Azimut 46 speed?

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hkikis

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Hallo!

I am intersting to buy an Azimut 46 2000 with 3208TA engines. Anyone knows what speed and at what rpm I will see in the sea trail?

The brocker told me that the owner doesnt know that max speed because never tried that. He says around 25knots. I think that this is not good.
He remember only at 2200rpm cruise 21knots.

Any personal experience about speeds?

Do you like this boat? Any comments?

Thanks
 
The 3208 in its latest guise made 435hp I seem to recall... (or was it 450)

Pushing an AZ46 ( about 14T dry, and 4.5M wide), I would suspect the 425 3208 to give you around 25 - 27 knot ... Later the lighter 3126's were used, which would push it up towards the 29 knot barrier, but I do not think it was before the C9's at over 500 Hp that the AZ46 managed to claim to achieve over 30 knots...., with around 33 sited by the manufacturer ..

All of these sited top speeds are of course irrelevant as once you run with full load and 2 years of gear onboard, when coupled with less than manufacturer slick bottom, you will have lost that top performance anyway ..... and you'll end up burning around 180 - 200 Litres of fuel each hour at WOT, which may not be the most economical speed for the boat ......
 
hkikis said:
He remember only at 2200rpm cruise 21knots.
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By and large, that sounds reasonable for engines that should reach 2800rpm - which is the crucial point to check in the seatrial, more than the speed.
If the boat achieves 21kts @ 2200, I would definitely expect her to go faster than 25kts at WOT, IF she reaches 2800 as she should.
But any half decent Cat engineer that you'd better have onboard during the seatrial knows that perfectly.
If the engines run well and both reach the rated max rpm, I think she might achieve about 27 or 28kts, but the exact number doesn't make a big difference in practice.
You'll never cruise anywhere near that, anyhow.

PS: welcome to the madhouse!
 
I agree with the above, we choose to cruise our Azimut at around 2000 rpm or just a little over, giving us just over 20kts = relaxed yet swift enough, not too heavy on the fuel (relative!), and yet turbos are spinning nicely and temps at a comfy level.
I'd expect that the boat was sold with a 'top speed' of about 30kts, so as said above, it's really about whether the boat is kept light enough & the engines sprightly enough, ours will get pretty close to those sales brochure figures despite all our cruising gear & stuff - but I don't enjoy running her so hard and we are rarely in a hurry. Also - after coming from years of sailing we think our new found mile crunching ability to be amazing!
 
Bear in mind the vendor for a sea trial should make sure the hull and props a CLEAN. Not Cleaned at the beginning of the season, or a few months ago.

Any fouling of any kind makes a disproportionate difference to speed / RPM. Mine will do full RPM and speed for about 4 weeks and then slowly drifts down. It makes no odds as I cruise at 18-22 kts but to you as the buyer you would not know if dirty or there was a fault.
 
Any other thoughts about Azimut 46? Any experience in this boats?

I checked a lot of boats... Princess 45.. Fairline Phantom 46... and more..
But the Azimut 46 has the best design. Very practical interior design and exterior. Actually it is 49ft boat so ofcourse it is wrong to compare it with fairline and princess.

I am interesting to hear any reviews and experiences about this boat :)
 
hkikis said:
Any other thoughts about Azimut 46? Any experience in this boats?

I checked a lot of boats... Princess 45.. Fairline Phantom 46... and more..
But the Azimut 46 has the best design. Very practical interior design and exterior. Actually it is 49ft boat so ofcourse it is wrong to compare it with fairline and princess.

I am interesting to hear any reviews and experiences about this boat :)
Click to expand...

Yes I used to own a year 2000 AZ46 with Cat 3208TA engines which we berthed in Denia in Spain. Like you I looked at other boats at the time like the Princess 45 and Fairline 46 but the AZ46 offered more space for a similar amount of money. I know this is subjective but I also felt that the AZ was better finished and particularly, better equipped. Cat engines rather than Volvo, Kohler generator, Racor fuel filters, Opacmare passarelle, Cruisair aircon to name a few items. We did experience one issue and this is endemic on AZ boats of this area but we discovered a few osmotic blisters around the trim tab area but these were repaired FOC by Azimut despite the fact that the hull was well out of warranty but its not a major problem anyway. I've just looked at the old sales particulars for my AZ46 and the dealer did quote a max speed of 30kts with a cruising speed of 25kts but my boat only hit 30kts when the hull was absolutely clean. We used to cruise around 20-22kts which seemed to be well within the capability of the boat

We did make one mistake when buying the boat in that our AZ46 was the 2 cabin version and we very soon found out that we really should have bought the 3 cabin version because of the number of friends and family who wanted to visit. One excellent feature of the AZ46 is that the second cabin is almost as big as the forward master cabin and I know that a few owners preferred to use the 2nd cabin as the owners cabin

As ever with a boat of this age, you must do a thorough survey before you buy and that particularly goes for the engines. An engine oil analysis is imperative
 
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