Boat Reviews

Selene 72: Big Blue-Water Cruiser

By Peter Janssen on May 7, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The Selene 72 Ocean Explorer ticks a lot of the boxes for safe and comfortable blue-water cruising. Designed by Guido de Groot in the Netherlands and Howard Chen and his Selene Design Studio in Taiwan, the big Selene has a modern-styled raised pilothouse, Portuguese bridge and high bulwarks for safety, wide side decks, large side windows to provide lots of interior light, and an upper flybridge. The aft deck and side decks are covered for weather protection. Doors on both sides of the pilothouse open to the side decks and the Portuguese bridge, which has a large settee set across…

Coming: New Light-Filled Prestige F5

By Peter Janssen on May 6, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Prestige, the upscale French builder, just announced that it’s making a new 57-foot F5 flybridge motoryacht, a larger version of the 50-foot F4 that it launched at the Cannes Yachting Festival last September. The new F5 has the same styling as the F4, but with even more glazing in the salon and in the hull sides for the lower accommodations deck. Indeed, the salon sides have almost full-height glass side windows, forward and aft; on the starboard side, they’re separated by a sliding glass door in the middle, designed to give the captain immediate access to the side deck. The…

Photo by Will Ricketson

Iconic Shelter Island Runabout: Now with Outboards

By Peter Janssen on May 2, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The iconic Shelter Island 38 Runabout, which got a lot of attention when Billy Joel launched hull number one in 1996, is now being built with outboards. The original boat had twin 415-hp MerCruisers with Bravo 3 drives and counter-rotating props, delivering the “Newport by lunch” speed that Joel wanted. More recent versions have been powered by 370-hp Yanmar diesel sterndrives, topping out at 45 knots. Now, with twin 300-hp Mercury Verados, the top speed is about the same, but the outboards are quiet, and they can be lifted up for running in shallow water. Almost 30 years ago, the…

New Beneteau Antares 42-Foot Flagship

By Peter Janssen on May 1, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The flagship of Beneteau’s Antares fleet, the new 42-foot Antares 12 is a versatile flybridge cruiser that’s easy to like and easy to use. The Antares 12 is a three-cabin, two-head family cruiser, powered by three 300-hp Mercury outboards, with a top speed of 36.8 knots. Two 400-hp Mercury outboards are options. A fingertip joystick control makes slow-speed maneuvering and docking easy. A door next to the helm opens to the starboard side deck, so the captain can move around the boat quickly. All the way aft, a fixed bench seat runs across the transom, and the swim platform is…

Rustler Launches Its First Powerboat

By Peter Janssen on April 30, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Rustler Yachts, a British semi-custom, blue-water sailboat builder with a well-earned reputation for craftsmanship and seamanship, just launched its first powerboat, the elegant Rustler 41. Adrian Jones, the director of Rustler Yachts, said, “We’ve been asked many times if we would build a motorboat by both existing Rustler customers, and those who simply understand our philosophy towards building boats.” The resulting 41, designed by fellow Brit Tony Castro, delivers “comfort, speed and pride of ownership,” according to the company. The 41 carries classic lines with a retro hint and looks that represent a European version of a lobster boat. For…

Lyman-Morse Building New Revel 44S

By Peter Janssen on April 29, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Lyman-Morse Technologies in Thomaston, Maine, is building the first hull of the new Revel 44S, an outboard-powered vessel that’s designed to combine the practicality of a center console with the amenities and comfort of a cruising yacht. Revel is a new company, founded just two years ago, in Charleston, South Carolina. The new Revel 44S is an international effort, with the hull designed by Bill Prince Yacht Design of Port Washington, Wisconsin, and the interior and exterior by Macra Naval Architecture of La Spezia, Italy. A lot of the engineering came from Revel founder and CEO Joshua St. Germain, who…

New Mirrari 55: Pushing the Envelope

By Peter Janssen on April 29, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The new 55-foot Mirrari, designed by Timur Bozca, is pushing the envelope a bit. Mirrari is a new brand, and its first boat is now under construction at the Enata Group yard outside Dubai. The new Mirrari, among other things, is marked by a high-tech glass dome over the salon that was inspired by the bone structure of birds. The Enata Group is an international composites manufacturer focusing on sustainable solutions for the aerospace and yachting industries. It made a splash in the international yachting community when it launched the revolutionary 32-foot Foiler Vaduz last year. With four retractable hydrofoils,…

New Holterman 54: Heading for the U.S.

By Peter Janssen on April 24, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The Great Loop anyone? The new Holterman Commander 54 is currently in its yard in The Netherlands, but Holterman is opening an office in the U.S. soon. And the Commander 54, with two cabins, two heads, a low bridge clearance and a range of 500 nm at 8.5 knots would certainly seem to be good candidate for cruising the Loop, the ICW, or many other spots in the United States. For his part, Julian van Santen, Holterman’s sales director, said the new Commander 54 “is perfectly suited to the U.S. market and U.S. boating preferences.” The Holterman Shipyard was founded…

True North Building 39 Outboard Express

By Peter Janssen on April 24, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

True North Yachts just announced that its building a new 39 Outboard Express that will be launched this summer. The new 39 is being built in the Catalina factory in Largo, Florida. Catalina has built more than 80,000 sailboats over the past half century. It bought True North five years ago, and is now focused on expanding its market. True North already has a 34-foot outboard boat. The 39 has some of the Down East lines that date to the original True North 38, launched by the Pearson Marine Group in 2001 in Warren, Rhode Island. The first True Norths…

Sessa Launches F48 Flybridge Cruiser

By Peter Janssen on April 23, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Sessa is expanding production of its F48 flybridge cruiser that was recently introduced in the United States. The standard Sessa F48 is a three-cabin, two-head upscale yacht with some Italian flair and a large flybridge meant for entertaining. Power comes from twin 550-hp Volvo Penta IPS700 pod drives, delivering a cruising speed of 26 knots and a range of 290-nm. Top speed: 35 knots. The Italian version of the F48 has the galley and pantry area amidships, but for the U.S. market it is located aft, so it can be more integrated into the aft deck and the social and…

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