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Guest
Guest
Conventional wisdom would preclude a design offering the sheer luxury of a 70 foot boat within the confines of a 58 foot hull. And yet that very same sagacity would also invite the possibilty that we can also get away with lightly slagging off another ho hum fat 58 foot cruiser for ho hum fat 58-year-olds, this time from Fairline, whose legal department is, as we all know, rather weak and feeble since that weedy new chap took over from the worringly large Sam Newington, and his equally huge kids and upper-class wife.
Preliminary impressions at the London Boat Show were not promising. The Ed got half a poxy lager on the Fairline stand, and the asst ed got a flippin cup of tea. Tea! Bloody Tea!
No matter, on with the test, albeit now scoring a max 8/10 due to the aforementioned, yet simultaneously a minimum 8/10 seeing as how there's an extremely good chance of a some loan boat from Peters for a long thrash in the Med. It could have been with this, but it's more likely to be something cheap.
Below decks there's ample whatever gloss yerknow yawn avonite carpety space where stuff gets chucked in, drinks and Oi! turn up the music willya down there?
The spacious foredeck has cushions in stripy blue, just exactly the effing same as that old Sam's wife chose ten years ago, and they haven't had any other ideas.
In the engine compartment, there's very reasonable access to essentials, cos the boat is 58 feet long. So it's hardly gonna be inchy-tight is it now? No. If the boat was bigger, like 70 or 80 feet long, there'd be more space, and if it was only say 35 or 45 feet long there'd be less.
As usual, here's a picture of that bloke in the engine compartment with his clipboard, pretending to take notes about an engine that is not even running. Note that he's is in fact a very small bloke, who never ever complains about headroom, and his clipboard is in fact A5 size, not A4.
At sea, we were reassured by its solid seakeeping. That means it floats. If it was crap at "seakeeping" then of course it would flop around like a Lilo, or even sink. Anyway, we found it's seakeeping was 8/10, since it's much better than a Lilo, but nowhere near as good as, say, the Eddystone Lighthouse. As ever, the Fairline finish was very impressive. Mostly, that's because it was a brand new boat, and not oldish. So, all the seats inside and out were really really white and spanky clean, and nobody had even used the loos, or walked on the carpet much.
But (and it's a big But) who likes high-polished wood below decks? Hmmm? Well, it might be just fine for those few who choose a Fairline. Or a Princess. Or Ferretti or Sunseeker or Rizzardi or Bennetti, or Bahia or Sealine or Pershing or Azimut or Palmer Johnson or Hatteras or Baglietto or Riva or Maiora or Cranchi. But not for the rest of us in Brooms or Traders, or other old nanky pre-1990-designed boats. The ed likes Real Boats with sandpaper marks and oil and fishing attachments. And the asst ed likes nutter loony aargh yahoo getting nearly thrown off the back with neck-snapping acceleration.
Added to that, who on earth would buy a boat like this, at around 650 bleeding grand. Apart from someone who can't afford a Ferretti 68 at over a million, but indeed does have the requisite 0,65M. So there won't be many takers. Apart from a few people. Unless maybe they got lashed by the stock market. But, there again,there's loads of mugs who bought the Sqaudron 65 on the basis that it has a fold-out ironing board, so that's okay then.
We like: Free trips on nice new boats, lager in pint glasses, lots of space to loaf about, unvarnished wooden bits, big shiny metal bits outside, slagging off Fairline a bit.
We hate: attempting to value-judge boats that cost more than a very big house, being chased by that berk with a camera, trying to work the gizmos and finding out the PDI hasn't been done, not being allowed to lie down on the beds for a snooze cos they've sold the boat, Fairline salespeople droning on and on and on about quality whilst waiting for an engineer to fix things.
Preliminary impressions at the London Boat Show were not promising. The Ed got half a poxy lager on the Fairline stand, and the asst ed got a flippin cup of tea. Tea! Bloody Tea!
No matter, on with the test, albeit now scoring a max 8/10 due to the aforementioned, yet simultaneously a minimum 8/10 seeing as how there's an extremely good chance of a some loan boat from Peters for a long thrash in the Med. It could have been with this, but it's more likely to be something cheap.
Below decks there's ample whatever gloss yerknow yawn avonite carpety space where stuff gets chucked in, drinks and Oi! turn up the music willya down there?
The spacious foredeck has cushions in stripy blue, just exactly the effing same as that old Sam's wife chose ten years ago, and they haven't had any other ideas.
In the engine compartment, there's very reasonable access to essentials, cos the boat is 58 feet long. So it's hardly gonna be inchy-tight is it now? No. If the boat was bigger, like 70 or 80 feet long, there'd be more space, and if it was only say 35 or 45 feet long there'd be less.
As usual, here's a picture of that bloke in the engine compartment with his clipboard, pretending to take notes about an engine that is not even running. Note that he's is in fact a very small bloke, who never ever complains about headroom, and his clipboard is in fact A5 size, not A4.
At sea, we were reassured by its solid seakeeping. That means it floats. If it was crap at "seakeeping" then of course it would flop around like a Lilo, or even sink. Anyway, we found it's seakeeping was 8/10, since it's much better than a Lilo, but nowhere near as good as, say, the Eddystone Lighthouse. As ever, the Fairline finish was very impressive. Mostly, that's because it was a brand new boat, and not oldish. So, all the seats inside and out were really really white and spanky clean, and nobody had even used the loos, or walked on the carpet much.
But (and it's a big But) who likes high-polished wood below decks? Hmmm? Well, it might be just fine for those few who choose a Fairline. Or a Princess. Or Ferretti or Sunseeker or Rizzardi or Bennetti, or Bahia or Sealine or Pershing or Azimut or Palmer Johnson or Hatteras or Baglietto or Riva or Maiora or Cranchi. But not for the rest of us in Brooms or Traders, or other old nanky pre-1990-designed boats. The ed likes Real Boats with sandpaper marks and oil and fishing attachments. And the asst ed likes nutter loony aargh yahoo getting nearly thrown off the back with neck-snapping acceleration.
Added to that, who on earth would buy a boat like this, at around 650 bleeding grand. Apart from someone who can't afford a Ferretti 68 at over a million, but indeed does have the requisite 0,65M. So there won't be many takers. Apart from a few people. Unless maybe they got lashed by the stock market. But, there again,there's loads of mugs who bought the Sqaudron 65 on the basis that it has a fold-out ironing board, so that's okay then.
We like: Free trips on nice new boats, lager in pint glasses, lots of space to loaf about, unvarnished wooden bits, big shiny metal bits outside, slagging off Fairline a bit.
We hate: attempting to value-judge boats that cost more than a very big house, being chased by that berk with a camera, trying to work the gizmos and finding out the PDI hasn't been done, not being allowed to lie down on the beds for a snooze cos they've sold the boat, Fairline salespeople droning on and on and on about quality whilst waiting for an engineer to fix things.
