It would be extremely useful if the mags were to put their old boat tests online. I can't imagine that it would help with their sales of back issues but one would imagine that they would be able to generate a fair bit of advertising revenue from such a well visited site.
don't know of any sites with picture/test report of fairline squadron 58 but i know that mby is testing it in next month's issue which is out about 8th april
I would certainly agree with that idea as the poor quality of the photo copying of the report I received rather defeated the object. One would hope that if they put the reports on the web page that they would use a proper colour scanner. ANY response from YBW????
...yeah but at £2.50 a pop the business side would have to be considered in any cost / benefit study.
YBW would have to look at the cost of setting up a fully transactional site AND also keep the old phone / fax / post and I'll send you a cheque infrastructure so you must be looking at an incresed cost to run this service - I for one would rather not have to pay £4 for a report!!!
The other way to do it is dispense with the transactional element (cheaper) and do reports online for free but still charge £2.50 for them over the phone - done properly this would even benefit the poor lass who does these reports by automating more of the selection but more on that later!!
Conventional wisdom would preclude a design offering the sheer luxury of a 70 foot boat within the confines of a 58 foot hull. 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 Failine 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, Princess, Ferretti, Sunseeker, Rizzardi, Bennetti, Bahia, Sealine, Pershing, Azimut, Palmer Johnson, Hatteras, Baglietto, Riva, Maiora, 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.
You'll have to send the usual cheque for that fella who wrote up the boat report. I'll phone the manufacturer and tell them that it slipped through whilst I was on holiday and not to worry because if we said it was as good as it really is, nobody would believe us.
Memo to MattS: pleased to read that your back and on form. Thought you'd hibernated! From the time of your posting, perhaps you had and you've just woken up for Spring!
