Making a production powerboat that stands out from the crowd is next to impossible these days, says David Marsh in Motorboat & Yachting magazine. But Fairline have managed it with this Squadron 65 model.
How? By "fanatical attention to detail". You may think it hard to get excited about a shower, but Fairline were obviously unhappy with the clumsy, pull-out, hand-held showerheads you get on most boats, and so completely redesigned it. The result is a far classier bathroom.
The engine room also betrays "fastidious attention to detail", from the neat, bright easy-to-clean finish to the bins moulded into the dead space underneath the moulded floors.
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The cabins have been equally well thought-out. The forward cabin is "breathtaking" and light and spacey, the crew cabin is also "bright and breezy", and the saloon feels "more like a warm, cosy, wood-panelled gentlemen's club, a sanctuary from the world outside rather than a floating window on the world".
When you choose a boat, you basically have to choose whether you want a crazy, fun boat, and make practical compromises. Or you go for a practical but rather boring one. With Fairline, you get the best of both worlds.
Fairlines are designed by people who "are passionate about making your life on board as easy as possible and everywhere you look it shows".
Charter a superyacht
A new generation of superyachts is being launched just as the billionaires who commissioned them find themselves in choppy financial waters, says Lisa Grainger in The Daily Telegraph's Ultratravel magazine. That means there's never been a better time to charter.
To build a superyacht costs about £1m a metre. Running it will cost a few million more a year. For those of us who don't have that kind of money to hand, however, "chartering remains the most feasible way for most of us to step onto a superyacht".
If you can't stretch to a super, deals on smaller yachts have also never been better, says Grainger. On www.yacht-base.com, a week on a Beneteau 50, sleeping ten, can be less than €5,000 this summer, with skipper. To view a range of yachts for charter, priced from less than €20,000 for a week for a sailing yacht sleeping six to more than €660,000 for one sleeping 36, see www.camperandnicholsons.com.
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