The real difference in sea worthiness of motor yachts

Zeus is pretty much a dead tech. Avoid.

IPS and shafts, even with V-drives, are the only option.

Six vs. half a dozen springs to mind.

One other boat/line you might consider is Azimut Magellano Fly 43 or 50.

We bought a used 2017 43 and love it for the 3 stateroom layout, 2 heads with separate showers, Cummins diesels with v-shafts and Xenta joystick, 3'11" draft, and look/style overall. Dinghy on swim platform with passerelle as lifting device is okay -- still getting hang of it. Moving up from a 27' Chaparral express cruiser, this was a manageable leap in terms of size and budget.

It cruises at 17knots and tops out at 21, which suits us.
I'd guess Azimut will evoke some emotions, so go easy as I'm just trying to offer helpful suggestions on alternatives for OP.

Welcome to YF, Tiger. Nice first post.

27' Chaparral; that's a single I/O isn't it? The 43 Azimut isn't my kind of boat, but she's pretty and coming from that single I/O you're going to love it especially around the dock. I hope she serves you well. Welcome to YF. Boat safe.

What about a 56 or 62 Neptunus?

Sounds nice. Enjoy! I'll be down your way end of this month for a long weekend trip from Cape May. We always enjoy Annapolis. Great place.

I've always like the look of many Ocean Alexander's. Many in the your size range. Many with upper and lower helms. And in your budget. They have a good reputation, as far as I know.

Are you sure to have in mind the right boat?
There are both a flybridge and a sportboat (Atlantis) in Azimut range, both called 43, but Tiger said that he has a Magellano 43.
Which many would consider the less pretty of these three very different Azi 43.
But is actually the better built and more solid among them all, imho.

Then again, each to their own obviously.
It's just your "she's pretty" than made me wonder...

+1 on welcoming Tiger, anyway!

As an odd thing, Covid-19 has had amazing effects on the charter market. Like many other things, demand is off-the-charts. I've been looking for weeks with 2 different brokers to find a 55' charter (bare plus hired captain), and haven't found a boat yet (that I trust).

LMK if you find a way to do it (overnight). I'm in a similar interest area as you, and haven't been able to find a (charter) way to go out. (And dealers don't let you take models out overnight - at least from what I've found).

I note that nobody has mentioned the Absolute Navetta 52 or 58 here yet for this same mission / usage that the original poster mentioned (wintertime FL/Bahamas, possible cruise to Caribbean). The 58 is a bit more than that poster's budget, but the 52 might be had for a bit over $1m.

The Navetta's got my eye, having:
- Most of the creature comforts mentioned (though I haven't seen any boat with a watermaker yet); e.g. a decent refrigerator (though not a home-sized one); dishwasher; laundry; etc.
- Semi-displacement hull, for those who expect to spend most time trawling along at slow speeds, but want the ability to run at 25+kts when needed;
- Pretty. Decent sized cabins, modern Italian decor, etc.
- Upper and lower helms.
- The 58 is designed for decent range (230nm @ 15kts with 10% reserve, 900nm @ 6kts!). (Italians apparently use the term "Navetta" to denote a long-range cruising vessel.)
- Hull design designed to remain efficient even when pushing higher speeds.
- Crew quarters

Cons:
- Fly isn't enclosed / air-conditioned (though with main-level bridge, this is irrelevant).
- Another European product, so possible service / parts supply hassles.
- Bizarre lack of "spouse seat" at the bridges.

Neutral stuff:
- Average storage. When I looked at it, I saw little bits everywhere, though "big areas of storage" were not abundant. Maybe less storage in the galley than I'd like.
- Pods.
- Though I don't put huge stock in their reviews, Boat Test gave it a good look and decent compliments (including a "creak and rattle-free ride", to contrast to the comments about the "other" brand....)
- Vertical bow can be visually off-putting to some, but I kinda like the overall profile.

I note that vintage seems to be important. Absolute has been tweaking things - especially the galley - in the 2021 and 2022 models. The galley was counter-space-shy in the 2017-2020 models.

Anybody have thoughts about the brand / build / ...?

I am more interested in quality of the Absolute brand ? I find other Italian boats are lower quality than others.....feedback......

Now, that's a sweeping generalization, if I've ever seen one.
Why do you think that the first world power (i.e. China, whether you guys in the US like it or not), when they decided to do some boatbuilders shopping, looked at Italy and the UK, rather than the US?

Back to your point, Absolute boatbuilding heritage is much longer than the brand alone might suggest, and stretches to the 60s, when Angelo Gobbi founded a well respected company, with boat models attractive enough for Vitelli to buy the whole company in the late 90s (or early noughties, can't remember exactly).
But shortly after that, he established Absolute, together with some key ex-Gobbi engineers, and a fresh, very modern approach to boatbuilding, in an impressive, very automated factory.

Now, personally I wouldn't touch any IPS boat with a barge pole. Therefore, since one of the decisions they made at Absolute from the very beginning was to fully embrace the technology and use it in all of their models, they don't stand a chance to sell one to myself.
But they don't seem to have lost a lot of sleep for that reason, because they did find plenty of other buyers.
Bottom line, if the joystick is your thing (and/or if you don't mind buying a boat that includes a subscription to financing VP and their dealers on a regular basis), you can do much worse than picking an Absolute boat.

Just another thought: if by chance the Absolute model you are interested in is one of the Navettas mentioned in the post you quoted, personally I would rather consider the Magellano models instead, none of which are pod powered.
And this goes well beyond my personal pet peeve against IPS, because in any boat supposed to be used for long range cruising, it's rather obvious that it's crucial to minimize the risk of having one or even both propulsions stuck for silly reasons, possibly very far from home and from any capable service.

OTOH, if you are interested in any of the other, more coastal cruising oriented, Absolute models, this consideration is much less critical.
And some of their flybridge and sportcruisers are very nice boats indeed.

You know it depends on how you look at it. If you have a POD issue, you can ship a new POD pretty much anywhere pretty easily and just about anyone can install it.

Back to Absolute. I've never run one yet. I've heard the quality is pretty good overall. However, they're a mid quality boat and quality is pretty good and a price point boat. I've heard they're a good step above Prestige.

Italian builders have long earned their reputation here in the United States. Most Italian brands have horrible warranty support, always try to blame issues on the owner and not the product, and so forth. The way Italian yachts are built with the majority of them sub-contracting the electrical and interior to other companies and none of them follow the plans or even install the same equipment from boat to boat is another good reason. An electrical diagrahm from Azimuts only useful purpose is for toilet paper. A lack of small parts availability or even using the same light fixtures from yacht to yacht. Foresti and Suardi is another example, Italians love to use their lights, which they happen to love to sell for 6 months then re-design the style and can't get replacements. The poor use of interior furnishings that aren't designed for the marine environment is another. The lack of access/space to repair and maintain the yacht is another. Crew quarters that are designed for 10 year old boys is another. Very few break away from this mold.

I've heard numerous people say this over the years, not just on YF. I was out to dinner with a group of people following the Palm Beach show and the subject came up. Turns out a captain running two different Azimuts over a 10 year period was sitting at a table next to us and overheard our discussion. He joined the conversation and confirmed the difficulty he faced with support and how they attempted to blame him for the issues.

I do believe it is fair to say after all these years and all the reports that the level of service provided on Azimuts in Europe and in the US is substantially different. The reputation in Europe is excellent. The reputation in the US is very poor. Whether it's the fault of Azimut or of Marine Max or a combination of the two is debatable and really irrelevant as the resulting issues are simply what they are. I think it's a shame as they clearly are capable of building an excellent boat, but when you face service problems from the outset in the US then that must be considered.

Now, I also think it is unwise to extend the Azimut issue to all Italian builders. We own 2 and manage 2 more Riva's and have never had any issues on them. Similarly, I know many owners of other Ferretti group boats, including Pershing and Ferretti, who have had excellent experiences.

In purchasing a new Absolute, I would absolutely want to check out the reputation of their dealer in your area and understand what to expect there. In Fort Lauderdale, it's One Water Yacht Group, formerly Grande Yachts, and they own Roscioli Yachting Center. I'd feel good about Roscioli as a service provider. However, elsewhere it may be different. Incidentally, they are now also the dealer for Belize, Chris Craft, Prestige, Riviera, and Sunseeker. Tom George sold his business to One Water and is now leading One Water. One Water has 69 locations.

The purchases of Roscioli and Tom George took place in December.

Care to name them? It would be nice to read here how good some Italian builders are, for a change.

I will refrain from commenting all the other sweeping generalizations because, as Cobb of Inception fame would put it, the most resilient parasite is an idea: once it has taken hold of the brain, it's almost impossible to eradicate.

But if you think that replacing a pod is a trivial job that you can trust anyone to handle, you've obviously never seen it done.
Regardless, let's say that if you need a full replacement it's probably because of a grounding, and let's say also that in such event your holiday would be ruined with any kind of boat/propulsion.

That's not what I had in mind when I said that IPS boats can get stuck for silly reasons, because I did mean silly.
If I grab a line with my boat, all I need is a sharp knife and a mask (been there, done that), and I'm back in business.
When the same happened to a friend of mine with an IPS powered boat, he did exactly the same, but after returning to his berth, he found out that oil was emulsionated inside that pod, and his holiday was over.

What would you rather prefer while cruising the Caribbean with your LRC boat, to make plans for the next leg after a swim with a knife, or forget any plans and search a yard equipped for a liftout, with one engine turned off (which is what VP strongly recommend in case of water ingress)?