Boat Reviews

New Princess Y80 Heading to Miami

By Peter Janssen on December 6, 2023 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The large, luxurious and fast Princess Y80 flybridge motor yacht will make its U.S. debut at the Miami show in February. The British-built yacht had its global introduction at the Cannes show in September. With 1,900-hp MAN V12 diesels and straight shaft drives, the new Princess tops out at 33 knots, and it has an impressive range of 340 nm at a fast cruising speed of 24 knots. Dial back to 10 knots and the range jumps to well above 1,000 nm. The Y80 comes with a slash of glazing running almost full length of the hull side, suggesting forward…

VisionF Launches 82 Flagship

By Peter Janssen on December 5, 2023 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

VisionF, the four-year-old Turkish builder, just launched its new 82 all-aluminum power catamaran flagship. Powered by twin 800-hp Volvo IPS1050 pod drives, the new 82 has a top speed of 16 knots and a range of 1,600 nm. VisionFs can be heavily customized, but the new 82 has three staterooms holding up to six guests, plus two more for four crew. The cat’s beam of almost 40 feet allows for massive amounts of interior and exterior space for relaxing, entertaining or living on board for extended periods of time. The draft is just 2’ 6”, so the VisionF 82 can…

New Linssen 35 SL: A Couple’s Cruiser

By Peter Janssen on December 4, 2023 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Linssen Yachts, the family firm that’s been building steel boats in The Netherlands since 1949, just launched their new 35 SL couple’s cruiser. Powered by a single 75-hp Volvo diesel, the new 35 SL (for Sport Lux) with a displacement hull has a top speed of 8 knots. There’s nothing fancy about this latest Linssen, or previous Linssens either. They’re solid, functional, user-friendly cruising boats, made for coastal waterways or the canals and rivers of Europe and anywhere else. It doesn’t take a big leap to envision the Linssen 35 SL anywhere on the Great Loop, for example. The boat…

New Fast, Light, Jet Capsule Super Sport

By Peter Janssen on December 3, 2023 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Italy’s thinking-outside-the-box Lazzarini Design Studio has just launched its new 2024 Jet Capsule Super Sport, the fastest and lightest version of its pod-like capsules that are meant to inspire a new wave of mobility on the water. The new Jet Capsule SS is 26’ 2” long and weighs just 7,055 pounds, or 1,300 less than the previous version. It has a carbon-fiber shell laid up by vacuum-infusion molding. Powered by a 640-hp supercharged gas engine, it tops out at 38 knots, considerably faster than other Jet Capsules. It also accelerates to a 32-knot cruising speed in 12 seconds. Other gas…

Miss Moonshine: A New Gentleman’s Racer

By Peter Janssen on November 29, 2023 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Miss Moonshine certainly isn’t one of the owner-operator cruising boats we usually write about, but it sure looks like fun. Described as a Prohibition Era gentleman’s racer, the all-mahogany Miss Moonshine is the brainchild of Kevin Fitzke, the head of Fitzke Boatworks in Minneapolis. He’s working on a prototype and will have the first boat in the water next summer. The 23-foot boat will be powered by a single 320-hp GM engine mounted amidships, with the prop and rudder aft. It will have a bow thruster, an accessory that’s unusual for 23-foot boats and one that definitely did not exist…

Fjord Launches Two New 39-Footers

By Peter Janssen on November 29, 2023 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Fjord just launched two new 39-foot boats, the entry level to its German-built fleet with its iconic minimalist look that goes up to 53 feet. The two new boats are called the 39XL and the 39XP. The major difference is that the XL is powered by twin 320-hp Volvo D4 diesel sterndrives, with 440-hp D6s as upgrades. The XP comes with twin 400-hp Mercury Verado outboards, providing a top speed of 45 knots. Both boats have joysticks at the helm for fingertip docking and low-speed maneuvering. Fjord is part of Hanse Yachts. The European market traditionally favors inboard and sterndrive…

Longreach Launches 58 Expedition Cat

By Peter Janssen on November 28, 2023 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Longreach Catamarans just launched its new 58-foot Expedition power catamaran and is holding sea trials in Thailand. A variation on the Australian company’s standard 58, the new Expedition has a fully enclosed flybridge as well as a customized fully enclosed cockpit that can be opened up with electric windows. Powered by twin 440-hp Yanmars, the Expedition has a range of 2,000 nm. Optional fuel tanks with a 2,560-gallon capacity extend the range to 3,500 nm at a cruising speed of 11.5 knots. Top speed: 25 knots. Solar panels on the flybridge hardtop produce 5 kW to power the cat’s 24…

New Limitless 45: Fast and Flexible

By Peter Janssen on November 27, 2023 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The Limitless 45 with its plumb bow, minimalist lines and transformer-type aft deck looks like the growing number of modern weekenders with a touch of speed. But unlike many other new boats in this category, the Limitless 45 does not trace its roots to Scandinavia; instead, it’s built in Turkey. Now in Fort Lauderdale, the Limitless 45 can be powered by three 400-hp Mercury outboards, or two 600-Mercury V12 outboards. With the larger engines, it reaches a 52-knot top speed and has a range of 260 nm at 35 knots. Like many other new yachts, the Limitless 45 has an…

SilverYachts Building Scandinavian-Designed Cat

By Peter Janssen on November 27, 2023 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Tillberg Design of Sweden just unveiled the new SilverCat 22M semi-custom power catamaran, now being built in SilverYachts’ plant in China. Tillberg Design of Sweden (TDoS) dates to 1964, when it first started designing interiors for ocean liners. Over the years, it has worked primarily on cruise ships and larger personal super yachts. For the new 72-foot SilverCat 22M it collaborated with the Norwegian yacht designer Espen Øino, perhaps best known for designing Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s 413-foot superyacht Octopus. The new SilverCat is a bit smaller, of course, but its 35’4” beam provides lots of space for creative design…

Piper Unveils New Steel-Hulled Hybrid Cruiser

By Peter Janssen on November 27, 2023 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The brand new Piper 12C steel cruiser with optional hybrid electric power is the new kid on the block, offering a no-nonsense, one- or two-stateroom alternative to more established displacement cruisers made around the world. The new Piper Cruiser, just introduced at the Southampton show, is made by Piper Boats, a well-established British yard that has been building Dutch-style liveaboard barges for the canals and waterways in England and the continent. (The new Piper would certainly be a candidate for the Great Loop if it were available in the U.S.) The 12C is Piper’s first recreational boat, a 39-footer with…

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