Beneteau will introduce its new Swift Trawler 47 at the Cannes Yachting Festival on Sept. 11, the fifth model in its popular Swift Trawler line. It has three staterooms, two heads, a light-filled salon and galley, a low profile even with its flybridge, and a contemporary French look that will appeal to cruisers around the world.
Full disclosure: I have a soft spot for Beneteau’s Swift Trawlers. A few years ago, George Sass, Sr., the photojournalist, and I spent a week on a new Beneteau Swift Trawler 34, The Greatest Loop, cruising from the top of Lake Michigan down to St. Louis. It had two cabins, one head, a single diesel that gave us a 15-knot cruising speed, an easy-riding hull and comfortable, user-friendly interior. We both agreed it was a great cruising boat for a couple or a small family, and that it would put coastal cruising or the Great Loop within reach for a large number of aspiring boat owners.
The new Swift Trawler seems to have all those attributes, but in a larger, twin-diesel boat. And with expanded accommodations and living areas on board, you can take a lot more friends. The master stateroom is in the bow with a step-up queen bed and an en suite head. The major guest cabin is just aft and to port, with twin berths that can be combined into a queen for a couple. It shares a head and shower with a smaller stateroom, suitable for children, on the starboard side.
The salon is filled with light from windows all around and a large glass door opening to the cockpit. The L-shaped galley is to port, and a sofa on the starboard side converts to a bed for two. A bench seat at the helm holds two, and a side door opens to the starboard deck. A boarding gate is built into the hull there, to make it easy to get or off the boat.
The large cockpit is protected by an overhang from the boat deck above; it has an aft settee and teak table. The teak swim platform is on a hydraulic lift to make it easy to access water sports. The flybridge seats four facing forward, and the boat has a comfortable sunlounge on the bow.
For power, the Swift Trawler 47 has two 425-hp diesels, and you can have joystick controls at the lower helm, the flybridge and in the cockpit for easy maneuvering around a dock. The boat will be coming to the U.S. soon.
Specs.: LOA: 48’4”; Beam: 14’6”; Draft: 3’10”; Disp.: 43,236 lbs.; Fuel: 510 gals.; Water: 169 gals.; Power: 2×425-hp diesels. Read more:
http://www.beneteau.com/us/swift-trawler/swift-trawler-47
