Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2024 i Motor Boat & Yachting

OK, I’m calling it. This is officially peak boat-buying time. If you have even the slightest urge to get out on the water or upgrade your current craft, now is the time to indulge your dream. Why? Because the market is awash with good quality new and used boats that brokers, dealers and owners are keen to sell. The post-Covid boating boom has flattened off, the manufacturing supply chain issues have all been sorted and cash rich punters who jumped on the boating bandwagon when interest rates were low and foreign holidays weren’t allowed are selling up their impulse purchases. The result is an exceptional choice of good quality new and used craft available to buy right now. This isn’t a green light to start making silly offers or expecting…

THE LIFEBOAT EAST COWES, ISLE OF WIGHT During peak times throughout the season, the approach to Cowes can feel a bit like the M25, with both the upstream and downstream lanes of the River Medina rammed with craft of all shapes and sizes. Fortunately for boaters, Cowes doesn’t have motorway service stations but instead offers an assortment of marinas, all of which bar one are located on its western bank. The lone east-ender is Boatfolk’s 360-berth East Cowes Marina. It’s as popular as any of its west-end counterparts and in addition to being on the sunny side of the river in the late afternoons and evenings, it’s got a large on-site restaurant and bar, The Lifeboat. Generally, The Lifeboat is as busy as the marina, with boaters rubbing shoulders with…

There are times to stick doggedly to a plan and there are times to cut and run. This was the latter, if only to protect Molly, our precious Aquador. After last year’s cruise to the Isles of Scilly was cut short by bad weather, my wife Jillie and I decided to give it another go this year. Once again, all the preparations were made – fuel, water, food, weather window – and on 16 June, off we set. As we motored towards the Lizard so the cloud started to build and the closer we got to the most southerly point, the choppier the sea became. By the time we rounded Black Head, it was getting quite unpleasant and we hadn’t passed either the Lizard or Land’s End yet. We also…

Dealing with a fire on board is one of the most frightening things to contemplate. The vast majority of boats are made of GRP, a highly flammable material, so prevention is far better than cure. With that in mind, it’s worth having a walk through your boat, considering what your plan of action would be if you do have a fire and how you would escape if you can’t put it out. If not contained, a fire will spread quickly so speed of action is vital. Fire and carbon monoxide alarms in every cabin and enclosed space will give you the best chance of spotting it early, followed by immediate shouts of fire to alert your crew. Your immediate priorities should be to get everybody to your muster point, put…

IN BUILD 2012 – 2018 PRICE RANGE £399,000 – £699,000 Prestige, the upmarket brand of the Beneteau Group, has been around in various guises for the past 35 years. It started life in 1989 as the model name for a stylish new 41ft Jeanneau sportscruiser. Several more sportscruisers followed before in 2000 it started using the Prestige name on flybridges too. It wasn’t until 2010 that Beneteau decided to annex Prestige as a brand in its own right, largely on the back of this boat – the Prestige 500 Fly. At the time it was the flagship of the Prestige fleet, although larger models soon followed. Prestige now spans a wide range of different craft from 40ft to 80ft, including flybridges, sportscruisers, X-Line ‘superflys’ and even a pair of power…

AZIMUT SEADECK 7 LOA: 71ft 2in (21.7m) BEAM: 18ft 1in (5.5m) ENGINES: 2 x Volvo Penta IPS1200 or 1350 TOP SPEED: 32 knots PRICE: TBC CONTACT: www.azimutyachts.com Azimut is coming out all guns blazing at Cannes with not one but three new show debuts. The freshest of these is the Seadeck 7, which was still having the finishing touches applied to it as we went to press. Like its smaller sibling, the Seadeck 6, which was launched earlier this summer, the 7 has a strong focus on sustainability and will be the first Azimut to feature a full diesel electric hybrid drive. Technical details of this have not yet been released but it’s likely to use Volvo Penta IPS drives and D13 engines linked to a smaller electric motor and…

How many builders could you name with boats that look broadly like this? A dozen perhaps? From Ryck, Sterk, Quarken and Saxdor to Axopar, Pardo, Fjord and Schaefer, it’s a region of the H market with plenty of buying options but precious little in the way of obvious design divergence. What we tend to expect (and what we tend to get) is a plumb bow, a compact cuddy cabin, a set of walkaround decks and some outboard engines. An aft cockpit with a facing dinette, a transverse wet bar and a two- or three-man helm is also par for the course; and key options tend to include a T-top and a set of cockpit-expanding dropdown terraces. So as we amble toward the new V10 on its Palma pontoon, we’re…

The logic behind DMS Holland’s new All-in-One stabilisers is as simple as it is compelling – why fit three different kinds of hull controls to a boat when you can have one system that does it all? According to its Dutch designers, these strange looking new wing stabilisers will combine the best features of conventional fins, gyros and interceptor trim tabs without the drawbacks sometimes associated with them such as long spool up times, increased fuel consumption and paddle effect at anchor. The key to All-in-One’s versatility is a pair of long, thin high-aspect ratio fins fitted to the stern of the boat that rotate around two different axes. This allows them to swivel up and down like conventional stabiliser fins but also to flap like a pair of giant…

Joining a club has never really been my thing. I think it started around the age of 14 when I joined my local squash club as a junior member – and, boy, were we treated like kids, even to the point where we could be bumped off court mid-game should any crusty old seniors suddenly fancy a go. I did try again later in life when working in PR and my boss suggested joining a club to build contacts. Well, I gave it a go, but it was too cliquey for my liking. So it was with a degree of trepidation that me and Mrs S (not a natural clubber either) decided to take the plunge when Luke, a neighbour on the pontoon at our boatyard, suggested we join the…

This month we’re taking Find Me A… for its annual trip onto inland waters for a relaxing sojourn up the still and dappled rivers and waterways where the willow trees gently kiss the surface and the only waves are from friendly ramblers on the towpath. For inland use, a different set of priorities swing into play. There’s no use for huge turbo-diesels, and little need for a planing hull. Priorities instead are effortless, low-speed running, directional stability and easily accessed decks for going alongside locks and riverside pub pontoons. Low air draft can sometimes be helpful too, for limboing under bridges. Choices here encompass a handily sized 30-footer from one of Britain’s most respected builders, through to a rock-solid Dutch-built steel boat. PRICE: £285,000 BOAT: Haines 36 Sedan DATE: 2021…

There are four battery switches on Smuggler’s Blues 2. A previous owner had upgraded the electrics from the original single battery to a more suitable triple-battery set-up. There are two big chunky battery switches buried in a locker beneath the helm seat, plus two more of those ones with a red removable ‘key’. It seems that two of the batteries are The Batteries. The third battery seems to be a spare. To operate the boat, flick the two big chunky switches on, turn on one of the red ‘key’ switches and everything is good to go. The fourth ‘key’ parallels the third battery, like applying jumper cables. Now picture the scene. I’ve not been near the boat recently but winds are light, friends are out and we’re planning to meet…

PHOTO OF THE MONTH Phil Carter sent us this atmospheric photo of his 1989 Dale Aquastar 38 April Rose berthed in Granville last month and looking in very fine fettle for a 35-year-old boat. WATER WOES The review of the Outer Reef 830 Classic in the June edition of MBY suggests that a 2,000-litre water tank is an attribute on a boat designed for leisurely ocean passages. 2,000 litres sounds a lot but our Linssen has a 400-litre tank, which with four persons on board lasts for two or three days at most. Given that the Outer Reef is more than double the size and can accommodate at least eight people, it seems likely that dehydration and/or a reduced level of bodily hygiene would set in less than a week…

SVOLVAER TO HARSTAD We have managed to cover the 1400nm from Karlskrona to the Lofoten Islands in less than a month by cruising as far and as fast as possible whenever the weather windows have allowed. However, it has come at a cost. The supercharger drive belts on the Volvo D6s fitted to my Grandezza 40 Fly Deamare have worn through, even though they were new this year. That’s why, after making landfall in the outermost archipelago of Röst almost a week ago, we have now diverted to Svolvaer, the largest city in Lofoten, for repairs. Yesterday, while the mechanics were fitting the new drive belts, my crew mate Jörgen and I hired a rental car to explore the island in the pouring rain. Today, things are already looking up.…

Quality flybridge cruisers in and around the 50ft mark are not in short supply. In fact, with Absolute, Fairline, Galeon, Prestige and Princess providing some stellar options at this kind of size, the competition in this sector is about as savage as it gets. So why, you might ask, would a Swedish sportsboat builder step out of a strategy meeting and attempt to gatecrash the party? After all, this sector has never really been a core consideration for Gothenburg-based Nimbus – and in spite of having delivered more than 12,000 boats in 86 different models since its foundation in 1968, the new 495 Fly is set to be the largest it has ever built, the first to benefit from IPS drives and one of just two flybridge cruisers in the…

Australian-based WaveFlyer is the latest company to get aboard the burgeoning electric hydro-foiling revolution. The Volaré is a compact boat with side-by-side seating for two. Utilising a watercooled battery system, WaveFlyer claims that it can be recharged in 40 minutes and run for about four hours, with a take-off speed of eight knots and a max speed of 20 knots. The Rogue uses the same hull but with a PWC-style tandem seat and handlebars. Its stats are similar, apart from a slightly higher 22-knot top speed. Both feature a proprietary W-Foil arrangement, an unusual anhedral-shaped hydrofoil that is naturally unstable and requires fly-by-wire control to achieve stable flight. WaveFlyer claims the idea is similar to that of a modern jet fighter which is inherently unstable and can only be flown…

Being the proud owner of a Marex 310, I get the chance to spend every boat show sitting on the Marex stand, telling people what it’s like to own one. I get a kick out of explaining how I tend to use mine and I also get a kick out of highlighting the elements of the boat I most appreciate. The fridge, which is massive for a 31ft boat, is certainly one such feature and so is the simple, user-friendly curtain system, which zips (in completely idiot-proof fashion) around the back end, creating all-but-instant shelter for the people in the cockpit. It’s a feature everybody is now keenly aware of and it raises lots of questions at boat shows. Are they warm enough in the winter? Are they waterproof enough…

MOCHI DOLPHIN 64 FLY COOL RATING PULSE-POUNDING PASTEL PANACHE The Ferretti Group covers many bases with its various brands. There is Ferretti Yachts itself, of course, building flybridge craft from 50-100ft; CRN for superyachts; Pershing for performance; Itama for open sportscruisers; Bertram for sportsfishers; Wally Yachts for cutting-edge style; and Riva for ultimate luxury. There is, however, one other brand in its portfolio, which it acquired in November 2001, and for a while had us all drooling in admiration. That brand is Mochi Yachts, and what Ferretti decided it stood for back then was modern retro chic. It duly relaunched the brand with a new line of yachts, the Dolphin range, a fresh take on New England-style lobster boats. The 64 Fly was the flagship of the Dolphin range if…