Yachts for £549,950 including VAT.

The saloon is divided into a lounging area aft and a dining and helm area forward

The owner’s opinion

The current owner of our review boat, Derek Vaughan-Smith, is also the broker selling it.

In fact, this is the second time Derek has owned this particular vessel which, as he explains, matches the needs of his family to a tee: “The Princess 58 is a boat we’ve owned previously and we find that the balance between its length and cabin layout represents the best of all things as far as we are concerned.

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Elan Power 30 used boat review: This sportscruiser deserved more attention

Cranchi Zaffiro 34 used boat review: A thing of beauty

“We’ve also had a Princess 50 Mk III, which is the mid-cabin version, but that gives you a much smaller bunk cabin as your third cabin. This one trumps that by giving you two double cabins and a proper twin, which is great for us as family boaters, because it means our two daughters, aged four and eleven, can each have their own room. The 58 also has a much larger galley and the dinette and the huge saloon just gives you so much more space, even though it hasn’t gone up massively in length. So these are the biggest plus points for us.”

The MFD screen is a little small by today’s standards but the ergonomics are spot on

Saloon and galley

Step inside the wheelhouse and you see exactly what Derek means. The saloon is mightily expansive. Its rear section is occupied by two large leather settees – L-shaped to port and horseshoe to starboard. Nestling into the U of the horseshoe unit is a freestanding coffee table that’s heavy enough to stay put in all but the roughest seas.

Wade forward through the luxurious deep-pile carpet, up two steps, and a second entertaining area awaits. Here a dinette to port is faced on the starboard side by a sleek drinks cabinet. Ahead of this is the helm with its two deep-cushioned, fully adjustable leather seats. With its clean lines, multi-function display, ergonomic control layout and good all-round visibility, the wheelhouse helm provides an excellent alternative to the fly should conditions force you to take shelter.

The lower deck galley is well equipped but can feel a bit cut off from the rest of the party

From here, five steps lead you down to the galley. While you could argue it feels a tad detached from the saloon and aft cockpit, what it lacks in proximity it certainly makes up for in space. It comes fully equipped with a combo microwave oven, a four-hotplate hob, a fridge-freezer, a large sink and bags of workspace. So although you might grumble a little at having to clamber up and down stairs to serve your guests, it’s ideal for a keen chef and if you’re intending to enjoy extended stays on board.

Sleeping for six

Tucked away under the companionway stairs is a washing machine – again handy for longer stays on board. You pass that en route to the full-beam aft master cabin and once again, Princess’s eye for quality really shines through.

Full beam master cabin is a real treat despite a few dips in the floor and ceiling height

The double bed is flanked by gorgeous deep gloss cherry wood cabinetry, including twin dressing tables and a full-size wardrobe. A wide-screen TV is integrated into the bulkhead at the foot of the bed and the ensuite bathroom features a fully enclosed shower stall to keep the rest of the space dry.

Up in the forepeak, the 58’s VIP cabin is what a lot of owners of sub-50ft boats might easily mistake for a master cabin. It features a large centre-mounted double bed with plenty of room to move around, plus a full-height wardrobe and bags of storage on either side of the bed.

High gloss cabinetry in the forward VIP still looks in great condition

Needless to say, there’s stacks of that beautiful cherry wood in here too. And the VIP’s ensuite (another fully equipped and spacious heads with a separate shower stall) has Jack and Jill doors, enabling it to be used by the occupants of the third cabin and as a day heads if required.

As for cabin three itself, it’s a twin room with ample space to move between the beds, as well as a generous wardrobe, plenty of storage space and, in common with the other two cabins, excellent headroom.

Above decks, the Princess 58 makes best use of every square inch. There’s a good sized fixed bathing platform at the stern, large enough to accommodate a tender or personal watercraft. Ahead of that, the cockpit has a five/six seater bench along its aft edge and plenty of room for a freestanding table and chairs. There’s also a large lazarette, plus secondary access to the engine room via a hatch in the deck.

Wide opening glass doors provide a good connection with the aft cockpit

The entrance to the crew cabin is tucked away beneath the bench seat. Some owners use this as additional storage space or even an overspill guest cabin as it’s got everything you need, including twin beds, neatly staggered at right angles, plus locker space and a very decent heads compartment.

There are steps on either side of the cockpit, leading to the teak-clad side decks, which are safely guarded and run flat all the way to the foredeck, where you’ll find a reasonably large sun pad. But for serious outdoor entertainment, the flybridge is the place to be.

Plenty of seating space but it’s not the most sociable layout and there’s no fixed table

Our 2009 review boat doesn’t feature the internal saloon-to-fly staircase of previous models but the seven-step stairwell on the port side of the cockpit is perfectly practical. And once you’re up top, everything is pretty much as you would wish. You get a central helm with twin seats and a lounger/settee on either side, plus a wet bar and a separate chiller unit. There’s also a massive seating area with dining table aft of the central wet bar and behind that, another pair of sunpads.

On the water

Derek seems fond of the way the Princess handles herself in a seastate. “It’s a heavy boat on shafts and with the SeaKeeper 9 stabiliser that’s fitted to this particular example, it’s like driving a tank,” says Derek. “It’s incredibly solid on the water.

Third cabin has proper twin beds instead of bunks

We do most of our boating in and around the Solent and it’s just so comfortable, which is exactly how my family likes it.” That’s a sentiment you tend to see repeated among owners of Princess 58s and with good reason. Because this is a vessel that’s not only capable and family-friendly but opens up a world of exciting adventures without any uncalled for drama.

Princess 58 specifications

HULL TYPE: Variable V planing
LOA: 58ft 0in (17.68m)
BEAM: 15ft 8in (4.82m)
DRAFT: 4ft 2in (1.27m)
DISPLACEMENT: 26,000kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 2,827L
WATER CAPACITY: 791L
TOP SPEED: 33 knots
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 8L/nm @ 20 knots
RANGE: 283nm at 20 knots with 20% reserve

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

This article Princess 58 used boat review: Cherished flybridge yacht from a "halcyon" era appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

Sometimes, things just don’t seem to add up in the boating world. Take for example the Elan Power 30 – a sweet little sportscruiser if ever there was one.

When we first tested it back in 2015, we described it as a vessel with a sleek modern form that was brilliantly engaging to drive. We also pointed out that it was extremely competitively priced compared to its nearest rivals of the day, the Jeanneau Leader 9 and the Grandezza 330OC.

In fact, there was very little not to like about it. Surprising then that the Elan Power 30, a smaller sibling to the 35, 42 and 48, never really caught on and very few were sold on these shores.

Today, Slovenia-based Elan, which began in 1949 producing skis (and still does), has completely given up with motor boats (which it used to build in Croatia) and now focuses on its sailing yacht portfolio instead. And that’s a shame, because in its Power 30 sportscruiser, Elan managed to conjure up a super little boat that was actually far more than just fit for purpose.

In addition to its reliable performance and seakeeping, which for us included riding out a particularly nasty chop off Poole with commendable refinement, our 2015 reviewer enthused about “the illusion of space down below”.

But in retrospect, , it’s unfair to imply that the sense of space here is illusory because, in spite of the fact that this is a compact and good looking 30ft sportsboat, Elan packed in a pair of double cabins, a decent saloon-cum-galley and a heads compartment large enough to swing a cat.

Such is the style and condition of the fit-out that you wouldn’t know it’s a ten-year-old boat

Lower deck layout

Key to the boat’s downstairs layout success is its unusual split galley arrangement. This features a short-angled corner unit, housing a double induction hob, a fridge and a pair of drawers to starboard. The sink, meanwhile, is mounted in a separate unit amidships, next to the companionway steps and backing onto the bulkhead of the aft cabin.

This cunning configuration utilises every inch of space without compromising the square footage devoted to either the heads or the aft cabin. And returning to that starboard unit for a moment, we also love the angled front face of the top drawer and the fact that there are two lockers above the worktop, one of which houses the boat’s microwave.

Article continues below…

Between the two galley units is the entrance door to the midships guest cabin. Open it up and another surprise awaits, because Elan has succeeded not only in jamming a full-size transverse double bed into the space, but also two storage units and a wardrobe.

The one aspect of this cabin we do find a touch confusing is that the head-end of the bed has reading lights but no bedhead to prop yourself up against. That makes sitting up in bed quite difficult and, while you could turn and rest your back against the side walls, that didn’t strike us as an especially comfortable solution for a lazy pre-sleep reading session.

Passing back through the lower saloon brings us to the portside dinette, which has a four-seat sofa, fronted by an attractive wooden topped table opposite the starboard heads. Once again, the size allocated to both these areas is impressive.

The central helm improves the view while creating a handy starboard space for chartwork

The décor in the saloon, a milk-and-honey combination of light wood, beige fabric panels (including on the doors) and grey settee cushions, does a great job of creating a sense of brightness and space. But in sheer physical terms, the heads compartment is actually more generous than some we’ve seen on much larger boats than this. It houses an electric loo, a shower tray and a basin with a pull-out shower tap. There’s some worktop in here too, with storage both above and below. But best of all, the heads has Jack and Jill doors, turning it into a day heads and an owner’s ensuite all in one.

As for the owner’s cabin itself, it features a centrally-mounted double bed, plus a wardrobe to port, a small cabinet to starboard and overhead lockers all around. To make all this fit, Elan has tapered the end of the bed on both sides, but there’s still plenty of room for two adults to stretch out in here. So you have to say, for a 30-footer, the amount of below-decks accommodation is truly outstanding.

The four-man dinette can also be made up as an occasional extra berth under the covers

Main deck

Clamber up the three steps from the lower saloon to the main deck and there’s loads more space on offer. For starters, there’s another settee to starboard that’s easily big enough for four. In front of this is a table, which can be folded in two to make passing through the boat easier. It can also be dropped down to form an occasional extra berth or stored in a bracket under the engine hatch when not in use.

On the other side, there’s a two-seat settee with storage beneath it and a wet bar with grill, sink, countertop and a second fridge. There are a couple of thinnish cupboards here too but their plastic doors let the side down a touch in a boat that is otherwise very nicely trimmed.

Ahead of the main socialising area is an unusual centre-mounted single-seat helm. Being in the middle of the boat gives a great view all round and it also frees up a nice big area for charts on the starboard side. And while the cockpit can be completely enclosed with the aid of rear camper covers, you can also fold these away and slide back the large fabric sunroof, letting in almost as much light and air as a fully open boat.

The dinette faces across to a slim wet bar and settee on the port side

To make matters even better, our review boat, which is on sale with Network Yacht Brokers in Chichester for £125,000, has been upgraded with artificial teak decking to its bathing platform, side decks and foredeck surrounds. The side decks can be accessed from either side of the bathing platform and, while the walkways are admittedly a bit tight and the guardrails a bit low, the superstructure is equipped with a reassuring grab rail that runs the entire length of its roofline. And when you get to the bow, the Elan keeps on giving, with bags of room for a double sunpad and a lovely feeling of quality from the optional trim.

Owner testimony

The artificial teak upgrade was carried out to the order of the boat’s current owner, Graham Grimwood, who explains why he’s looking to move the Elan on: “I started off with RIBs and then a sailing boat – a 34-foot Hanse; but crewing turned out to be a bit of a problem and my wife Deborah wasn’t keen on the rocking movement” explains Graham. “Also, we had a growing family, so we decided to buy a motorboat instead. We found the Elan in Brighton, but just after I bought it, Covid kicked in and I couldn’t move it for six months!

The split galley opens up a walkway to the double guest cabin amidships

“When we eventually got it back to Chichester, we would go out with the children and grandchildren, sometimes going as far as Lymington but we mostly stayed in and around the harbour. Usually we’d go somewhere like East Head off West Wittering for a swim and some lunch and that was great. But now the kids have grown up, they don’t come down so much. My wife is not fussed either, so I’m looking to go back to sail – probably just something I can potter around in, single-handed in the harbour.”

The generous owner’s bed is tapered at the foot to make space for extra storage units

Locked and loaded

So what would Graham say to any potential future owner of his Elan? “Well, it’s going to make a great boat for somebody. It’s very comfortable to live aboard, there’s options for cooking and for a boat of this size, it’s fully loaded. When it comes to driving, visibility from the central helm is excellent. The only tricky thing I can envisage would perhaps be going through a lock if you were on your own, as there’s no side door by the helm. Apart from that, I can’t really see any problems.

The guest double is bigger than you expect but it’s not a place to linger when you wake

“For me, the boat has been good and reliable and I’ve kept on top of the maintenance. We fitted new batteries three years ago and the only major item I’ve had to invest in is a new prop. We had to fit that because the old one had gone brittle due to the coral worm we get in this particular part of Chichester Harbour, so that’s not exactly an everyday problem. All in all, the Elan’s a great boat and I’m sure it’s going to make someone very happy.”

We’re inclined to agree with Graham’s assessment. Though you don’t see many of them in UK waters, the Elan Power 30 is a really attractive family sportscruiser. It’s good to look at, it’s reliable at sea and, in spite of its modest size and price, its combination of day boating space and four-berth accommodation is much more user-friendly than you expect.

The artificial teak upgrade extends all the way to the foredeck

Elan Power 30 specifications

MODEL: Elan 30 Power
DESIGNER: Tony Castro
HULL TYPE: Deep Vee
RCD: C
LOA: 32ft 9in (9.42m)
BEAM: 11ft 5in (3.5m)
DRAFT: 2ft 10in (0.86m)
DISPLACEMENT: 4,500kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 500L
WATER CAPACITY: 200L
TOP SPEED: 33.5 knots
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 1.8L/Nm @ 22 knots
RANGE: 220nm at 22 knots with 20% reserve

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

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This article Elan Power 30 used boat review: This sportscruiser deserved more attention appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

Cranchi is not shy when it comes to expressing the romantic side of things. “Builders of Yachts, Creators of Beauty” purrs its website, as if dripping honey. Scroll down a bit further and you’re invited to “Treat Yourself to Endless Emotions”.

Well such may be the way with Italian boat builders but, as any boat owner will testify, boats really are things of beauty – and Cranchi ought to know that better than most, because it’s been building boats for nearly 160 years.

The Cranchi story goes all the way back to 1866, when Giovanni Cranchi began a modest boat-building enterprise on the shores of Lake Como. As later generations of the family moved in, production was ramped up to the point where, in 1932, the mass production of wooden boats began in new premises in the town of Brienno on the southwestern arm of the lake. Today, Cranchi builds its fleet in even larger, albeit less romantic, premises near a busy motorway intersection in nearby Piantedo – and its range of boats really is astonishingly broad.

It offers no fewer than ten model lines, ranging from 26 to 78ft in length. The Cranchi Zaffiro 34 you see here no longer forms a part of that, as production ceased in 2011 after a 14-year run. The nearest modern equivalent is probably the swish and sporty Z35.

But back in the day, the Zaffiro 34 (which translates as Sapphire, by the way) was regarded as equally dynamic. In fact, in our 1998 review of what was then a recently-launched model, we called it “a sporty Italian thoroughbred, offering a good balance between interior and cockpit space.”

So how has it weathered over the years? To find out, we tracked down a Zaffiro 34 of 2002 vintage, on offer for £86,950 with Bray Marine Sales. Aware that, in 2003, Cranchi gave the Zaffiro a facelift, we weren’t expecting to find the most modern of boats. But notwithstanding a few uncommonly large expanses of plastic, the Zaffiro 34 actually has a great deal to offer…

Remarkably, the Cranchi uses a step-through screen, as well as dedicated side decks

Common sense layout

The main deck layout is strikingly similar to that of the Fairline Targa 34. That means there’s a generous bathing platform with a concealed swim ladder and access to the cockpit from the starboard side of the platform’s leading edge. Inside the cockpit, there’s horseshoe-shaped seating around a table to port and a large wet bar unit with fridge to starboard. Hop up the single step to the forward cockpit area and the similarities continue with curved seating to port and a starboard single-seat helm.

The big difference is that the Zaffiro 34 has a step-through windscreen. This had us scurrying back to confirm that there is no access to any side decks at the rear – but oddly enough, there is, complete with grab handles on either side of the radar arch.

Why Cranchi felt the need for a step-through windscreen as well as side decks is a bit of a mystery. After all, it inevitably puts pressure on space, making the cockpit-to-foredeck footway narrow, increasing the chance that you’ll accidentally step on the companionway hatch alongside it.

Maybe that’s why the hatch itself uses such a beefy moulding. It’s certainly not the boat’s finest visual feature and it does, of course, restrict the light entering the lower saloon when shut but, given the deck layout, you would have to say it’s a necessary evil.

The owner’s cabin is not bright by modern standards but the proportions are very good

Two proper cabins

From the companionway, three steps lead down to the saloon, galley, heads and two cabins. These areas are the beneficiaries of the 2003 facelift because, although they’re the same in terms of layout, later boats have wooden facings on their cabinet doors rather than the white plastic of our 2002 boat.

As for the arrangement, there’s a long port settee fronted by a fixed-height table, which means there’s no option of dropping it down to form an occasional third berth. The galley opposite is perfectly adequate and comes with a hob, sink, microwave and fridge, as well as storage units both above and below the counter.

Once you hurdle the carpeted crossbeam, there’s a perfectly decent guest cabin here too

The heads are fully fitted too, with toilet and wash basin plus a tap that doubles as a pull-out shower head. Cabin two has twin beds, which can be joined with an infill to create a double, and the master cabin has a full-size central double berth.

There’s storage space in both cabins, but there’s not massive amounts of room for getting changed and that’s pretty much par for a 34ft boat. But one point we did note was that in the second cabin, there is a structural crossmember just beyond the entrance. Our review model has a dark blue carpet, which makes that beam easy to miss, so you do need to take a bit of care when heading in and out.

Quicker than you think

While later Zaffiro 34s were equipped with twin 260hp Volvo Penta D4s, earlier models featured 220hp KAD 42s or KAD 43s rated at 230hp. The example we tested back in 1998 had the 220hp units and even that achieved a very respectable 35 knots on our sea trial.

For a 34ft cruiser with a lower galley, this is a really good size of wet bar

That backed up the manufacturer’s 36-knot claim, so a little more could certainly be expected from the more powerful units. We also reported that the helm position made for an easy drive and that the boat was generally well mannered at sea.

For owner Eric Cheeseman, though, seakeeping was never an issue, as he purchased his Zaffiro 34 to use on the River Thames: “My wife Lynn and I mostly used the boat for day sailing, often with five or six of us aboard, and it was perfect for that,” says Eric. “We’d typically go up to Windsor, or a bit further to the Staines area. Then sometimes, it would be the other way, past Bray. But to be honest, you can’t get too far in a day at four knots!

“When it comes to manoeuvrability, it’s a six-tonne boat, so it’s quite stable but I did have it moored up at Windsor Racecourse marina for a while and that’s quite open. I remember I did have a bit of an issue with the wind once but for the most part, it really wasn’t too bad.”

While the table is fixed, it wouldn’t be difficult to custom-fit a third berth here if needed

Sports cruiser appeal

So given that a total of 520hp isn’t going to matter to owners like Eric, whose boating ambitions lie solely on the Thames, what led him to choosing an out-and-out sportscruiser? “What attracted me was its appearance,” says Eric.

“I just love the look of it. And compared to all the other boats we saw, it does everything we wanted. In particular, it’s spacious. I’d say it seats up to 12, so if someone wanted the whole family on there, there’d be plenty of room.  I think what we were also looking for was the two separate cabins. A lot of boats we looked at just had a curtain, but Cranchi factored in a set of doors to shut the cabins off and they did a really good job of it.”

The aft saloon positions a big low-level dinette directly opposite the wet bar

As for the potential negatives, Eric is pretty clear on that too. “To anyone looking at buying a Cranchi Zaffiro, I’d say have a good look at the engines. Make sure they’ve got their history, as they can be a bit suspect if you don’t look after them. Apart from that, though, it’s a great boat with plenty of room all-round. Even that nice compact galley feels spacious enough to me.”

Following its launch, the Zaffiro 34 became a best-selling model for Cranchi and that means there’s plenty of choice on the used market. Most of them are based abroad though, so if you’re looking at one of these, especially if it’s been living under sunny Mediterranean skies, pay attention to the condition of the cockpit seats and canvas covers, because boats can suffer from sunburn, just like us!

A zipped door gives access to the aft platform and side decks, even with the canvases up

Cranchi Zaffiro 34 specifications

MODEL: Cranchi Zaffiro 34
DESIGNER: Aldo Cranchi
RCD: C8
LOA: 34ft 0in (10.36m)
BEAM: 11ft 5in (3.50m)
DRAFT: 3ft 3in (1.00m)
AIR DRAFT: 11ft 2in (3.40m)
DISPLACEMENT: 6,250kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 570L
WATER CAPACITY: 190L
TOP SPEED: 36kn (with 220hp KAD42 engines)
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 2L/nm @ 25.5 knots (based on MBY original test with KAD42s)
RANGE: 223nm at 25.5 knots with 20% reserve (based on MBY original test with KAD42s)

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

This article Cranchi Zaffiro 34 used boat review: A thing of beauty appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

They like quality, the Dutch, so it comes as no surprise to learn that when the ISO 9001 quality standard was introduced back in 1987, firms the length and breadth of Holland began champing at the bit to gain accreditation.

Leading that charge was Aquanaut’s range of steel-hulled boats and, to this day, the firm’s website proudly boasts that it was the first in Holland to receive the ISO 9001 stamp of approval.

At the time, the company was known as Dutch Craftsmanship BV. Founded in 1961 by brothers, Johan and Wim Bakker, in the picturesque Dutch Lake District town of Sneek, the business enjoyed many years of success.

Initially, cabin cruisers were the order of the day, but these were soon superseded by trawler-style motor yachts. Built for comfort and ideal for cruising Europe’s inland waterways, they were equally capable of putting to sea.

There’s lots of space for chairs and tables so you can keep the skipper company on a cruise

Well-travelled boat

It was partly this flexibility that saw the firm’s Aquanaut-branded motoryachts become a popular choice throughout the Netherlands, Germany and France. However, like so many others in the marine industry, the company eventually fell on hard times and in 2022, Dutch Craftsmanship was declared bankrupt.

Happily, the business was rescued by another Dutch family business, De Driesprong Yacht Center, and today, known as Aquanaut Yachting Sneek BV, the yard continues to build steel-hulled boats. There are currently 13 model lines in lengths from 12 to 20 metres and among the numerous Aquanaut variants produced over the years is the Aquanaut Drifter 1350 AK featured here.

Slow speeds, big side decks and raised rails are perfect for relaxing family use

While Hebe is a 2002 model, sitting serenely on the Thames at Bray Marine Sales for a list price of £210,000, she is a very well-travelled boat, as owner Simon Dowden, a former pilot on the Thames, explains: “My wife, Jenny, and I bought Hebe in 2014. For the first two years, we kept her in the UK and then we crossed the Channel and went along the Seine to the French canals, living on the boat all the time.

You’re a long way from the galley so a fridge, a coolbox or a flask of tea could be useful

“We came off the canals and on to the Saône, travelled down to Lyon and then on to the Rhône, going all the way down to the Med. We spent some time in Aigues-Mortes and then Port Leucate, where we kept Hebe for a couple of years.

We travelled some of the canals down there and then we went to the Étang de Thau, which is a lovely place to visit, before going on to Marseille. After that we went along the coast a bit before coming back up the Rhône and Saône to St-Jean-de-Losne, another lovely spot.

We then took the canal to join the Rhine near Mulhouse before heading on to Strasbourg and eventually Holland, where we took the boat back to Aquanaut in Sneek for a refit, before bringing her back to the UK.

“Aquanaut repainted the boat, did a major service and the interior saloon was French polished. The reason we decided to do this goes back to the day I was in the doctor’s waiting room and picked up a copy of Motor Boat & Yachting. There was an article inside which said how good Aquanauts were and how well they held their price – so I decided to make sure I kept mine in the best condition I could.

“The boat has always been well looked after and when we bought her, she had already had her water and waste tanks swapped from steel to polyurethane, so they’re modern – not the same age as the boat.”

It’s great to see bow and stern thrusters on a boat with a single shaft

On-water manners

Simon is equally enthusiastic about the boat’s manoeuvrability on the water: “It’s very good indeed – you can steer even when the engine’s going astern. As long as you’re making way through the water you’ve got steerage because she’s got a nice big rudder. She’s only got a single engine, so the bow and stern thrusters obviously help as well.

“In terms of sea passages, she’s perfectly fine but I would say pick your days. She’s an RCD Category B vessel, which means she’s capable of operating offshore in winds of up to 40 knots and seas of 13 feet. And while she’ll roll and crash about a bit in a head sea, she’ll be absolutely fine. She’s a pretty robust boat!”

The lower dinette provides the option of a third double berth, just down from the saloon

Unusual layout

On their Continental odyssey, Simon and Jenny were often joined by guests, so her accommodation has been well tested. Even so, we have reservations about her layout because, despite being 44ft 9in in length, this is just a two-cabin boat. And while the owner gets a lavish full-beam aft cabin, the guest cabin comprises a short vee-berth tucked away in the forepeak – fine for kids but less so for adults.

We put this to Simon and he replied that it was never an issue: “The friends we had on there didn’t complain about the sleeping arrangements at all.” And in fairness, with the two cabins at opposite ends of the boat, privacy certainly isn’t an issue.

Even so, the washroom arrangement is another area that caught our quizzical eye. While the guest cabin is equipped with an ensuite, it only contains a toilet and a washbasin. And at the owner’s end of the boat, the ensuite is limited to a shower and a washbasin because the toilet is in the corridor outside. This means the captain’s loo doubles up as the day heads; and guests looking for a shower have to venture back into the owner’s cabin.

But if that all feels a shade unconventional, where this boat really comes alive is in the day spaces…

The Aquanaut’s galley enables you to enjoy proper cooked meals on board

Located four steps down from the saloon and butting up against the forward cabin, is the galley. Fully equipped with a four-burner hob, oven, fridge, sink and bags of storage and worktop, it’s laid out in a large horseshoe arrangement that will bring joy to a chef’s heart.

Opposite this is the dinette, which is capable of seating five in comfort. The table also drops down and converts into a third berth, enabling up to six people to spend the night on this boat.

However, back up those four steps from the galley is the star of the show. Fully glazed all round, the supersized saloon simply drinks in the light. As there’s no helm here (we’ll come to that in a minute) the entire space is given over to relaxation and socialising. There’s a gigantic seven or eight-seater U-shaped settee on the starboard side, plus a heavy wood coffee table and a superbly crafted set of cabinets that oozes quality (and French polish) on the port side.

The quality of cabinetry is as strong in the owner’s cabin as it is in the saloon

Leaving the saloon and heading up a second set of steps, a companionway leads to the helm and aft deck, both of which are designed to be enjoyed in the open air – and you really do get a sense of how fabulous it would be, pootling gently along Europe’s canals in the height of the summer.

Together, the helm and the aft cockpit form a wonderfully spacious area with plenty of room for a large freestanding table and chairs. But should the weather close in, the entire helm section can be quickly screened off with a set of all-round canvas covers. And if you enjoy cruising with family, you’ll love the walkways around the superstructure, which are nearly two feet wide and guarded by some seriously beefy rails.

A short vee berth in the bow feels a shade mean on a two-cabin boat of this scale

Slow and serene

With a single 159hp Vetus Deutz DT 64 engine, Hebe is very much built for comfort rather than speed. Even so, while that modest power means you’re unlikely to exceed 10 knots, makes for some amazingly economical cruising.

Simon tells us that, over the years, he’s averaged just one litre per nautical mile at six knots. At current diesel prices, that means the cost of travelling the 800 nautical miles from northern France to the Mediterranean, via the rivers and canals of Europe, could be comfortably achieved for less than £1,200. Pretty good for a big, sturdy 18-tonne liveaboard, wouldn’t you agree?

The big, flat roof spaces are tailor-made for a solar array

Aquanaut Drifter 1350 AK specifications

DESIGNER: Aquanaut/Vripack
HULL TYPE: displacement
RCD: Category B
LOA: 44ft 9in (13.7m)
BEAM: 14ft 4in (4.4m)
DRAFT: 3ft 11in (1.2m)
AIR DRAFT: 9ft 10in (3.0m)
DISPLACEMENT: 18,000kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 2 x 600L
WATER CAPACITY: 2 x 400L
TOP SPEED: 10 knots (owner’s figures)
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 1L/nm @ 6kn (owner’s figures)
RANGE: 960nm at 6 knots with 20% reserve (based on owner’s figures)

Aquanaut Drifter 1350 AK costs and options

FUEL: 650 litres per year, based on 25 hours at 9 knots and 25 hours at 6 knots
BERTHING: £10,672 per year (based on £779/metre for a Hamble River marina downstream of Bursledon bridge)

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

This article Aquanaut Drifter 1350 AK used boat review: Quality Dutch craftmanship appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

Like a number of boat builders, Colvic has a slightly chequered history. But unlike the others, and perhaps oddly so, given that Colvic was once a major force in British boat building, its heritage is quite difficult to chart, with only limited reference material available.

What we do know, however, is that the firm began its operations in 1964 in the Blackwater estuary under the guidance of founders, Colin Burns and Victor Pascoe. Named Ardleigh Laminated Plastics, Col and Vic would later come up with a much snappier portmanteau which manifested itself both as Colvic Craft and, in collaboration with Glasgow-based GL Watson & Co, as Colvic Watson.

Colvic began by producing GRP hulls that DIY enthusiasts could fit out, before going on to manufacture a range of vessels, from fishing boats to motor cruisers and yachts (including Clipper Round the World race boats).

Later in its history, the company became associated with a group of ex-Fairline staff who had created an operation called Beaux Bateaux, which fitted out Colvic hulls. But problems arose in the late ‘90s when Colvic became embroiled in a lengthy legal battle over the design of its Sunquest 38, the model we feature here.

In 1998, the firm lost its fight on appeal and two years later went into liquidation with the loss of 50 jobs. The assets were picked up by Colchester-based Lancer Laminating Ltd, but just four years into the new millennium, the company’s doors closed once again – and this time, there would be no reprieve.

The unusual fly design uses a central helm flanked by a pair of reversible seat pods

While the firm’s legal issues doubtless contributed to its demise, they also had the effect of curtailing the production run of the Sunquest 38, which is a great shame, as it is sturdily built, well proportioned and very good looking. And while it might not be the most sought after of models, Colvics nonetheless command very decent resale values, thanks to a band of aficionados who appreciate their attributes.

To reinforce the point, the 2000 Colvic Sunquest 38 Flybridge you see here is on the books at Tingdene Boat Sales in Windsor for £129,950 – a price that’s certainly not out of kilter with comparable boats of a similar age.

Focus on flexibility

Flexibility was a major factor in Colvic’s appeal so it makes sense the Sunquest 38 Flybridge was offered with a host of engine choices. Various models from Volvo Penta, Perkins Sabre, Cummins, Iveco and Yanmar were all available.

While several of the options were in the order of 300hp or above, our review boat was equipped with twin 225hp Perkins Sabre diesels on shafts. Although a total of 450hp is adequate for seagoing recreation, the lower rating makes it a handy river cruiser and that’s precisely what owner, Dave Bayliss, used it for…

Article continues below…

“The previous owner used to take it out through London to the sea, but my wife didn’t want that so we kept it on the Thames,” explained Dave. “We fell for the boat as soon as we saw it. We met the former owner and he was a perfectionist. Normally with boats, you turn up, try to turn something on and it doesn’t work – but not with this one. Everything worked, it was perfect. We took it out for a run and it handled so well. It turns on a sixpence and it’s just a lovely boat.

“It’s also great to live on. In fact, we used to stay on board for a couple of weeks at a time. There’s a big genny on there, which is really handy, and the water tanks are big too. On one occasion, our daughter and her husband came with us on a two-week trip and it was brilliant. It’s a really sociable boat with plenty of space for entertaining and you’ve also got two bathrooms with showers, so it’s great for a pair of couples.”

As Dave intimated, his boat has been beautifully maintained and is in excellent condition – and that’s not just the previous owner but him too, so whoever ends up buying this particular Colvic Sunquest 38 Flybridge is going to feel justly proud of their purchase.

The deep, safe cockpit is crying out for some freestanding furniture

The twin Perkins Sabre engines, for instance, absolutely gleam. From the moment you slip in, through the ship-style watertight engineroom door (located in a bulkhead within the large aft cockpit lazarette) you find yourself in a grease and oil-free environment where every pipe and cable has been fastidiously tie-wrapped into place. Compared to a lot of enginerooms we’ve seen, this one is exemplary.

Accessible deck layout

Back up on deck, the good news continues. Easily accessed, wide and well protected side decks lead forward to a spacious double sun pad on the foredeck. The aft cockpit also has bags of room. On our test boat, it comprises a four-man bench seat, which faces across an open deck space that’s just crying out for a freestanding table and some directors’ chairs.

From here, a steepish eight steps lead up to the flybridge, where a central helm is flanked by seats on either side. While the starboard one faces both ways, the port one forms part of a unit that wraps around the rear of the flybridge. Again, there’s no table up here but it’s a very sociable flybridge that looks well set up for lazy days on the river.

A marble-topped cabinet sits opposite a large café-style dining area

Entering the wheelhouse by way of the aft cockpit’s patio doors is a joy. In fact, the first impression is that you’ve just strolled into a swish upmarket café rather than a 25-year-old boat. It’s fitted with a plush beige carpet that looks as if it’s never been trodden on.

There’s also a marble-topped cabinet to port, with a generous amount of storage space, plus an integrated fridge, which seems a touch excessive, given that there’s another fridge just a few steps forward in the galley. Then again, a boat built for socialising needs all the drinks coolers it can get.

Opposite that, a sumptuously upholstered settee meanders its way from the door to the helm. And just to complete the relaxed café vibe, there’s a freestanding glass-topped table and a pair of stools in here too.

There’s a second fridge, plus a hob and microwave in the compact forward galley

If you take two steps up from the settee, you find yourself at the lower helm. In addition to a functional array of dials and gauges set into a wood-faced dash, it features a generous chart area and a seat wide enough for two adults and a child.

Ahead of a dividing unit opposite the helm, another three steps lead down to the galley, which is equipped with a double hob, microwave, sink, drainer and a modest amount of worktop space. Storage is provided both in the dividing unit and in the void adjacent to the microwave. You might find it’s a tad compact for a boat of this size but it’s a perfectly serviceable region of the boat.

One final step down from the galley takes you to the boat’s accommodation zone. There’s a day heads to port and a guest cabin to starboard, featuring a transverse double bed with a single berth running longitudinally above the foot-end of the main bed.

The owner gets decent volume, plus a pair of hanging lockers that are deeper than they look

It’s a great way to use limited space but all the same, space really is limited. In fact, this is the region of the boat that reminds you most forcibly that you’re on a 38-footer. Storage space is restricted to two drawers beneath the double bed and a cubby hole under the single but, of course, if you don’t tend to cruise with guests, then the entire cabin can be used for storage anyway so it’s by no means a critical issue.

Even so, head forward and the owner’s cabin is a far more roomy affair. You get a full-size double bed and two wardrobes that are much more useful than their short doors suggest. Open them up and you see that the floor drops away on the inside, providing plenty of hanging depth for your cruising gear. That’s supplemented with some attractive shelving along either side of the bed – and as you would expect, there’s also a private ensuite in here, which (like the day heads) is fully equipped with a loo, a basin and a shower.

Overlapping beds make great use of the space and they’re more sociable than bunks too

Old-school excellence

With its graceful lines and smooth curves, the Colvic Sunquest 38 Fly could legitimately be described as ‘old school’ by today’s standards. But does that make it dated? Not in our book, and certainly not in the eyes of the brand’s fans.

We asked owner, Dave, for his concluding thoughts and he was very forthright with his verdict. “It’s a classy boat,” he said. “There are so many other boats on the river, but they’re all the same. The Colvic is a bit different. It’s an unusual boat that’s well laid out. It’s an excellent family boat and it’s great for entertaining too.” Enough said.

Colvic Sunquest 38 Flybridge specifications

DESIGNER: Fairbrother Mouldings
HULL TYPE: Planing
RCD: Category B
LOA: 38ft 4in (11.7m)
BEAM: 13ft 5in (4.1m)
DRAFT: 3ft 0in (0.9m)
AIR DRAFT: 12ft 4in (3.76m)
DISPLACEMENT: 10,000kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 380L
WATER CAPACITY: 180L
TOP SPEED: 24-28kn
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 1.75L/nm @ 20 knots
RANGE: 173nm at 20 knots with 20% reserve

Colvic Sunquest 38 Flybridge costs and options

FUEL: 1,000 litres per annum (based on 25 hours at 20 knots & 25 hours at 6 knots)
BERTHING: £9,192.00 (based on £779/metre for a Hamble River marina downstream of Bursledon bridge)

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

This article Colvic Sunquest 38 Flybridge used boat review: Old-school excellence appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

Over 65 years ago, John Orin Edson bought the brand name Bayliner for the modest sum of $100, beginning the story of what would eventually become one of the largest boatbuilders in the world. By the time of his death in 2019, Mr Edson, who began building boats as a child, had amassed a net worth of $1.4 billion – and a key element in his success was the sale of Bayliner Marine Corp in 1986 to Brunswick for an eye-watering $425 million.

Today, with more than 400 dealers in over 60 countries, Bayliner is still going strong with an extensive portfolio of deck boats, bow riders, centre consoles and pilothouse models. But for this particular review, we have picked a model larger than anything Bayliner currently produces – the family-friendly 315 Cruiser.

On the water

While most Bayliner 315s are to be found in saltwater environments, we tracked down our 2010 test boat on the River Thames in Windsor, where Tingdene Boat Sales has it on offer for £69,950. You’d pay the same for a comparable Fairline Targa 30 that’s ten years older than this, so while the 315 happily ticks the affordable box, it’s interesting to muse on exactly why they are so much cheaper.

The helm is a multi-tiered cacophony of switchgear, chrome and lighting

When I began boating many years ago I asked my instructor the same question of my newly acquired Four Winns 268 Vista. “If the Four Winns is a Ford, the Fairline is an Audi,” came the reply – and that pretty much sums it up. My American boat, while doing its job perfectly well, was simply not in the same category as the division’s heavyweight competitors. But that didn’t make it a lightweight. Rather, it was a vessel rooted firmly in the middleweight ranks and the same goes for the Bayliner 315.

Interestingly, it uses petrol engines rather than diesels. That means fuel purchase prices are going to be higher, but our original review of a Bayliner 315 reported that, with a light touch on the throttle, consumption was a very modest 1.8 litres per nm at 20 knots. We didn’t record what happens at 40 knots but that’s not a zone many owners will tend to investigate.

As for the fixtures, fittings and general levels of appointment, these are all a notch down on a boat like the Fairline Targa 30 but being newer, they also look more modern. Overall quality is perfectly acceptable and, given the proliferation of these boats around the globe, it’s clear that there are plenty of family boaters out there who share that view.

The sociable open cockpit begins with a long port bench

Among them are the owners of our review boat, Colin and Kirsty Betteridge. They picked up their 315 when their children were nine and 12 years old so we asked Colin what the appeal was for them. “I think it was good design,” he says. “It has quite a sporty look and a really amazing layout for a family.” Being river-based meant that fuel consumption wasn’t an issue either. “I’d love to have taken it to sea but unfortunately, we just got to putt-putt along the Thames, which was a bit of a waste, considering how powerful the boat is.”

Where the twin Mercruiser engines did come in handy though was for manoeuvring. “The two engines were quite important,” says Colin, well aware of the limitations of single-engine propulsion. “We did have a bow thruster, but it could sometimes be a bit challenging docking with the wind. We kept her in quite a windy spot and it’s a relatively high-sided boat, so you’ve certainly got a bit of windage going on there.”

There’s a handy drop-in section for the starboard quarter’s corner seats

Family-friendly layout

The layout Colin so enjoyed is also a key feature of the Bayliner 315. Versatile and flexible, it has clearly been designed to maximise the benefits of open cockpit boating. Top of the list here is socialising, with bags of seating for the full ship’s company of nine.

At the starboard quarter is a four-seat L-shaped dinette, with another three-seater settee forward and to port. And if you’re wondering how the other two guests can join the conversation, the twin helm seat also pivots 90 degrees to face the settee.

An angled forward bed and compact dinette free up the space for a proper galley

For extra relaxation, you can drop the aft table down, add its infill cushion and, hey presto, a corner lounger appears. Bayliner has even managed to cram a wet bar into the 315’s rear port quarter. While it doesn’t have a powered fridge, it does incorporate a portable Igloo coolbox so if you’re heading ashore for a party, you can simply take it with you.

Completing the picture in the cockpit is the helm – an area where the American passion for knobs, switches and chrome detailing comes shining through. While most boatbuilders opt for anti-glare surfaces wherever possible, Bayliner has gone all-in, blessing each of the 13 gauges immediately ahead of the steering wheel with shiny chrome surrounds. Beneath the dials, a chartplotter, VHF, bow thruster, stereo and switchgear all jostle for attention in a compact console unit. Most fun of all though is the line of 24 mini lights at the seat base, which light up your knees like Blackpool Illuminations.

One thing that distracts from the cockpit aesthetic though is the companionway hatch, which (in the absence of side decks) doubles up to give access through the step-through windscreen to the foredeck. It certainly looks beefy enough to bear the weight of people clambering over it but with its expanse of plain white GRP and an industrial looking aluminium runner with exposed screwheads, it is not a thing of beauty.

The fully featured galley has the look and feel of a modern-day unit

That said, when you slide the hatch over and venture below decks, the ‘entertainment-first’ theme resumes with a larger-than-expected galley on the port side. At about 5ft long, with a black worktop and light wood cabinetry, it comes with a fridge, a Kenyon electric/alcohol stove, a sink, a food preparation space and plenty of storage below. It’s an impressively comprehensive feature and it looks as modern today as it did the day it was built.

Up above, a second unit houses more storage lockers and a microwave; and opposite all of this is the dinette, which in contrast to the galley is a bit on the small side, with space for three or maybe four at a push.

The remainder of the lower deck is occupied by the wetroom-style heads and the boat’s two sleeping areas. The heads is a good size and comes equipped with an electric toilet and a basin with a tap that doubles up as a pull-out shower head.

The dinette is just about big enough for three or four

Further aft, the mid-cabin has a double bed and a decent size of storage unit (which also incorporates the boat’s electrical panel) but the fact that it sits beneath the helm makes it quite a compact space. Headroom is okay at the bedhead but it’s restricted at the foot – and yet this cabin remains perfectly usable as a guest berth and equally handy as a storage space when cruising as a couple.

As for the boat’s bow cabin, there’s no bulkhead to cordon it off from the galley and dinette but you do get a privacy curtain and you also get a double bed mounted at a 45-degree angle to make best use of space. It’s not the most private of arrangements, but it’s acceptable for a family. The only real decision is whether to put the kids in the bow or mid-cabin.

There’s a handy locker just ahead of the extended aft platform

Frill-free value

The Bayliner 315 is a perfectly capable cruising boat. It may not have the prestige of a premium brand, but it will comfortably do everything the average family boater asks of it. Most importantly though, it’s about what this boat won’t do – which is break the bank. And that, in today’s economic climate, is a very appealing trait.

Bayliner 315 Cruiser specifications

HULL TYPE: Planing
RCD: Category B, 9 persons
LOA: 30ft 6in (9.3m)
BEAM: 10ft 0in (3.05m)
DRAFT: 3ft 4in (1.01m)
DISPLACEMENT: 4,127kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 454 litres
WATER CAPACITY: 124.9 litres
TOP SPEED: 40 knots approx
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 1.8 litres per nm @ 20 knots
RANGE: 202nm at 20 knots with 20% reserve

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

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This article Bayliner 315 Cruiser used boat review: A very capable little boat appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

Founded in the late 1960s and originally based near Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, the Birchwood Boat Company forged its reputation building cruisers for the inland waterways and estuaries markets. Initially focusing on 18 to 22ft craft, the firm expanded its range up to 29ft in the ‘70s and to 37ft in the ’80s. Later, under the name of Birchwood Marine, vessels up to 51ft were also constructed, including the subject of this review, the Birchwood Crusader 400.

Launched in 1998 and offered with a flybridge or in a hardtop format known as the Compact, the Birchwood Crusader 400 superseded the 380 series, the key changes being a revised hull design and a revamped interior.

With a pair of throaty Mercruiser D-Tronic engines pumping out a total of 500 horsepower to push its semi-displacement hull to speeds of around 24 knots, you would think (quite naturally) that the Birchwood Crusader 400 would make quite a formidable seagoing boat – and so it did for many. But as we discovered when preparing this used boat report, not everybody wants that. That’s because for some owners, including Alan Hodge, whose boat we feature here, their idea of boating heaven involves pottering around on the inland waterways at an altogether more stately pace.

Alan and his wife, Lisa, have spent much of the past three years in the Norfolk Broads, living aboard their Birchwood Crusader 400. “Our home is in the Surrey Hills but when we retired, we decided it was time to live the life,” says Alan. “We wanted to be on the Broads and we decided we would live on board, on and off, for two or three weeks at a time. Come home for a week to make sure the house is still standing and then go back up there for another couple of weeks.”

As a 41ft flybridge cruiser with a 13ft beam, the Birchwood is a lot of boat for the money

A flybridge for inland use

Alan and Lisa began that retirement journey with a Heritage 39, a purpose-built, low air draft inland waterways cruiser. “But the problem was you could never see over the reeds when they were in full bloom!” recalls Alan.

“So you’ve got to work out whether to have a flatbed like the Heritage 39 so you can go through the bridges, like Loddon Bridge, or go for something like a sea boat instead. That would mean you’re restricted in where you can go – you can’t go to Loddon, for instance, no matter what the tide is doing. But you can go to the north side of the Broads if you get the tides right.

Article continues below…

Prestige 36 Fly used boat review: A lot on offer at an accessible price

Astondoa 39 used boat review: Proper quality engineering

“We were over that side to start off with and while the flybridge does restrict you a little bit, we weren’t really bothered. There was enough of the Broads that we could enjoy. But while we really liked it, the travelling became too much. It used to take us about three hours to get there when we started, but it got worse and worse, eventually taking up to four-and-a-half hours. So we decided the time had come to part with the boat.”

Now on sale with Brundall-based Norfolk Boat Sales, Alan and Lisa’s Year 2000 model is on the market for £99,500. For a vessel that’s 41ft long with a beam approaching 13ft, that’s a big boat for the money, especially considering it has a flybridge and is in generally very good condition.

With its facing benches and natural elevation, the aft cockpit is ideal for socialising

Clever cabins

In terms of accommodation, the Crusader 400 offers two cabins. The first of these, the guest cabin, is located in the forepeak and features an unusual berth arrangement with two single beds located at different heights. This allows the port bed, the higher of the two, to overlap the lower starboard berth.

The effect of this is that the overall footprint of the two berths is condensed, thereby creating space which would otherwise be lost to the ‘vee’. It’s a clever move, which Birchwood has capitalised upon by fitting a substantial storage unit beneath the port bed and a second, even larger, unit at its foot.

There’s enough room at the end of the starboard bed for a full-height wardrobe and a bigger space to move around in than is usual for a forward vee-berth cabin. Although this configuration means separate beds, Birchwood did also offer a more conventional double-berth forward cabin as an option.

The deep cushions and curved edges are all about homeliness rather than design flair

Aft of this bow cabin is the day heads, which contains the full complement of fitments: basin, toilet and shower plus a small amount of storage in a compact but perfectly serviceable space. The master cabin is a full-beam aft affair, accessed via three steps down from the main saloon.

Generously proportioned, there’s a full-size double bed, flanked by a cubicle on either side – one containing the toilet and a washbasin; and the other housing a shower unit and a second basin. In the intervening space, Birchwood has managed to cram in a full-height wardrobe, a dressing table and a set of drawers. All of this notwithstanding, there’s still plenty of floorspace to move around the cabin.

A dinette, opposite the galley, converts into a handily private third double berth

Homely vibes

In between the two cabins, the wheelhouse is home to four separate areas: the saloon, galley, dining area and lower helm. Dressed in tones of beige and with two facing settees – one a five seater, the other a three – the saloon is a wide, warm and cosy space. There’s no place here for any square edges or pin-sharp lines because Birchwood’s designers were always very committed to comfort. And while that does limit the dynamism of the styling and decor, it also makes for a much more user-friendly boat.

The homeliness of the saloon is complemented by the fact that both the galley and the dining area are tucked away down a couple of steps forward, largely out of sight of anyone on the sofas. The spacious port galley is particularly well appointed, with a double sink, full-size fridge, four-burner hob, microwave and bags of storage space. Moreover, its dark worktops and solid wood cabinetry have stood the test of time well.

The well equipped (and slightly recessed) galley has stood the test of time really well

There’s no sense at all that the galley has dated in the last 24 years. Opposite that, the U-shaped dinette is a little less appealing but the table does drop down to enable you to convert it into an occasional third berth – and there’s a neat privacy curtain to screen off the entire area when you do so.

At the lower helm, a deeply cushioned double seat provides the same level of comfort as the rest of the saloon. While some structural mullions do get in the way a little bit, the view forward and to each side is decent. There’s not a huge amount of ventilation in evidence here, so helming from this position could also get a little stuffy but of course, this is a flybridge model, so that is where the majority of the helming is likely to take place.

Upper deck

The flybridge is accessed from the raised aft cockpit – another spacious area with wrap-around seating on the aft and port sides and a single seat to starboard. There’s also ample room here for a freestanding table and chairs. Three steps lead up to the flybridge, which has been designed more for relaxation than entertaining.

Split bathroom makes the full-beam aft cabin look a bit tight but is actually very practical

There’s no formal dining area here; just a single starboard helm seat and two cushioned seating units separated by a triangular table-cum-drinks holder. But one thing the flybridge does have that enhances its suitability for inland waterways cruising is a collapsible radar arch. Lowered manually, but on gas struts to help bear the load, this decreases the air draft by 4ft 7in (1.4m).

Cruising ground considerations

One piece of advice Alan would give to anyone looking at making the Norfolk Broads their home cruising grounds would be to spec up the boat to make sure it’s fit for purpose. In Alan’s case, that meant investing in a set of six heavy-duty batteries to reduce reliance on shore power. “When you’re just trickling around at six knots, or even four in places like Wroxham, the batteries aren’t being charged as powerfully as they would be if you were out at sea,” he says.

Overlapping beds in the forward guest cabin free up space for extra storage

“While there is shore power to be had around the Broads, in the six weeks of summer, when there are lots more boats and people around, it can be a bit of a problem. In fact, before I changed them, the old batteries would be dead after two days. When I upgraded the battery bank, I also went for a monitoring system I could dial up on my phone. That’s brilliant because it shows you how much power you’ve got left – and we never had a flat battery again!”

In our original test, we concluded that the Birchwood Crusader 400 is a practical boat for practical boating people. After exploring Alan’s very clean, tidy and serviceable boat, we’ve seen nothing at all to change that view.

Birchwood Crusader 400 Flybridge specifications

MODEL: Birchwood Crusader 400
DESIGNER: Birchwood
HULL TYPE: Semi-displacement
RCD: B12
LOA: 41ft 1in (12.50m)
BEAM: 12ft 8in (4.10m)
DRAFT: 3ft 0in (0.91m)
AIR DRAFT (MAX): 16ft 9in (5.13m)
DISPLACEMENT: 8,500kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 910L
WATER CAPACITY: 273L
TOP SPEED: 24 knots
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 3.78L/Nm @ 19 knots
RANGE: 192Nm at 19 knots with 20% reserve

Birchwood Crusader 400 Flybridge cost and options

Berthing: £8,875 (based on £710/metre for a Hamble River marina downstream of Bursledon bridge)
Fuel burn: Annual fuel burn 2,145 litres (based on 25 hours at 21.3 knots and 25 hours at 10 knots)

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

This article Birchwood Crusader 400 Flybridge Used Boat Review appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

When we first put the Jeanneau Prestige 36 through its paces in 2000, we noted that this well-specced flybridge came in at an astonishing £40k less than its nearest rival. While the Prestige 36 was a tad smaller than its British competitors, the Sealine F37 and the Princess 38, there was no getting away from the fact that the Jeanneau represented an awful lot of boat for your money.

The Prestige 36 was also the Prestige range’s first foray into the flybridge market. The move proved so successful that in 2010 Prestige was spun off from Jeanneau into a separate brand. Today, Prestige is one of the world’s foremost flybridge builders, with a portfolio that spans seven models from 50 to 70ft, so it’s no overstatement to say that the 36 was the start of something big for the French company.

But price was not the only attention-grabbing element of those early 36s. The interior quality, although built to a price, wasn’t too far behind that of the premium brands and the accommodation, inside and out, was more than adequate for a family of four on a cruise or for larger day-tripping parties.

The Prestige 36 was quick off the mark too. With its twin 260hp Volvo Penta KAD 44s our early test boat was on the plane within four seconds from a standing start, achieving a top speed of 27.6 knots. Higher power engines were also offered during the 36’s production run, including 370hp Volvo TAMD63s, which would take it to around 33 knots; and later 310hp D6s, which are the engines fitted to the boat featured in this review – a 2006 model offered for sale by River Hamble and Southampton-based Aspire Boat Sales for £114,950.

Big windows and cream-coloured upholstery make for a nice bright saloon

Small boat, big space

While smaller flybridges can come in for criticism for looking and feeling top heavy and having steep steps up to the fly, the overall length of the Prestige 36 (36ft 7in) is just enough to overcome these issues. Back in 2000 we reported that the test boat handled an awkward 2ft Solent chop with aplomb and the seven steps up to the flybridge presented no problems when scaling them.

Nor is the flybridge unduly small. Twin helm and navigator seats swivel round to face a table, which has a fixed wraparound seating unit for five or six people. The starboard part of that unit has a canted leading edge so it can double up as a chaise longue and the aft seatback also folds flat to integrate with another cushion and create a double sunpad.

If additional lounging space is required, the foredeck is the place to look. Accessed by particularly wide side decks on either side, there’s plenty of room for two people up front. And for those looking to relax on the main deck, the aft cockpit, with its four-person seating unit and space aplenty for a free- standing table and chairs, fits the bill well.

Deck storage is good too with a large lazarette in the aft cockpit, plus lockers below the seating units, both in the cockpit and up on the fly. Add to that a decent-sized locker sunk into the bathing platform and it’s clear this boat offers bags of stowage for your outdoor kit.

The free-standing table can be moved out into the cockpit for eating al fresco

As a result of those wide side decks, the wheelhouse is a shade on the compact side but it still manages to accommodate a 4/5-seat settee around a dining table with a 2-seat settee opposite. There’s also a storage unit, the top of which is ideal for a TV.

Moving forward between the seats takes you past a dividing unit to the starboard-mounted helm and portside galley. The helm has a plump leather-clad double seat, which although not adjustable does provide a decent driving position. Forward and side visibility is good too. And the galley, two steps down from the helm, is also well appointed for a boat of this size, with a three-burner hob, twin-bowl sink, microwave, full-size fridge and plenty of storage below the counter top.

Ahead of all this lie the boat’s two cabins and heads. The snug guest cabin has quite limited headroom but the twin beds can be configured as a double with the addition of an infill panel. That takes up most of the available space but there’s also a wardrobe occupying the area opposite the door.

Opposite that, the heads punch well above their weight by offering a wet room shower/toilet area with a dry space for the washbasin. There’s also a Jack-and-Jill door through to the master cabin, so it can be used as a day heads, an ensuite or both.

The galley is two steps down from the saloon but still connected to it

The master cabin has much more space to play with in the forepeak and it makes the most of that with a centrally mounted double bed, single storage locker and full-height, albeit slimline, wardrobe.

Ownership experience

There’s no question that the Prestige packs a tremendous amount into compact proportions and the quality is more than acceptable too, with solid feeling fixtures and fittings, and high-gloss woodwork throughout. But when we asked owner, Jonny Davies, a former passenger boat skipper on the Thames, what attracted him to the boat, accommodation, space and versatility were all high on his list.

Both helm chairs swivel to face the main table and seating area up on the flybridge

“My wife Jenny and I were moving up from a Merry Fisher 795 and saw a flybridge as the next step,” he says. “For me, the Prestige 36’s best quality is that it’s great for the UK climate. It’s got a decent sized cabin and the L-shaped seating in the saloon with the TV is a lovely place to hunker down at the end of the day.”

“For me, the big positive is the heating on board and the well insulated cabin,” adds Jenny. “We love winter boating and this allows us to go out at all times of the year.”

The aft cockpit has plenty of storage under the deck and bench seating

“The only downside is when Jenny needs to go outside to handle the lines,” says Jonny. “They were frozen solid in Gosport this year when it was minus four! But I love being outside and having the flybridge because I do probably 95 per cent of the helming from up there. And just being able to switch between the two with zero drama is great.

“We’ve got a console cover up top, so if the weather turns when we’re out, we can just bung the cover over and drive from downstairs. It’s nice having the aft cockpit all enclosed as well. The amount of options you get with this boat is excellent.”

The forward owner’s cabin has its own ensuite access to the shared bathroom

It’s clear that the Prestige 36 has also allowed Jonny and Jenny to venture much further afield than their old Merry Fisher. “Having the extra accommodation enables us to stay aboard longer and explore further afield,” says Jonny. “We keep the boat in Universal Marina on the Hamble, but we live in Oxfordshire. An important part of it was being able to have a few more creature comforts than a weekender, so we can come down and leave things like the bedding and clothes on board.”

But it’s equally clear that the sea manners of the Prestige have been a major bonus. “When we go out, we’ll go to places like Brighton or we’ll do something like a lap around the Isle of Wight, maybe stopping off at Whitecliff Bay. Then we might go into Gosport for a night or two or spend the night down in any one of the nice sheltered coves around the Island. And the seakeeping is immense.

Limited headroom in the guest cabin but the bed can be made up as twins or a double

“We’ve been out in far worse conditions in this boat than we did in the Merry Fisher. It’s just that much more capable. Down on the lower helm, it can sometimes get a bit wet if you’re punching through the chop, but the windscreen wipers work perfectly well. And up on the flybridge, like I say, the visibility is fantastic. I remember on one occasion, we went to Buckler’s Hard with the Universal Yacht Club and it was great fun on the way back. We all got caught out by the weather but we had no dramas at all. We literally got back home and put the kettle on. Job done!”

So here is a boat that has the four key bases covered. You get performance, handling, accommodation and space. It might not be the most eye-catching boat out there, but with so much on offer at such an accessible price, it’s tough to make a case against it.

Helm station looks good but has limited room for a modern chartplotter installation

Prestige 36 Fly specifications

MODEL: Prestige 36
DESIGNER: Jeanneau and Garroni & Musio Sale
HULL TYPE: Planing
RCD: Category B (8 persons)
LOA: 36ft 7in (11.16m)
BEAM: 12ft 7in (3.84m)
DRAFT: 3ft 0in (0.93m)
AIR DRAFT: 11ft 3in (3.45m)
DISPLACEMENT: 8,300kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 800 litres
WATER CAPACITY: 400 litres
TOP SPEED: 27.6 knots (with KAD44 260hp engines)
RANGE: 203nm at 22.2 knots with 20% reserve

Prestige 36 Fly costs and options

FUEL: Annual fuel burn 2,920 litres (based on 25 hours at 25.1 knots and 25 hours at 9.4 knots)
BERTHING: £7,923 per year (based on £710/metre for a Hamble River marina downstream of Bursledon bridge)

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

This article Prestige 36 Fly used boat review: A lot on offer at an accessible price appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

Way back in the beginning was the Record!, an 80-foot, grey-and-yellow monohull designed by Fabio Buzzi and packing 6,000hp, built for the express purpose of making a splash. True to its name, in one hectic season more than 20 years ago it set three new long-distance powerboat records – around Italy, from Monte Carlo to London and, finally, around Britain, the latter at an average speed of more than 40 knots.

I was a witness to that one, and when they came into St Katharine Docks in London, Buzzi and his navigator, Dag Pike, and co-drivers Simon Powell and Hannes Bohinc looked shattered, but justifiably pleased with themselves.

There was always an ulterior motive to Buzzi’s racing and record attempts, and while he sold a lot of hulls to military and coastguard agencies, he thought of the 80 as a fast motor yacht. Sure enough, Otam boss Giancarlo Rampezzotti, a longtime friend and associate of the Italian engineering maestro, put the 80 into production as a head-turning, custom-built fast cruiser. The new Otam 90 GTS, launched at the Cannes Yachting Festival last September, is its direct descendant.

The GTS’s vast cockpit has the emphasis placed firmly on guest entertainment

Loud and proud

It could probably set a few records of its own, if not for speed and endurance then maybe for the decibel levels cranked out by its stupendous sound system, which is so intimidating that it has its own compartment, complete with a dedicated fan coil unit to keep it cool. Even Otam’s technical drawings label this one the ‘party boat’.

Custom built is key to the concept. Few 90-footers can have been constructed to quite such bespoke requirements. The owner, based in the Med, uses Sexy Me as a big, glamorous dayboat with his family and friends, and I have to say it looks like they have a pretty good time.

There is no dining table and just a crew galley, plus a pantry on the lower deck for making coffee, pouring wine, and concocting cocktails. There are lockers in the cockpit that hold more drinking vessels than the entire glassware department at Heal’s.

A seagull’s eye view of the foredeck lounge

Otam only builds about four boats a year, so as a shipyard it spends more time than most listening to customers, and is prepared to at least entertain any idea you can come up with. It’s not quite carte blanche, however. Because fast boats need to be built like tanks in order to withstand the extreme impacts created by choppy conditions, the 90’s internal bulkheads are carefully aligned and extend from the deckhead right down to the hull bottom, to maximise structural integrity. So once the interior layout of each 90 is agreed, and construction starts, there’s no going back. You can’t change your mind.

The hull itself is Kevlar, which is more flexible than carbon- fibre and consequently offers a slightly more cushioned ride. The hardtop is carbon. In contrast to these high-tech materials, the 90’s interior is built using stubbornly old-school methods, and is constructed first in situ, by hand, to ensure a perfect fit, before being dismantled and taken out for lacquering and varnishing, and then reinstalled. Compared with the streamlined production-line methods employed by most yards these days, “it takes twice as long and costs four times as much,” according to Otam sales supremo Matteo Belardinelli.

The foredeck seats show off their versatility

While the 90’s main deck is a fully optimised entertaining space, with two bars, sunbathing and seating areas fore and aft, and plenty of seating in the shade of the hardtop – not forgetting the titanium deck fittings – the lower deck is laid out along more conventional lines.

Three ensuite cabins lead off from the spacious open lobby at the foot of the main companionway: a twin on the port side, the VIP up in the bow, and the master amidships, down two steps. Their layouts are sensibly rectilinear and make efficient use of most of the available space, and plenty of thought has also gone into maximising stowage volume, which is divided between drawers, numerous hanging lockers, and the cavernous spaces under the double mattresses, which lift bodily on gas struts.

Across the full beam of the hull – which is comparatively slender at just under 20 feet, or six metres, this being at heart a performance offshore boat – the master cabin feels spacious and comfortable, with plenty of floor area. Headroom throughout the accommodation is a generous 6ft 7in or more (2.02m), and there has been no skimping on the size of the beds either: even the twins are 30in (76cm) wide and a surprising 6ft 6in (1.99m) long.

The owner’s cabin is amidships with its ensuite arranged along the aft bulkhead

Smart glass in the hull windows provides privacy to the cabins when moored alongside other boats without shutting out the daylight, while the removeable blackout panels for the master cabin’s side windows are another nice touch, being neater and more effective than curtains or blinds. They can be stowed in the hanging locker, and take up no space at all. The crew arrangements were a particular requirement of this owner: a total of four berths in cabins forward and aft, accessed via the cockpit sole and the foredeck.

When all is said and done, of course, there will only be one question on everybody’s lips as they watch you bring this rumbling behemoth alongside: what will it do? There is no denying the sheer horsepower involved, but it’s surface drives that are crucial to the 90’s performance.

The owner’s en suite

While Buzzi designed the original 80 with four engines coupled to two Trimax drives, the lengthened 90 makes do with two huge Arnesons and two 16-cylinder MTUs, totalling 4,800hp. The machinery space is somewhat constrained by the big tender garage overhead, which can take a 14ft (4.35m) RIB, but it is well organised and neatly engineered, and not as inaccessible as you might expect. You should have seen the engineroom on Record!

The VIP suite in the bow is almost as spacious as the owner’s suite

A hull deadrise of 28 degrees amidships, reducing to 20.5 degrees at the stern, is pretty deep for a boat of this size, and again reflects the marque’s offshore racing heritage. Attempting to obtain accurate fuel measurements on any surface drive boat is always a slightly comical process, as even the slightest adjustment to drive trim can make an enormous difference to speed and consumption.

But in the capable hands of the man who knows her best, her captain, we arrived at a set of numbers for the 90 that gives a reasonable reflection of its capabilities as a fast cruising boat, not the least of which was its impressive 43-knot top speed. Cruising at 35 knots is a perfectly realistic prospect.

A pantry rather than a galley or a fourth cabin was this owner’s choice

Handling was exemplary, and the boat proved pleasingly responsive to helm and throttle inputs – and to drive trim, of course – with just the right angle of heel and a gratifyingly tight turning circle.

The breeze had raised a light chop of two or three feet in the Baie de Cannes, and while we couldn’t claim to be unaware of it – hitting anything at 40 knots is bound to make a bit of a bang – the hull remained sublimely untroubled as it charged over the top of it all. As did we.

It was a fun ride, aboard a genuine party boat. The only thing we didn’t try out was that sound system. The captain assured me they never crank up the volume unless they are literally the only boat in the anchorage. It really is that loud.

4,800hp of German muscle in 90ft of sleek Italian styling is a pretty potent combination

Otam 90GTS specifications

Length overall: 91ft 0in (27.75m)
Beam: 19ft 7in (6.00m)
Draft: 5ft 10in (1.80m)
Displacement (light): 65 tonnes
Engines: 2 x 2,400hp MTU 16V 2000 M96
Fuel Capacity: 1,760 gal (8,000 lt)
Water capacity: 264 gal (1,200 lt)
Maximum speed: 43.4 knots
Cruising speed: 38 knots
RCD: CE certification: B for 16 people
Price from: €9 million ex VAT
Contact: otam.it

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

This article Otam 90 GTS Review: 43-knot party supercruiser appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

A common sight in the Med, but less so in UK waters, Astondoa has a heritage stretching back more than 100 years. The company’s story started in 1916, when carpenter brothers Jesús and José Astondoa began building rudimentary rowing boats for local fishermen in the small Spanish coastal town of Portugate, just north of Bilbao.

As their skills developed, the brothers moved on to more sophisticated vessels known as traineras – row or sail boats with a raised prow and rounded stern, traditionally used along the Spanish coast of the Cantabrian Sea. An Astondoa trainera would go on to win the 1929 Bilbao racing regatta, an important feat as fishermen prized boats that could get them to market quicker than their competitors.

In the wake of that success, ‘Astilleros Astondoa’ (Astondoa Shipyard) was soon contracted to build lifeboats. Roll on half a century to 1981 and Astondoa, by now located in Santa Pola near Alicante, built its first polyester resin boats.

These 12m recreational vessels initially supplemented the wooden craft that had helped it forge its reputation, but five years later only resin vessels were being produced. At that time there were 35 employees building 15 units per year, but since then, Astondoa has gone on to manufacture a whole range of models, from open boats and coupés to flybridges and 100ft-plus superyachts. Today, it will even build you a 197ft steel megayacht should you so desire.

The Spanish yard’s styling and build quality has stood the test of time very well

But the subject of our report is the Astondoa 39. Our example dates from 2004 and is being offered for sale by Lymington-based Berthon International for £145,000 including VAT. Despite the wealth of Astondoa information available online, including a 240-page multilingual tome on the business and its history, not a single word appears to have been written about the Astondoa 39.

The company’s communications department appears equally reticent on the matter and there’s no local dealer to turn to either. The vessels were once marketed in the UK by a Poole-based firm with a second location in Windermere, but the offices for both are now long gone. So we have pieced together the story of the mysterious Astondoa 39 with the help of the test boat’s original owner, former marine engineer, John Sandon-Allum.

Taking a tangent

“I purchased the boat new in 2004,” recalls John. “At the time, the broker was trying to introduce Astondoa into the UK. Because I’d had a couple of other boats off him previously and upgraded from a smaller to a larger one fairly quickly, he put the 39 on the mooring next to me. Then he said, ‘Oh, you were thinking of upgrading,’ threw me the keys and said, ‘Have a look around it, see what you think.’ My wife and I had a look and decided to buy it!

The ladder up to the flybridge is pretty steep but it’s worth the climb when you get there

“At the time, I had been looking at a Fairline Phantom 40 and a couple of others. But although the Fairline had two cabins with two bathrooms, it was quite cramped in the saloon area. I was thinking that in the cabins, you’re only sleeping. You don’t actually live in them that much. So we went with the Astondoa because it was so spacious in the saloon area. And although it only had one bathroom for its two cabins, that was enough for me, my wife and our two young girls at the time.

“The boat was also very, very well made. And looking around at other boats on the market, they just didn’t seem to have that sort of quality. It was a good price too, so we thought, why not? I have to say, we found it extremely attractive, and it hasn’t aged as much as some other makes of boats have. To my mind, it still looks relatively modern.”

He has a point. While it lacks the big hull windows and sharp lines of the very latest designs, it does still look good for a 20-year-old boat. And in our view, it gets even better on the inside, where a large and beautifully appointed Art Deco-style saloon awaits.

Accessed via the boat’s spacious aft-cockpit (which itself is accessed from an equally large bathing platform), the saloon sports not one but two super-comfy sofas, covered in a delightfully light and bright fabric which has stood the test of time well. In fact, our review boat sparkled like new in every respect, which is a credit to John and its subsequent owner. There’s lots of natural light, too, courtesy of long glazed panels on either side above each settee.

Walnut dashboard is rather splendid but visibility is compromised by thick windscreen mullions

The woodwork throughout the saloon, and indeed the rest of the boat, is equally impressive. Deep gloss finishes, rounded corners and ultra smooth lines make this boat feel surprisingly upmarket. The plush leather-clad double helm seat is a case in point. Its curved wood-framed back rises magnificently above the saloon’s starboard settee and ahead of that the wood theme continues with a walnut-faced dash.

It’s only when you perch your bum on the helm seat that you begin to realise you are not quite master of all you survey because the view ahead is significantly impeded by the roofline of the boat’s superstructure and chunky A-pillars. The view to either side isn’t that great either, and with only two small sliding windows it could all get a bit stuffy in here. But of course, this is a flybridge cruiser, so when the weather plays the game, none of this really matters.

The flybridge is accessed by way of a steep six-step ladder from the aft cockpit. The clamber up is rewarded by a good-sized fly with a central helm, a navigator’s seat to starboard and a seating unit to port, which stretches back and curves around the wet bar. Despite there being no table up top, this is a great space for drinks and casual entertaining. The other outside areas – the aft cockpit and sunpadded foredeck – offer plenty of space too.

Galley down layout is a bit dated but it’s actually quite practical and well equipped

Back inside, to the left of the helm, two steps lead down to the galley. Again, this is a spacious area with a double sink, twin hotplate, microwave, fridge and storage both above and below the countertop. And ahead of the galley is the boat’s accommodation: two cabins and the single heads. The guest cabin offers twin beds, storage lockers and a full-height wardrobe.

A little more light at the head end of the beds wouldn’t go amiss, but there is still room for a small table lamp on the unit between the two beds. The heads has Jack-and-Jill doors, so the master cabin, which has a large island bed with storage on either side plus a full height wardrobe, can claim a fully-equipped ensuite.

Big windows, light fabrics and wooden highlights make the most of the saloon’s space

Olesinski expertise

Clearly then, this is a boat with plenty of features that push it firmly toward the luxurious end of the scale, but how does it handle? “It’s got an Olesinski hull, hasn’t it?” offers former owner John. “We’ve been all over the place in it; all along the south coast and we used to go over to France a lot.

“I remember once, a storm blew up and the waves were probably 10ft higher than the boat. It was really, really bad. But the boat was absolutely superb. I was quite surprised it didn’t rock about much, but it’s a heavy boat and it’s quite a wide boat as well. Also, the hull is interleaved with Kevlar, so it’s pretty much bulletproof.”

The forward owner’s cabin still looks very clean and smart for a boat of this age

One thing that did concern us was access to the boat’s twin 370hp Volvo Penta TAMD-63-P engines. These are reached via a hatch in the saloon floor, which measures 2ft 6in by just over 12 inches – enough to do the daily checks but not much more.

“The engine access could be a bit better,” agrees John. “But actually, if you roll back the carpet, the whole floor does slot out. When I took it out, I would just stick it on the bathing platform. Then you can stand all round the engines. I always used to do that because I did the servicing. It would always take me a day or so, so I thought why not just take the flooring up and do it properly?”

We weren’t able to ascertain exactly how many Astondoa 39s there are in the UK, but we suspect that they’re few and far between. That said, if you’re interested, you can easily find a good selection available on the continent, particularly in Spain, and with prices appearing to be relatively low for a boat of this size, spec and quality, shelling out for transport back to Blighty might not be such a bad idea.

The twin cabin isn’t as bright or spacious but is fine for children and teenagers

Astondoa 39 specifications

MODEL: Astondoa 39
DESIGNER: Bernard Olesinski
HULL TYPE: Planing
RCD: A
LOA: 42ft (12.80m)
BEAM: 13ft (3.97m)
DRAFT: 2ft 6in (0.75m)
DISPLACEMENT: 11,200kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 2 x 450L
WATER CAPACITY: 350L
TOP SPEED: 28 knots (based on broker data)
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 2.68L/nm @ 28 knots (Volvo TAMD63L/P)
RANGE: 316.8 nm at 22 knots with 20% reserve

Astondoa 39 running costs

Annual fuel burn: 2,300 litres (based on 25 hours at 28 knots and 25 hours at 6 knots)
Berthing: £9,088 (based on £710 per m for a Hamble River marina downstream of Bursledon bridge)

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

This article Astondoa 39 used boat review: Proper quality engineering appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

There can be very few boats that have appeared three times at the Southampton Boat Show and been sold off the stand each time. To be clear, we’re not talking here about three different examples of the same product but the very same boat.

This achievement is, to our knowledge, unique and that’s very much like the vessel in question: the Cockwells Custom 32 – a gentleman’s motor launch built in 2005 to a very particular specification by Falmouth-based Cockwells Modern & Classic Boatbuilding.

Cockwells has been delighting its customers with vessels of exceptional quality for the past three decades.

It describes its mission as preserving heritage and embracing innovation and there’s no question that its Custom 32 fulfils that brief to a tee. Hand built with an epoxy-sheathed wooden hull and an interior finished in Cornish chestnut with black walnut trim, the boat gleams inside and out.

In fact, it looks as exquisite today as it did the day it was launched. The pilothouse is also constructed from timber – solid teak this time – and completing this woody picture, the remainder of the topsides, cockpit, side decks and foredeck are all teak-laid.

In the deep, safe cockpit, a pair of corner seats face aft toward a full-beam stern bench

The bad news is that the Custom 32 is one of a very small and select band of wooden Cockwells motor launches. The others are either 33 or 37ft in length so used purchasing opportunities are extremely limited. But fear not, for as sales and technical director Dave Cockwell explains, there’s a very viable alternative.

“Selling the same boat three times at the show convinced me the demand was there,” Cockwell says. “However, hand building boats like these comes at a cost, which limits the market so we decided to go down a different route, which was to launch our Duchy range. These are semi-production models built from GRP mouldings and, as such, are far more affordable. ‘Semi-production’ also means we can change the joinery and offer some layout choices.

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“And because they are built in numbers, everything is much more tried and tested than you get with a one-off boat. Not that we’ve actually had any issues with the custom ones. It’s more a case that the engineering in a semi-production boat tends to be more refined.”

Key models in the Duchy range are the 27 and 35, launched ten and five years ago respectively. Currently, there are 37 27-footers on the water and 20 35-footers and that significantly increases your chances of finding a quality used Cockwells motor launch.

A companionway between the helm seats takes you down to the forward galley and heads

Owner’s perspective

Returning to the vessel that spawned the Duchy range – the Cockwells Custom 32 – this particular boat has been owned for the past ten years by south coast boater, David Steele, who seems distinctly reluctant to let her go.

“We used to live in Christchurch, down at Priory Quays and kept her on the pontoon right outside the house,” Steele explains. “She’s beautiful for a day on the water and we’ve really enjoyed having her. But we moved to the West Country and took on a project house which has taken up a lot of our time.

“We agonised and agonised over it. Do we bring the boat down here or is it time to do other things? My whole background is sailing and, you know, I think I’m more likely to sail with other people down here. It was a close-run decision and every time I go back and think about it, I ask, are we making the right choice? But finally, we have decided.”

The instrumentation is set into a stylish dome-topped anti-glare dash panel

From the moment David took to sea in the Custom 32, he was able to fully appreciate its handling and abilities. “We purchased the boat from Cockwells and brought her back up from their base at Mylor Bridge,” he says. “That journey really convinced me of her fantastic seakeeping qualities.

“We had quite a big sea coming around Portland and her pilot cutter hull handled the waters beautifully. She just eats up the distance, the waves parting across her bows as she motions on through. There’s no slamming. She cuts through the water rather than skipping over it so it’s a great ride. And for slow speed work, the twin engines make her very manoeuvrable too.”

But for all its seakeeping qualities, the appeal of this boat is far from limited to its handling.

In addition to function, form is a massive part of the draw – and it’s not just the sweeping lines and chin-up bow profile that impress, but also the perfectly balanced contrast between the dark blue hull, the teak decking and the super-glossy woodwork of the pilothouse, cockpit and transom. If ever there was a boat that screams ‘gentleman’s motor launch’, this is it.

It looks great with no guardrails but care needs to be taken

External decks

In terms of features and fixtures, the Custom 32 continues to excel. With its clean uncluttered layout, the aft cockpit provides a spacious and relaxed area for socialising. A full-beam settee at the aft end is complemented by a pair of cushioned seats to the rear of the pilothouse.

Each seating area benefits from the protection afforded by the high sides of the cockpit, which rise 12 inches or so above the side decks – and beneath both the settee and the seats are storage lockers which entirely disappear from view when the cushions are in place.

While the absence of guardrails helps maintain the clean lines of the boat, security obviously matters too, and with an exposed foredeck and only a small toerail on the side decks, great care needs to be taken when moving around the outside of the boat.

The benches can be extended aft for sleeping by means of neat little ‘trotter boxes’

The fender attachment eyes are also worth noting here as they present a potential trip hazard as they rise vertically from the side decks just inside the toerails. On the plus side, the roof of the pilothouse does incorporate a number of handholds, which helps mitigate any risk.

Pilothouse and galley

Moving into the pilothouse, which is accessed by the shiniest door ever seen, the snug saloon exhibits an admirable symmetry throughout. Beginning with a pair of wooden storage units, two three-seater settees then face each other for the main run of the saloon.

As this boat does not have a cabin, the settees double up as berths. While stretching out for anyone taller than my own 5ft 7in might seem awkward, the aft cushion on each settee can be removed to reveal ‘trotter boxes’ built into the storage units, adding an extra foot or so to the length.

The Custom 32 uses a pair of Yanmar diesels on straight shafts

On the floor between the settees are two long hatches which lift out to reveal the boat’s twin shaftdrive Yanmar engines. One of these hatches also incorporates a table socket to transform the seating area into a dinette. And ahead of the settees, two rather grand floor-to-ceiling wooden posts do a good job of separating the saloon from the helm without making the helm feel remote.

Up at the business end, two very comfortable bolstered seats await the helm and navigator. Sitting or standing, the ergonomics are good with great all-round visibility thanks to the pilothouse’s large windows. The raked starboard steering wheel is integrated into a console with nav aids and radio, while other instrumentation is positioned ahead of the wheel in a stylish dome-topped anti-glare panel.

A step down from the helm leads to the split galley, which is beautifully crafted and pleasingly spacious by virtue of the fact that this boat has no dedicated sleeping cabins. With its sink to starboard and hob, microwave and fridge to port, plus plenty of worktop and storage on either side, it provides ample room to meet all onboard catering needs without the crew tripping over each other. At the forward end of the galley is a bi-fold door to the heads.

There’s an excellent galley split across a central companionway ahead of the helm

Once again, there is plenty of cabinetry and woodwork on show here and the boat’s toilet, which sits centrally mounted in the forepeak, is framed like a veritable throne! The sink’s tap incorporates a pull-out shower head unit too, and while this makes the heads a wetroom, with all that wonderful timber around, we would be sorely tempted to venture ashore for a shower.

Cockwells Custom 32 specifications

MODEL: Cockwells Custom 32
DESIGNER: Ed Burnett
HULL TYPE: Semi-displacement
RCD Category: C
LOA: 32ft 4in (9.85m)
BEAM: 9ft 9in (2.96m)
DRAFT: 2ft 6in (0.75m)
DISPLACEMENT: 5,180kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 2 x 190 litres
WATER CAPACITY: 430 litres
TOP SPEED: 20 knots
FUEL CONSUMPTION: 1.56 litres per nm @ 16.0 knots
RANGE: 194.6nm at 16.0 knots with 20% reserve

Cockwells Custom 32 running costs

FUEL: 800 litres (Estimated annual fuel burn based on 25 hours at 17 knots and 25 hours at 7 knots)
BERTHING: £6,993.50 (based on £710/metre for a Hamble River marina downstream of Bursledon bridge)

If you enjoyed this….

Motor Boat & Yachting is the world’s leading magazine for Motoryacht enthusiasts. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams, as well as tests and news of all the latest motorboats.

Plus you’ll get our quarterly Custom Yachting supplement where we share the last on offer in the superyacht world and at the luxury end of the market.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

This article Used Boat Review: Cockwells Custom 32 – A work of maritime art appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

Nearly 30 years ago Mark Richards, Australian yachtsman and boatbuilder, set up Palm Beach Yachts. He named the company after a favourite spot just to the north of Sydney, where he grew up and learned to sail.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then, and to cut a long story short, when the parent company of Grand Banks acquired Palm Beach in 2014, Mark found himself CEO not just of his original company but of Grand Banks as well.

All the boats are now built in the same factory in Malaysia, and share the same revolutionary hull design principles – which in fact originated with Palm Beach – and have a similar onboard aesthetic, with lots of beautiful hardwood joinery, plain off-white panelling and upholstery, and a terrific sense of space. So what’s the difference between a Palm Beach and a Grand Banks?

“Palm Beach is down-east,” Mark concedes with a smile. “But it’s sexier than Grand Banks.” So just as you won’t see a bulky-looking enclosed flybridge on a Palm Beach, or indeed any flybridge at all on many of them, you won’t find an open-top Grand Banks like one of Palm Beach’s GT models.

The long flybridge overhang creates effective cover for the cockpit

Take time out to appreciate the Palm Beach 70’s sleek exterior lines and you’ll quickly see what he means: low-profile and curvaceous in a beautifully understated way, this is a yacht that puts the class into classic with sleek styling that belies its length and height. But it’s also remarkably voluminous, with a beam of over 19ft (5.80m).

So for all its svelte looks, your first impression when you step aboard will be of the sheer size of the thing, from a broad cockpit with its bar and discrete seating areas, to the straightforward symmetry of its main deck layout, where sofas each side, and the separate two-seat helm and navigator’s stations, are divided by a wide walkway up the middle.

But there is also that useful handrail along the saloon deckhead which is such a signature feature of Grand Banks, fitted perhaps as a reminder that although sexier than its sister marque, a Palm Beach yacht is still designed to go to sea.

Big saloon windows emphasise the qualities of an already bright and airy main deck. One reason the cockpit feels so big is that the curved companionway leading up to the flybridge is just inside the door of the saloon, but it barely seems to intrude. Visibility from the lower helm station is also unusually good.

Comfortable fixed sofas in the midships section of the flybridge

Custom build

There are numerous layout options, according to Mark, and the shipyard is willing to talk about owners’ particular requirements. You can have the galley up on the main deck – it would be on the port side forward, so you would lose those nice navigators’ seats – but the Palm Beach 70 at the Cannes boat show last September had the lower-galley option, also on the port side, at the bottom of the companionway.

It’s big and practical, with good worktop and stowage space, and three large cooler drawers instead of a monolithic fridge taking up space in the corner. There is also a slightly unexpected low-level freezer in the aft cabin.

Tall guardrails and head-height handrails make for secure side decks

Extra stowage can be found under the sole in both the galley and in the adjacent lobby area, along with tank and equipment access. Lifting these hatches gave us a chance to admire the concealed fit-out, which appeared to be of a very high order indeed.

In all the more obvious places the finish looked positively perfect. It is perhaps Mark’s ocean racing background, where the slightest flaw or shortcut in build or fit-out might have serious consequences, that underwrites this quality.

The Palm Beach 70’s build is quite hi-tech: the hull is vacuum-infused E-glass, with foam cores, carbon reinforcement and vinylester resin, while the entirety of the deck and superstructure is constructed of vacuum-infused carbon fibre. It’s not just about weight-saving, but where the weight is saved, to keep the centre of gravity as low as possible.

The master cabin up in the bow is pleasantly spacious with an enormous hanging locker, an excellent head compartment and a comfortable-looking armchair. The guest double cabin on the starboard side sports an unusual pair of doors, one hinged and one part sliding, and can boast outstanding headroom at 6ft 9in – about three inches more than the master’s. The master’s bed, on the other hand, is three inches longer than the guest double’s, at 6ft 5in.

Uncluttered, seamanlike foredeck

It is in the aft cabin where the compromises caused by the lower-deck galley come home to roost. It does work, but will take a bit of getting used to with its two different floor levels and three different deckhead heights, where headroom ranges from 5ft 1in at the door to 6ft 2in between the berths.

It is also a bit light on stowage space, with nowhere to hang anything. But it does have that freezer. In the lobby area outside, between the galley and the cabin’s sliding door, there is the small day head and a useful alcove for a washer and drier.

Twenty-four 70s have been ordered so far. Our particular yacht, the eighth 70 since the model’s introduction three years ago, was the first to sport the extended flybridge, which not only provides excellent shelter for the cockpit but also adds significantly to the acreage up top. The extra area could be furnished with free-standing furniture to supplement the dinette fitted amidships, or it could simply be left as it was on our example, as a place to wander about and enjoy the view.

Space is such a luxury on a boat that sometimes it’s best to just leave it alone. For sunbathers there is some padding on the coachroof forward of the windscreen, while down on the bow there is the option of a moulded bow rider seating area, which would be a fun place to be whether at anchor or underway.

Comfortable and well-furnished cockpit.

Down at the other end, our test boat was fitted with the optional Opacmare Transformer hydraulic swim platform. This being a Palm Beach motor yacht, the 70 is also available as a no-flybridge ‘Sedan’ version which not only looks the business, but with its reduced windage and lower centre of gravity would probably be first choice for the purist cruising yachtsman. For the rest of us, however, it might be a bit of a wrench to forgo such an excellent flybridge.

There is just the one engine option with the PB70, but two drive systems: 1,000hp Volvo D13s, either on straight shafts or with the IPS drives fitted to our test boat. The tidy and well-organised engineroom is reached via a hatch in the cockpit sole, with fairly tight access but decent crawling room all round the engines and the two generators mounted in their separate pods between them.

Despite the stairs, the saloon is bright, spacious and well off for seating, with great views

Warp factor

But about that hull design. Mark calls it V-Warp. As a racing yachtsman of considerable repute he has more experience than most of horrible stretches of water like the Bass Strait, so seakeeping is absolutely non-negotiable.

We first got a feel for the design a few years ago in a sea trial of a Palm Beach GT50, but it wasn’t until the 2022 Cannes show, when we took out a Grand Banks 85 in some quite unpleasant conditions (for Cannes), that we could really appreciate just how good it is.

The spacious and elegantly furnished master cabin is located in the bows

The idea is simple: it’s a hybrid, a combination of motor yacht and sailboat principles that joins hard chines and V-bottom forward sections to an upswept stern that ensures minimal immersion, and therefore minimal drag, at the transom. There is a short, shallow skeg along the centreline for directional stability. It works. The GB85 gave us an effortless and pretty dry ride upwind at 18 knots through waves of one to two metres. It also tracked beautifully downwind, something the old GB hulls weren’t always very good at. We were seriously impressed.

This naval architecture is not just about seakeeping, but efficiency too. For our sea trial of the Palm Beach 70 at the 2023 Cannes show, normal service had been resumed: the sea was calm, with just a slight chop, and the wind was light.

All that expensive carbon in the 70’s complicated construction was obvious as soon as we pushed the throttles home and the yacht surged forward way more enthusiastically than its size might lead you to expect. It wasn’t just about weight, or the lack of it. Eager to accelerate as it was, the boat was just as unwilling to slow down. This manifest lack of drag imparted a genuine sense of efficiency and gave us real-time insight into how such an easily driven hull form can return such excellent range figures.

The VIP suite is amidships, opposite the galley

It wasn’t even on its best behaviour, as Mark ruefully acknowledged. The boat had just finished a Mediterranean cruising season, and the hull could have done with a pressure-wash at the very least. But although we got nowhere near the shipyard’s claimed top speed of 34 knots for this boat-engine-drive configuration, we were still burning just 230 litres an hour at 23 knots. Even allowing for MBY’s cautious 20% fuel reserve, that represents a fast cruising range of close on 500 miles, and more with a cleaner bottom.

Of course a generous fuel capacity helps too. Range has always been important to Mark. I wondered if it was an Australian thing – that maybe the distances between decent restaurants are much greater than up north. “No, it’s not that,” he said.

“I’m in the Mediterranean most summers, and in August you can see three-hour queues at the fuel berths. It’s about convenience – it’s so much nicer not to have to refuel all the time.”

Placing the flybridge stairs inside the saloon makes for a very roomy cockpit

Worth the wait

This easily driven yacht was also easy to drive. Handling was excellent, and as positive on the helm as it was on the throttles. We had the Humphree trim system on its automatic setting, on the basis that it would be mad not to make full use of something that works so well, and although this probably moderated the angle of heel we experienced in tight turns, it in no way interfered with our fun.

The Palm Beach 70 has taken a while to get to Europe, but it has been worth the wait. Like one of those über-cool digital cameras that are styled to look like classic Nikons or Leicas, it’s a traditional-looking motor yacht which is secretly rather high tech. It also sports an ultra-modern and seriously impressive hull design. And not only is it put together with all the quality for which Grand Banks was and still is known, it’s officially sexier too.

Palm Beach 70 specifications

LOA: 76ft 3in (23.24m)
BEAM: 19ft 1in (5.83m)
DRAFT: 4ft 4in (1.32m)
DISPLACEMENT: 32.6 tonnes light
FUEL CAPACITY: 6,000 litres
WATER CAPACITY: 935 litres
STANDARD ENGINES: Twin 1,000hp Volvo IPS 1350
OPTIONAL ENGINES: Twin shaft-drive 1,000hp Volvo D13
CONTACT: palmbeachmotoryachts.com

Costs & options

Volvo IPS1350 $84,000
Flybridge $262,500
Humphree stabilisation $96,600
Hardtop $17,900
Seakeeper SK9 $98,200
Transformer aft platform $136,500
Garmin package $44,100

This article Palm Beach 70 review: Hi-tech yacht with traditional looks appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

Decades after Riva stopped making wooden boats, no-one has ever done a better job of making timeless works of art out of mahogany. But there always was much more to the legendary boatyard than its woodworking skills.

Power, performance and gorgeous looks have always been as crucial to the Riva boat offering as impeccably grain-matched dowels and 12 coats of varnish. And the yard has built some absolute classic motor boats in fibreglass too.

With a history that stretches back into another century, choosing just ten of the best Riva boats to write about is a tricky task but here are my personal favourites from oldest to newest.

Are Riva boats still being built?

For those with only a passing interest in motor boats the name Riva probably conjures up images of the classic Italian styled all-wood muscle boat, cruising on the waters of Lake Como.

But the desirable marque has continued to make motor yachts for many years, often at the forefront of innovation, with new sportsfly and flybridge models being built today – and a number of new more traditionally-styled open boat options too.

Best Riva boats: Top 10 picks

Ronzino. Photo: Motor Boat & Yachting

Ronzino – built 1935

If Carlo Riva gave the boatyard the iconic status that we still acknowledge today, it was his father Serafino’s passion for racing hydroplanes that set the ball rolling, back in the 1920s.

Motor boats like the victorious Ronzino, built for Count Metello Rossi, shone the limelight on the Riva brand for the very first time, and set the stage for the famous high-performance runabouts that followed.

Fifteen feet long and powered by an inboard four-cylinder, 145hp, 1.5-litre BPM petrol engine, this Riva boat was built of double-skinned aviation plywood on oak formers.

Riva Tritone. Photo: Motor Boat & Yachting

Riva Tritone – built 1950

Twin-engined and more than 26ft long, the Tritone was a muscleboat before the word had been invented.

The earliest examples sported 177hp engines and had a top speed of 45 knots but the 16-year course of its 258-unit production saw the Tritone grow slightly longer and a lot more powerful, culminating in the Cadillac model with its pair of 320hp V8s.

With a less voluptuous appearance than the fabled Aquarama, which shared its hull, this motor boat is still regarded by many aficionados as the quintessential wooden Riva – powerful, authoritative and effortlessly elegant.

Riva Bertram25 Sport Fisherman. Photo: Motor Boat & Yachting

Riva Bertram 25 Sport Fisherman – built 1970

In 1970 both Riva and Bertram found themselves owned by the Whittaker Corporation.

The synergies weren’t immediately obvious but Carlo Riva knew he had to get into fibreglass boatbuilding and Dick Bertram’s boats had an unequalled reputation for high-speed seakeeping thanks to their race-proven deep-V hulls.

Carlo’s decision to bring a 25 over to Sarnico to fit out as a Mediterranean luxury weekender, with an elevated finish, plenty of interior wood, and a more versatile cockpit design, was a great move and became an instant classic.

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Riva 2000. Photo: Motor Boat & Yachting

Riva 2000 – built 1973

Design legend Sonny Levi was not just a superb naval architect and brilliant engineer, he also drew some of the best-looking boats of his era.

When Riva asked him to design a triple-engined sportscruiser powered by his innovative surface drive system, the result was destined to be something special.

The 37ft, two-berth Riva 2000 packed 1,050 horsepower in a 20-degree deep-V hull, and could reach 53 knots fully loaded.

It inspired boatyards on both sides of the Atlantic to up their game, and still turns heads today, 40 years later.

River Rudy. Photo: Motor Boat & Yachting

Riva Rudy – built 1972

Small, fast, fun and gorgeous to look at, the 19ft Rudy speedboat was Riva’s first in-house GRP project, its hull mould taken off a wooden Riva Junior.

With a single 190hp four-cylinder petrol engine and shaft drive, it made an ideal yacht tender, ski-boat or fun runabout, while its stylish looks, 36-knot top speed and big aft sunbed offered all the advantages of the wooden boats without the maintenance headaches.

Riva 50 Superamerica. Photo: Riva 50 SuperAmerica

Riva 50 Superamerica – built 1981

In the days when the London Boat Show was squashed into the original 1930s Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre, the biggest boat on display was often the 50ft Riva Superamerica shown by Lewis Marine, behind a red rope and guarded by a uniformed commissionaire.

British boatbuilders at the time had nothing to match it, but as well as picking up some valuable marketing tips, they also saw just how cool and desirable a big flybridge yacht could be.

It took a while, but when Fairline’s 50 came out in 1986 it represented a huge step for UK boatbuilding – its two-tone gelcoat a conscious homage to its Italian inspiration.

Riva Ferrari 32 – built 1988

Early Riva boats sported engines from Chris-Craft and there was at least one Lamborghini-powered Aquarama.

The shipyard was never shy of collaborations with big brands and in the world of high-octane luxury, the Riva Ferrari is top of the list.

So although it’s a shame it didn’t have Ferrari engines, the Riva Ferrari’s twin 390hp BPM V8s with surface drives still pushed it to 53 knots, and it was designed using Ferrari’s CAD software, an idea as advanced for the time as the carbon fibre used for the radar arch.

Only 40 Riva Ferrari 32s were built.

Riva Aquariva. Photo: Motor Boat & Yachting

Riva Aquariva – built 2000

In 1998 Riva was owned by Vickers and wooden boat manufacture had been halted two years before. The yard was floundering, but Stephen Julius, a canny entrepreneur, understood the problem, and the brand.

The result was the Aquariva, 33ft of perfectly proportioned dayboat with all the quality of its predecessors, but in fibreglass.

It paved the way for Riva’s motor boat future, and when Julius sold up in 2000, Ferretti simply had to keep going on the same path.

Riva 76 Perseo. Photo: Motor Boat & Yachting

Riva 76 Perseo – built 2015

Given Riva’s indelible association with fast, open sports machines, it’s easy to forget how pioneering the yard has also been when it comes to the more sensible world of flybridge cruising boats.

And dazzled by the pure allure of the 76 Perseo you might be forgiven for not noticing that it too has an upper helm station, and seating up there for ten – not forgetting the spacious deck saloon and four sleeping cabins down below.

Sensible, however, it isn’t – the Perseo packs up to 3,600hp and can blast along at close to 40 knots.

Riva Rivamarie. Photo: Motor Boat & Yachting

Riva Rivamare – built 2016

The old Riva boat spirit is alive and well in the 39ft Rivamare, a fibreglass reimagining of the legendary Aquarama, complete with a powerful flared bow, wraparound windscreen, sculpted stern and a central walkway up through the sunbed.

Times have changed, though, so it also offers a modern medium-V hull, twin 400hp Volvos on Duoprop drives, a practical galley, air-conditioning and a gyro stabiliser.

But it remains an old-school open boat, without even a radar mast, and it goes as good as it looks.

This article Best Riva boats: 10 stunning boats from the famous Italian builder appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

Motor yachts are becoming increasingly weird. The variety of shapes and types on offer at the latest Cannes show was the most extreme yet. So it was a relief to be greeted with the reassuringly familiar lines of the Ferretti 580.

When it comes to flybridge cruisers, Ferretti is one shipyard that absolutely knows what it’s doing. It seems conservative, but it isn’t really – it continuously updates its product range and has never been afraid of new ideas. But equally, it’s not afraid to hang onto old ideas if they happen to be good ones.

The 580 is an exceptionally well upholstered craft with comfortable outdoor seating and lounging areas almost everywhere

Main deck influencers

So – step from the cockpit into the saloon of the new Ferretti 580 and you’ll find that you’re actually in the galley. The Forli shipyard was one of the earliest adopters of this sociable style of main deck layout, and it has stuck with it over the years for its smaller models, because it works.

The informal family feeling it engenders chimes with the way in which the boat is most likely to be used. The benefits are obvious. Slide the window down and the galley becomes a pleasant, open-plan serving station that faces both ways, and links rather than separates the forward and aft seating areas. The drawbacks? I can’t think of any.

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The shipyard discontinued its Ferretti 570 last year, and the new model is a couple of feet longer and six inches wider. It’s also a bit heavier, but packs more horsepower, and has bigger fuel tanks to suit its slightly thirstier engines.

The Alberto Salvagni exterior styling combines its cool modernity with genuine authority. It shouldn’t date in a hurry.

A long flybridge extends as far aft as the transom, with a glass balustrade around the back end which not only improves the view but helps reduce the visual height of the yacht.

A fixed hardtop can be fitted as an option, but otherwise there’s an electric bimini. Freestanding furniture provides a versatile mix of seating and sunbathing space, complemented by the sofa and sunpads on the foredeck.

The helm, saloon and galley enjoy panoramic views thanks to acres of glass

The cockpit will be the most popular and comfortable place for sitting everyone down to eat, but between meals the sofa can slide back while the table descends, to create yet more space for sun-worshippers.

There are stowage lockers in the transom and under the flybridge companionway, and the hydraulic stern platform is standard. It can take a Williams 325.

Enormous windows make the best of the available space in the saloon, which is essentially a single homogenous socialising area with a small folding table, and a two-seat helm station on the starboard side.

The galley is sociably located between the cockpit and saloon, with plenty of stowage space on both sides

Down below, via the straight central companionway – which lifts on gas struts to reveal some more very useful stowage space underneath – the bed in the VIP cabin is set well forward, for sensible reasons of space elsewhere on the lower deck.

It therefore stands quite high, 37in (94cm) off the cabin sole, getting on for twice what you might have to scale at home. But there are steps up the sides. Headroom in here and throughout the lower deck accommodation is around 6ft 7in (200cm) and the bed itself is an excellent size at 6ft 6in by 5ft 6in wide (199cm x 167cm).

In this three-cabin, two-head version of the Ferretti 580, the VIP has ensuite access to the day head on the starboard side.

The three-head version might offer more luxury and privacy for your guests, but at the expense of a very appealing master cabin layout, which has a raised lobby area with a desk/dressing table and an excellent hanging locker, in addition to the generously proportioned head compartment itself. The smoked glass skylight overhead is a nice touch.

With the cockpit doors opened up the main deck becomes one long socialising space

Leisurely handling

I remember testing a Ferretti many years ago and jokingly wondering if the three-mile expanse of the Gulf of La Spezia was going to be wide enough to turn around in. You could crank the helm hard over at 25 knots and make a cup of tea while waiting for the boat to change course.

When I queried this with the engineering director he told me with an admirably straight face that owners weren’t really interested in handling.

Like most of her siblings, the 580 is a lively performer with positive, reassuring handling

Things started to change soon afterwards, though, as that same director tapped into the then emerging technologies of electrical and electro-hydraulic steering systems which revolutionised the whole handling equation, from the initial installation to the smile on the owner’s face.

Today, Ferretti favours the excellent Xenta system, and the Ferretti 580 favoured us with an exemplary demonstration of its handling abilities. Conditions were far from challenging. It’s customary to express regret that the weather during the Cannes show is so often perfect, and unsuitable for a true test of a boat’s seagoing qualities, but it is very pleasant to take one out in the sort of weather that owners dream of when they sign the cheque.

There was a bit of breeze overnight which had raised a two to three-foot sea for our early morning outing, and the Ferretti 580 felt like it was enjoying itself as much as we were.

There’s a sociable two-seat helm station

The ride of the medium-V hull was fairly firm into the chop at high speed but throttling back a little made it very manageable, and its tracking on all points of the compass was positive and accurate.

A tight turning circle, a fun angle of heel, and throttle and helm responses that were both smooth and instantaneous made for a fun and confidence-inspiring drive. The boat was rock-solid on the plane down to 17 or 18 knots, so if the weather cuts up rough it should still be possible to make reasonable progress.

Just one issue – at the lower helm station you can’t see where you’re going with the foredeck cushions out. Those nice comfy backrests on the sofa block the view of everything but the sky in cruising trim, which was about five degrees bow-up. So best to bring them in.

This article Ferretti 580 review: Lively performer with stylish looks appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

After many years of high-speed cruising in fibreglass planing boats, two experienced owners decided to investigate the possibilities of longer-range adventures in a seaworthy, heavy-displacement craft.

Their new Bering 76, Lemanja, is a full-custom yacht. This would normally have meant a gap of several years between initial consultations and final launch, but the clients were able to reduce this waiting time by taking over a part-completed project at the Bering shipyard.

The 76fter had originally been commissioned by an American owner, and her empty steel hull and aluminium superstructure lay waiting in the shipyard – a blank canvas for the couple to complete.

Bering was founded in 2007 by Russian-born Alexei Mikhailov, who was brought up during the Soviet era in Magadan, just across the Kamchatka Peninsula from the Bering Sea itself. He’s 59.

He built the first six Berings in China but moved his operation to Turkey to take advantage of the market access and relaxed regulatory and tax regime of the Antalya free port, on Turkey’s southern coast.

Although Lemanja is a one-off, Alexei is now focusing his operation on semi-custom yachts, and in particular Bering’s 75ft and 80ft designs. There are currently 14 boats under construction in the yard.

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They have big plans. When we caught up with them they had only recently taken delivery but had already done one overnighter down to Cyprus and numerous day trips, getting to grips with their new boat, evaluating her handling, and working out how to manage her numerous systems.

The trip along the length of the Med to Gibraltar was to be essentially a shakedown cruise. After that they plan to head north, calling in at Falmouth en route to the Irish Sea, and then, all being well, onwards to the Faeroes, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and ultimately the US.

It will present quite a learning curve, for Lemanja is a complicated boat. She is built to go to sea, with impressive fuel capacity in seven tanks, and five watertight compartments in her hull, which is of 8mm plate below the waterline and 6mm above. Fully loaded, she displaces close on 150 tonnes.

Her battery power is enough to run all on-board services for 12 hours at anchor without using the generators, and she has a Seatorque drivetrain involving flexible shaft couplings, soft engine mounts and a horizontal prop shaft angle, all of which are designed to reduce noise and vibration to the absolute minimum.

The engines are mounted very low down in the hull. So low, in fact, that the engine room is a two-tier affair, with immediate access through the watertight door to the generators and to the technical area in the lazarette, while the twin Cummins diesels lurk beneath the shiny treadplate underfoot.

Apparently it’s just a five-minute job to unscrew the plates if you need to get to them. Lemanja has a long, open-plan main deck arrangement with an informal seating area communicating with the cockpit, an expansive marble-topped bar and galley, and an excellent dining area forward surrounded by windows with a door out to the side deck.

The primary dining area sits on the main deck forward

It looks like the interior of a modern motor yacht rather than an ocean passagemaker – my first thought was that the galley worktop could probably benefit from some taller fiddle rails – but it’s down below where the owners’ cruising ambitions are given more expression.

Drafted originally for four cabins, Lemanja has just three, with the entirety of the starboard guest cabin area given over to food storage and refrigeration – a pantry of the size you might find on a superyacht.

Elsewhere on the lower deck Lemanja’s midships owner’s cabin, forward VIP and port-side guest double all have full-size beds, generous headroom and plenty of stowage space, including an impressive walk-in wardrobe in the master.

With just three cabins on the lower deck, the space on offer is exceptional

The double berth in the forward cabin is rather high – the owners wanted it to be a full 6ft (1.83m) wide, which meant it had to go up into the flare of the bow. But as he pointed out, this has provided a lot of extra space beneath the mattress for stowage, in addition to the huge drawers under the foot of the bed.

We met the owners in Antalya early one morning, not far from Bering’s. There is a slightly developing-world aura to the shipyard, as if Western standards of health and safety have yet to make inroads.

This refreshing air of improvisation comes with a downside, of course – you have to watch your step lest you gouge your ankle on an offcut of steel plate, or plunge down an unguarded hatchway – but as a counter, the yard likes all its customers to engage a surveyor to keep a close eye on the build of their yachts.

With nearly 23,000 litres of fuel across seven tanks, this is a seriously long-legged boat

“We insist on having surveyors,” says Alexei. “Captains don’t know enough. We learn a lot from our owners’ surveyors.” They will certainly have learned plenty from Lemanja’s. When the yacht was launched, his German surveyor found no fewer than 320 snags, mostly minor, but the owners say they were all dealt with efficiently.

Perhaps the most significant concerned the issue of ballast. At the surveyor’s recommendation more than nine tonnes of it were added to Lemanja, low down in the hull, which the owners reckon have stiffened her up considerably.

Lemanja’s beam of less than 20 feet was specified by the original US client to suit his berth in Florida, and she has quite a slender planform for her length and height. Bering’s 75 semi-custom model, in contrast, is nearly 5ft wider.

There was a slightly gloomy quality to our test day, with a grey overcast sky and the snow-capped peaks of the Taurus mountains just inland lending a slight chill to the scene. But conditions were benign enough, and the sea was calm as we set off from Setur Marina for our cruise down to Kemer.

With the wheelhouse on the upper deck so far from the engines we expected it to be quiet but 43dB(A) at ten knots seemed pretty impressive. Progress was calm and very relaxing – just what you want in a long-range cruiser – and we recorded a two-way maximum speed of 11.5 knots, although the owners felt that between 8.5 and 9.5 knots would give the best combination of speed and fuel economy.

Lemanja’s range is vast – over 4,500nm at 8.6 knots – thanks to her astounding fuel capacity of 22,700 litres. There were limits to what we might learn of her seagoing capabilities on such a mild-mannered day but a few weeks later the owners emailed with an update from Greece.

The Bering 76 is surprisingly comfortable, even with the Seakeeper switched off

With 1m seas on the beam she was surprisingly comfortable, he reported, her roll being manageable even with the Seakeeper switched off. In head seas she was dry and stable.

Big following seas turned out to be her least favourite point of sail, as she exhibited a tendency to yaw that was pronounced enough to prompt the owners to switch off the autopilot and take manual control.

Overall, though, the owners seem happy. At the time of writing, the couple have made it to Mallorca, where they have called in to attend to some routine maintenance. Gibraltar is the next stop, to top up the tanks with duty-free diesel, and then onward into the wild blue yonder.

First published in the October 2023 issue of MBY.

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This article Bering 76 sea trial review: The Turkish trawler yacht with globetrotting ambitions appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

These produce a claimed maximum of 36kWp in bright sunshine, although with many of the solar panels mounted along the sides, that figure will only be achievable if the sun can be persuaded to shine on both sides at the same time.

So it might occasionally be necessary to top up the batteries using the generators. The batteries themselves are ‘ultralight’, with an energy density of around 200Wh per kilogramme, and you can choose between 360kW and 720kW of motive power.

The interior of the Sunreef 80 Power Eco is fully customisable, with Sunreef’s suggested layouts showing the huge deck saloon which is such an alluring benefit of the catamaran configuration, together with a spacious owner’s cabin that wouldn’t look out of place in a conventional monohull of the same length.

Down in the hulls things naturally get a little more constrained, but there shouldn’t be too many complaints from the occupants of the four double ensuite cabins. There is a fairly decent crew cabin shown aft in the starboard hull, and a vanishingly small optional crew space in the bow, while the galley sits aft in the port hull.

Other suggestions include a hot tub aft on the enormous flybridge, non-toxic antifoul paint, natural composite structures, DC air conditioning and a pair of natty wind turbines, while extra propulsion is available from the optional kitesail.

For the full 200-square-metre solar array you’ll need to specify the larger hardtop option. Or if you prefer a more old-fashioned form of renewable energy, Sunreef also does a version of the 80 with a mast and sails.

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Sunreef 80 Power Eco specifications

LOA: 78ft 1in (23.80m)
Beam: 39ft 4in (12.00m)
Engines: 2x 360kW max
Solar panels: 36kWp max
Batteries: 640kW max
Generators: 2x 150kW
Starting price: Available upon application

This article Sunreef 80 Power Eco to take solar power to the next level at Cannes 2023 appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

Meanwhile the fridge, freezer and grill installed down there make it easy to mix the cocktails and cook the catch.

Of course you don’t have to be active all the time – the section of the main deck between the cockpit and saloon provides a comfortable, sheltered outdoor area from which to watch others doing all the hard work, while the sunbed on the foredeck, complete with hinged backrest, will be ideal when the effort of merely watching gets too much.

The loss of some saloon space seems like a worthwhile trade for this innovative ‘mezzanine’ deck on the Riviera 505 SUV, which looks likely to become the most popular place to sit when at anchor or in port.

Meanwhile the saloon itself, with its two sofas, table, two-seat helm, and an aft galley handily placed at the centre of things, remains a reasonably practical size.

Down below, the owner’s cabin spans the widest part of the hull amidships, with big hull windows, a sofa, dressing table and ensuite shower and head. The VIP suite in the bows is quite a lot smaller, and there is also a twin-bunk kids’ cabin on the starboard side, sharing the day head with the VIP.

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The Riviera 505 SUV comes with two engine options, both IPS, and will be exhibited at the 2023 Cannes Yachting Festival alongside another Australian debutante, the slightly smaller Riviera 465 SUV.

This comes with 600hp Volvos as the sole power option, has a similar main deck arrangement to the 505, and a similar spec, while offering three cabins of a more equal size down below, with two heads.

Riviera 505 SUV specifications

LOA: 55ft 10in (17.01m)
Beam: 16ft 3in (4.96m)
Engines: Twin 600hp or 725hp Volvo IPS
Top speed: 34 knots
Starting price: Available upon application

This article Riviera 505 SUV to get European debut at 2023 Cannes Yachting Festival appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

On-deck features include a fold-down bulwark on the starboard side of the cockpit for a welcome bit of extra space, an adjustable backrest on the foredeck sunpad, and a smart asymmetric superstructure design to provide a nice wide side deck along the starboard side to link the cockpit with the bow seating area.

There is also a three-part folding cockpit door to completely open up the saloon, while flybridge has forward-facing seats for three, along with a good-size U-shaped sofa with table.

Downstairs, the owner’s cabin in the bows has an ensuite head, while the two guest cabins lie amidships, tucked under the saloon sole, sharing the day head and shower compartment on the starboard side. The port guest cabin has permanent twin berths, while the one to starboard has a single that converts to a double.

The feature most likely to catch the eye of Antares aficionados, of course, is the new model’s choice of two V10 or three V8 Verado outboards, totalling 800hp or 900hp, for a top speed of nearly 37 knots.

Since the twin Volvo D6 diesels found in many earlier versions of the Beneteau Antares 12 are twice the weight of the Mercury V10s, it’s easy to see why outboards are a no-brainer for today’s boat designers.

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Unfortunately the fuel tanks haven’t got any bigger, so the thirstier petrol engines return a really quite limited range – just 127 nautical miles at 20.5 knots with the two V10s, according to Beneteau’s test data, and only slightly better with the three V8s, allowing for a ten per cent reserve.

Update: The Beneteau Antares 12 will be getting its UK debut at the 2023 Southampton Boat Show.

Beneteau Antares 12 specifications

LOA: 42ft 7in (12.97m)
Beam: 12ft 5in (3.78m)
Engines: 2 x 400hp or 3 x 300hp Mercury
Top speed: 36.8 knots
Starting price: Available upon application

This article Beneteau Antares 12 first look: Cannes debut for more powerful outboard model appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

And now that huge outboard engines seem to be the go-to power source for anything under about 40 feet, they can offer serious performance too.

Based on the existing Gozzo 35 design, the new Gozzo 35 Speedster model comes as standard with two Mercury V10s bolted to the stern, which not only give a 42-knot top speed, but more importantly offer a useful cruising range of 300 nautical miles or so at 30 knots.

Mounting the engines all the way aft confers other advantages too, of course, freeing up space both in and under the cockpit, where the folding table is big enough to seat ten for lunch, according to the builders.

The expansive bathing platform is still a practical space in spite of the encroaching engines, while wide side decks lead safely forward from the cockpit to a sunlounging and seating area on the bow.

The appointments down below are simple but pretty spacious, thanks to the design’s generous beam and full sections, with a double berth forward, a roomy head and shower compartment on the port side, and a small galley area.

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In spite of its overall length the Gozzo 35 Speedster is designed to fit into the sub-10-metre category, which in Italy excuses it from compulsory registration.

The boat was styled by Marco Casali of Too Design, with hull lines by Umberto Tagliavini of Marine Design, and will be shown at the 2023 Cannes Yachting Festival in a slick black livery.

Apreamare Gozzo 35 Speedster specifications

LOA: 36ft 5in (11.11m)
Beam: 12ft 2in (3.70m)
Engines: Twin 400hp Mercury
Top speed: 42 knots
Starting price: Available upon application

This article Apreamare Gozzo 35 Speedster: Italian yard to launch first outboard boat at Cannes boat show appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

Centounonavi (literally ‘one hundred and one boats’) is based in the epicentre of Italian boatbuilding, Viareggio. The company’s first model is a slick-looking 55-footer with plenty of horsepower and an eye-watering top speed.

But it’s no mere mindless muscleboat, according to its creators: waterjet drives are less likely than conventional propellers to make sushi out of passing marine creatures, while much of the PVC cores used in its lightweight construction, along with other, unspecified aspects of the build, are sourced from recycled materials.

Also, an efficient hull design means that at its extraordinary cruising speed of 50 knots it burns “only” eight litres of diesel per mile.

Down below few details have been released regarding the accommodation layout, but it seems there is an owner’s suite in the bows, with a roomy shower compartment right forward that puts to good use the space gained by the yacht’s vertical chain-handling system.

There is also a midships guest cabin, and a central saloon and galley. Broad side decks provide easy access to the sunbed on the bow.

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Various other cool design touches will certainly catch the eye at the 2023 Cannes Yachting Festival, including the engineroom air intakes sensibly sited in the hardtop supports, a windscreen that disappears upwards into the hardtop for true wind in the hair cruising, a smart arrangement aft that sees the central sunbed swiftly convert into a dining table.

And of course the obligatory fold-down cockpit bulwarks that create a broad if rather precarious floating walkaround platform for eating, entertaining and perhaps the occasional unscheduled swim.

Centounonavi Vespro specifications

LOA: 54ft 9in (16.70m)
Beam: 15ft 1in (4.60m)
Engines: Twin 1,200hp MAN V8
Top speed: 56 knots
Starting price: Available upon application

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Rethinking a layout in the way Ferretti has done with its new Ferretti 860 does underline how yacht interiors are always a compromise. Move one thing and you have to move something else to make way for it, and then move something else to make way for that, and so it goes.

Everything can be changed except the space available. But if all goes well, at the end of the process only the designers will know which decision it was that set off the whole reshuffle in the first place.

On the Ferretti 860, all does seem to have gone well. Although based on the same hull and machinery as the earlier Ferretti 850, of which some 30-plus were built in six years, everything else about the new 860 has been substantially rethought, from the flybridge down to the crew cabins in the bow.

I remember testing the Ferretti 850 on its launch at the 2016 Cannes Yachting Festival, and noticing how the raised half-deck for the lower helm gave it a big-yacht feel, which was slightly countered – in a good way – by the fact that the single-seat helm station itself felt so compact and enclosed that the owner of the first boat said it reminded him of his Lamborghini.

With the fundamental layout changes that have gone into creating the new 860, Ferretti’s designers have fully embraced the big-boat ethos, with a full-size, two-seat wheelhouse that still sits on its own half-deck, but now features a full-beam layout with a crew dinette to port.

And from being tucked down forward on the 850, the galley is now more conventionally located aft of the helm, which makes it much more handily placed to serve the dining table, while it also benefits from plenty of light and space – headroom is nearly eight feet (2.39m) – and a door out to the starboard side deck.

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The day head is to port. Visibility from the new helm station is no better than it was, however, thanks to the redesigned superstructure. The view out to the sides is very restricted and there is of course no view aft, so the only safe place to steer in crowded waters, whatever the weather, will be up top.

So repositioning the galley meant moving the main companionway, and that of course meant a pretty fundamental redesign of the lower deck accommodation.

The 850’s layout down here was unorthodox, but it worked, and the 860’s follows this asymmetric thinking pretty closely, retaining the two VIP double suites and the one twin-berth cabin that complement the big, full-beam owner’s cabin amidships.

Mirrored central corridor provides an illusion of space

The master now has a more imposing bathroom along the aft bulkhead, along with a substantial walk-in wardrobe, which between them help to insulate the sleeping area from the engineroom.

If one space is the loser in this lower-deck reshuffle, it is perhaps the forward VIP’s shower stall, which feels a bit squeezed. The twin cabin’s head compartment also has less floor area than the 850’s, but its proportions work better.

Ferretti went to the IdeaeItalia studio for the 860’s interior design, which comes in a choice of Classic or Contemporary themes. They both look pretty smart, with nods to Art Deco detailing in their cool flat panels and curved edges.

The expansive owner’s suite requires no such optical trickery

The Classic makes creative use of darker, more contrasting tones, while the Contemporary is altogether more pale in colour. Ferretti fit-out quality is such a given that it often goes unremarked. Needless to say our Ferretti 860 was put together beautifully.

With the cockpit companionway staying firmly put, on the starboard side, nothing absolutely had to change up on the flybridge, but the designers were getting into their stride by now and changed everything anyway.

Filippo Salvetti’s new exterior styling required completely new superstructure mouldings in any case and the curved sides of the 860’s uppermost deck have made it slightly wider – it feels absolutely huge. It has gained a large padded lounging area to port, opposite the helm.

Huge full-beam flybridge comes with a versatile hardtop and a choice of fit-out aft

This will be ideal for those who like to stay out of the sun as it is right beneath the substantial hardtop, which comes in three different configurations. There is also a well-equipped bar on the starboard side, opposite the long dining table and sofa.

Sun worshippers can congregate aft, where there are a number of options available, including free-standing furniture, a sunbed and a hot tub.

One of the more noticeable features of the new exterior design is the cool cutaway bulwarks level with the floor-to-ceiling glass in the saloon, to make the most of the spectacular views from inside.

Understated yet authoritative, modern without being too edgy – welcome to Ferretti’s world

The Ferretti 860 also sports a new and more adventurous foredeck layout, with a hi-lo table to create a sunbed, and a cockpit arrangement that makes an excellent feature out of the cool see-through transom.

The old 850 came with 1,800hp or 1,900hp MAN engine installations – which wasn’t much of a choice, so we didn’t feel too hard done by to discover that our test boat, at the 2016 Cannes boat show, had the lower-powered option.

MAN has had a look at its range since then, however, and without any significant alterations to its excellent machinery space, the Ferretti 860 we tested was packing a pair of 2,000hp V12s. Which turned out to be just as well, because in the course of its metamorphosis the new model has put on weight – about four and a half tonnes.

The transom door lifts to reveal a garage large enough for a 3.95m jet RIB and a PWC

It was a mild morning for our sea trial in the South of France, the weather was warming up, with very little wind and a flat Mediterranean Sea.

The big new Ferretti 860 felt reassuringly familiar under way, its electronic steering, automatic Humphree trim system, single Seakeeper gyro and Sleipner Vector fin stabilisers all talking to each other via the Xenta software and easing much of the helmsman’s workload, while with so much horsepower on tap it was easy to forget the sheer size and heft of this substantial motor yacht.

In these benign conditions the Ferretti 860 was happy to plane at 18 or 19 knots, and 22 to 23 felt quiet and comfortable and quite fast enough – although our captain, Gianluca, said he generally found 24 knots to be the optimum fast cruising speed.

Terrific one-piece windscreen is let down by restricted visibility on either side

Handling was impressive, feeling precise and predictable, and in our speed runs we did see 30 knots come up on the GPS, but only downwind. In a two-way average the Ferretti 860 topped out at 29.6 knots, which was – spookily enough – exactly the same maximum speed we recorded on the 850, back in 2016.

As a replacement for the successful 850, Ferretti’s latest model does an outstanding job. It’s a competent cruising boat and a superbly comfortable home away from home, and it deserves the same sales success.

It is very similar to its predecessor in many ways, and completely different in most others. The only puzzle is which of those numerous differences came first. Only the designers can tell – and they’re not saying.

First published in the June 2023 issue of MBY.

This article Ferretti 860 review: The more things change the more they stay the same appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

With its pod drives, high-tech construction, wide beam and zippy performance, this latest model in the range, the Azimut Grande 26M is an ambitious project intended to move the game on.

It has been styled by Alberto Mancini, who has imparted a slightly imperious quality to the new model’s profile – from a distance you could convince yourself that it’s over 100ft.

The businesslike wheelhouse windows set the tone, while the superstructure mouldings provide the illusion of an upper deck that runs in an unbroken line from the bow roller to the flybridge balustrade.

And once on board there is nothing illusory about the 26’s exceptional deck spaces, from the spacious and versatile foredeck seating to the wide prairies of the flybridge. It is not just the length of the flybridge that imparts this sense of space but its width, too – spreading across the Grande’s full beam.

This new Azimut model is very nearly 2ft wider than its predecessor, the Azimut Grande 25M, and that tells on all three decks. It feels big. It feels even bigger when the ingenious cockpit extension is deployed – the garage door hinging upwards to create a quite unexpected balcony overlooking the aft platform.

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The glass cockpit balustrade splits in the middle and swings out to embrace the new corners, while a lightweight infill section takes care of the gap. Simple but effective.

The interior is by another designer that Azimut has been keeping quite busy recently, Achille Salvagni, whose distinctive use of ovoid, organic shapes and tactile eggshell finishes has created a quirky but homogeneous design that should raise a smile, without losing sight of the fact that light tones and generous, open spaces are the best way to complement all that drenching daylight coming in through the huge side windows. Dark flooring and mid-toned veneers on the bulkheads keep things comfortably rooted.

Perhaps the highlight of the interior is the owner’s cabin on the main deck, with its floor-to-ceiling glass and a shower and WC that spans the full beam. It still feels absurdly spacious. This is another area of the boat where you can actually forget it’s only 85ft feet long.

The location of the master suite forward on the main deck enhances the view out through its vast hull windows

There is one slight shortcoming in the layout forward, where the steps to the lower deck, master cabin, crew accommodation, galley, wheelhouse and flybridge all converge on each other, as if one designer started from the bow, and one from the stern, and this is where they met.

It’s like it’s been designed by MC Escher. In the middle of it all, the lower helm station sits on a sort of platform, with a single seat, awkward communication with the rest of the boat and poor visibility. On our sea trial we helmed from upstairs, as we usually do.

Inner space

Down below, the eight-berth guest accommodation features a pair of impressively roomy symmetrical VIPs aft, each with a spacious shower and heads compartment along the engineroom bulkhead.

All three of the double guest cabins are of a similar size

Just forward, the starboard double cabin is almost as big, losing out only slightly on floor area and the size of the head, while all three double cabins have the same size bed, at 6ft 2in by 5ft 2in.

The twin to port is the smallest, and suffers somewhat from clashing doors, as three – cabin, head and wardrobe – all compete for the same space. Otherwise it’s a reasonable sleeping space with decent stowage.

With a bathroom no smaller than the twin cabin’s across the corridor, your guests shouldn’t feel as if they have drawn the short straw.

Driving the Azimut Grande 26M

The Azimut Grande 26M is the first boat to sport ZF’s big new 4600 pod drives, designed to serve in twin-engine yachts up to 100ft, and in triple installations up to 130ft.

Pod drives can of course be great fun in boats properly set up and designed from the outset to take them, and the Azimut Grande 26M clearly was. It gave us a remarkably enjoyable drive, which seemed quite surprising in such a big vessel.

But perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised. The shipyard is well known for incorporating a lot of high-tech materials into its builds, and the amount of carbon fibre used in the Grande’s deck, superstructure, flybridge and hardtop reportedly saves some 30 per cent over the weight of conventional fibreglass laminates, significantly reducing the yacht’s centre of gravity.

The new model is measurably faster than its shaft-drive predecessor

Also, although the hull of the Azimut Grande 26M is little different in length to that of the 25 Metri that it replaces in the range, its extra width provides additional lift, while its stern sections are simple, efficient flat panels rather than the prop tunnels sported by its shaft-drive predecessor. Deadrise recedes from 20.4 degrees amidships to 13.8 degrees at the transom.

The result is a yacht that is a perfect match with its machinery when under way. It feels light and lively, and has plenty of power. The Seakeeper gyro was switched off for our sea trial and the Humphree interceptors were on automatic.

Although there is the option of Humphree fins as well, they would probably have spoilt the fun, for the Azimut Grande 26M launched itself into high-speed turns with all the puppyish enthusiasm of a lightweight sports machine, heeling over so far it felt almost undignified.

The flybridge helm station is the most enjoyable place to captain the boat from

You couldn’t actually lean down from the flybridge and dabble your fingers in the sea, but the impression was there, always underwritten by a superb feeling of control. On a more sensible even keel it tracked beautifully and inspired confidence as a serious piece of cruising kit.

Of course it would be disappointing if a yacht packing 3,300hp didn’t impart at least a frisson of excitement to its driver, and the 26’s maximum speed during our test, with a realistic cruising load of fuel and water, topped out at over 30 knots – faster, incidentally, than Azimut’s claims for it.

A key selling point of the ZF pods is their efficiency, and they deliver here too – the new model is measurably faster than its shaft-drive predecessor with the same engines.
Azimut claims 20 per cent less fuel consumption than comparable yachts at “the most frequently set speeds”, which is vague but not entirely without substance.

Visibility is goodforward and fair to the sides but you need a camera to look aft

In a very unscientific comparison with other new boats launched at the 2022 Cannes Yachting Festival, the Azimut Grande 26M might burn about 18 per cent less fuel at 20 knots than the 4,000hp Ferretti 860, but about 25 per cent more than the 2,000hp Grand Banks 85.

Different rev settings will probably give different results, and at full speed the Azimut is faster than both of them. It has a larger fuel capacity than its predecessor, which makes the 26 a distinctly more versatile cruising machine, with a useful range of about 360nm at 24 knots, even allowing for our conservative 20 per cent fuel reserve.

Azimut Grande 26M verdict

The new Azimut Grande 26M is a worthy addition to a high-achieving range of motor yachts which have invariably offered an impressive combination of style, innovation, comfort and sheer cruising competence.

Whether your idea of cruising is pottering about on the Côte d’Azur, or holidaying over the horizon, the Azimut Grande 26M is small enough to fit into most harbours, spacious enough to provide real home comforts for extended stays on board, and great fun both at anchor or at speed.

Azimut Grande 26M specifications

LOA: 85ft 7in (26.09m)
Beam: 22ft 2in (6.75m)
Draught: 4ft 11in (1.50m)
Displacement: 49 tonnes
Engines: Twin 1,650hp MAN V12 + pod drives
Fuel capacity: 1,870 gal (8,500 lt)
Water capacity: 330 gal (1,500 lt)
Top speed on test: 30.4 knots
Cruising speed: 23 knots
Fuel consumption: 348lph @ 18.8 knots / 64lph @ 10.5 knots
Range: 367nm @ 18.8 knots / 1,117nm @ 10.5 knots
Noise: 64 d(B)A @ 18.8 knots / 59 d(B)A @ 10.5 knots
Design: Ausonio/Salvagni/Mancini/Azimut
Starting price: €5,750,000 (ex. VAT)

First published in the February 2023 issue of MBY.

This article Azimut Grande 26M review: The 85ft yacht that feels like a 100ft superyacht appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.