Browsing: Boat Reviews

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Sirena To Show Two New Boat in Cannes and Announce Plans for Another

Sirena Marine just keeps growing. Last year the high-class Turkish builder started its new powerboat line (officially called Sirena Yachts) with a 64-foot long-range cruiser, first shown at the Dusseldorf show, followed by a 56-foot version introduced at the Miami show. Now it will have both of those models in the water at the Cannes show in September, where Ipek Kirac, the company’s CEO, will announce plans for an even larger yacht. Both the 56 and 64 are impressive cruising boats with clean, contemporary European lines and curved wraparound pilothouse windows. They come with an impeccable pedigree. German Frers, one…

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New Aquila 36 Cat with Twin 300-hp Outboards: A Fast and Roomy Cruiser

At first glance, it’s easy to see why the new Aquila 36 power cat is getting a lot of attention. After all, two big 300-hp Mercury Verado outboards are hanging off the stern. But look again, and you’ll probably want to climb on board for a test run. The boat has an enormous amount of space, inside and out. The cockpit alone can hold 24 adults, while the two staterooms below, one per sponson, are not only large but also come with extra headroom, lots of light (from long side windows), and an en suite head. The new Aquila is…

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New 49-foot Kodiak Mini-Expedition Yacht from Stephens Waring

Stephens Waring Yacht Design, the custom naval architecture and engineering firm in Belfast, Maine, doesn’t exactly follow the crowd. If you’re interested in a plastic floating condo that holds 12 for drinks, is top-heavy and gets 0.6 nm per gallon, you probably don’t need to go there. But if you love classic designs and old-world craftsmanship, combined with modern materials and technology, then you’ve found the right place. Their latest, which they write about after extolling the virtues of expedition yachts (business-like, seaworthy and serious), is a 49-foot mini-expedition yacht called Kodiak, which they say “speaks to the adventurer in…

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New, Innovative, Fun and Fast Walker Bay Generation 525. See Review and Video

It’s hard to fit the new Walker Bay Generation 525 into a narrow boat category, because this new, luxurious 17-footer offers so much: It’s a RIB, certainly, but it also can be a sport boat, a day boat, a tow boat, a runabout or even a megayacht tender. It would be fun to have the 525 just to zip around a harbor by yourself, or to take a crowd – the boat’s rated for ten passengers. A California company (located in Fairfield, about half-way between San Francisco and Sacramento), Walker Bay is known for its innovation and creative design. Indeed,…

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Sabre 66 Flybridge Sea Trial Video: 29.2 Knots WOT

Even with its flybridge, the Sabre 66 Dirigo maintains a sleek, low profile, and the Maine-built beauty also performs on the water. We’ve written about the boat before, and I cruised on hull number one in northern Florida more than a year ago, but now Sabre has released a video of the flybridge boat’s initial sea trials in Penobscot Bay. The flagship of the Sabre fleet, the flybridge 66 cruises at 24.6 knots, and is a quiet boat, registering only 68 dB(A) at the helm; at its top speed of 29.2 knots, it registers only 70 dB(A).  On board the…

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New 2018 Ranger Tugs 27 with 300-hp Yamaha Outboard Power

As more evidence of the increasing move to outboard power, Ranger Tugs just introduced its 2018 R-27 with a single Yamaha F300 outboard, opening up the cockpit a bit, adding to the boat’s overall length, and certainly producing a bump up in speed. We don’t have any performance details yet, but we do know that the shift to an outboard will appeal to a portion of Ranger’s potential market that wanted some more juice. The Kent, Washington-based company will still offer the popular R-27 with a standard 200-hp Volvo D3 diesel. Over the years, I’ve cruised on Ranger Tugs in…

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New 50-mph Cutwater 302 Pocket Cruiser: Innovations and Speed. See Video

We first wrote about the new Cutwater 302 when it was launched (last Dec. 14), but now the boat’s in the water, with a video, and it’s even more impressive than we had thought. Indeed, its 50-mph speed, driven by twin 300-hp Yamaha outboards and Cutwater’s double-stepped hull, is eye-opening, and its overall creative engineering and out-of-the-box thinking offer more living and entertaining space on board than you can find on much larger boats. The largest in the Cutwater fleet, the new 302 is a two-cabin, one-head pocket cruiser that actually can sleep six (with two on the convertible dinette).…

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New 78-foot Luxury Flagship for Lagoon Power Cat Fleet

The flagship of the Lagoon motor yacht fleet, the new, luxurious, long-range Lagoon Seventy 8 will be introduced at the Cannes Yachting Festival in September and then shown in the U.S. later in the year. The company says the idea behind the massive 78-foot-long cruiser with a 36-foot beam is to compete in the top end of the world-wide motor yacht market. The Seventy 8 will emphasize comfort, luxury and seaworthiness. The cat’s twin hulls provide stability and space, while the three-foot draft gives the boat access to shallow bays and coves around the world. We don’t have details yet,…

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First Look at New, Impressive Grand Banks 60 in the Water: Video

Here’s a first look at the much-awaited Grand Banks 60 in the water, before it is unveiled at the Sanctuary Cove boat show in Australia later this month. The running shots are great; this is a pretty boat (majestic, even), with a good attitude. Its first showing in the U.S. will be at the Newport, Rhode Island, show in September. A three-stateroom, two-head long distance cruiser, the new 60 will be the flagship of the Grand Banks Heritage fleet, powered by twin 900-hp Volvo diesels and topping out at about 32 knots.  As we have written here before, it will…

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Jock Williams’ Super-Traditional, Built-in-Maine Stanley 38 Lobster Yacht

They don’t come much more traditional than the Stanley 38, built on the shores of Somes Sound, just up from Southwest Harbor, Maine, by the John Williams Boat Company. With its lobster boat heritage, graceful sheerline and hint of tumblehome, the Stanley 38 has enough visible wood to keep the most ardent of purists happy. A year ago, John (Jock) Williams worked with Doug Zurn, the Marblehead, Mass., designer, to build a special Stanley 38, with a high-tech hull laid up with vinylester resin, stitched e-glass and Corecell construction and powered by twin Volvo IPS 600 pod drives; it topped…

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