What 50 to 60 Fly would be suitable for the Caribbean

Those who tested the 80 had problems and Hatteras stopped offering on the 60.

Now we're assuming they'll have replaced the 60 by the time we get ready to buy another loop boat, likely with a 65. If so, we may go beg. However, if the design is similar to their 75 it will be difficult as it has only a half window forward and it's not full width either so would require extensive modification.

Then our only complaint would be the noise of Hatteras with CAT's.

The 80' was due to the angle it ran at, at cruise. At 10-12 knots on the 80' visibility was fine. That doesn't apply to the 60'/64' as they run a bit bow lower attitude at cruise. The Bridge is plenty suitable and I don't feel a need for a lower station as it's enclosed with an enclosure and has A/C and Heat. No other buyers felt the need either, because nobody has ever asked Hatteras to build a 60' with a lower station or they would've.

Michael- you have several long legs. Long Island to T+C 180NM, T+C to Puerta Plata 180NM, and Puerta Plata to Puerto Rico which is by far the worst. It can go from 2-3' to 10-12' fairly quickly and you have nowhere to hide. Now generally it follows the forecast, but I'd say a good day is 3-5' in those areas, calmer is the exception.

Moorings charters power catamarans up to 51' out of the Virgin Islands and St. Martin. Our most recent captain hire worked for they in St. Thomas which has no date set for reopening. The BVI and St. Martin have October 1 planned. She said the majority of charters she ran never left the immediate area and as long as they stayed west of the other islands weather was seldom a problem since most systems come from the East. She grew up living on a sailboat with her dad who was a charter captain for sailboats. She did 90% power and the vast majority for Moorings customers.

To be different. I asked Madison in all her years of running charters if she'd ever had anyone have her take them to the Turks and she said "no, and I would have said no".

Can you translate what that means? I just checked them 5' seas at 8 seconds. However, by Monday I see 9' at 7 seconds.

Have appreciated the feedback regarding my flybridge search. These seasoned Captains are experienced and know the differences. Now looking at the Absolute 50 Fly as an option. Any sentiments on this yacht vs the Sea Ray 510 Fly and Prestige 50 Fly? I tend to keep things for the long haul and live in Jacksonville Florida. Thanks, in advance.

Don't know much about the Absolute, But the Prestige is a price point boat and not a good choice if you plan on going to Bahamas, too light and will not handle snotty weather well will roll around a lot, a huge negative is the Volvo IPS lots of money for yearly maintenance and if you get water in the drives very expensive to fix as it usually takes out the bearings and gears and upper assembly due to lack of oil and salt water if not caught in time, While it has a very nice lay out ( which is the reason we looked at the Prestige 50 and 59 ) it is not built well and will not weather well long term. The Searay 510 Fly which I also looked at was ok, not as nice a lay out as the Prestige but engine room is tight to work on equipment. Better quality then the Prestige. Please do a search on the Prestige 50 and 59 and Volvo IPS. While their are 5 or 6 versions of the IPS A-F, A, B, C had the most issues. D was better but still not resolved and has issues. The E and F still have water intrusion issues from prop shaft seals and Steering ring at hull. The Searay was available in Shafts (which are preferred) or Zeus pods (also had their issues). All three boats you will need to watch the weather carefully for a calm day.

What type of boating do you plan on doing? Please expand on your requirements, so others can help. What brought you to just these three boats. Have you been on any or all of them?

I've run both the 51' Searay and a 50' Prestige all over hell and back. The Prestige is not a horrible sea boat, but it aint great either. The Searay was a pretty good sea boat and would be my choice. I'd take a 55' Princess fly over them and a 52' Sunseeker Manhattan would be a close second. Both offer superior ride and better quality.

I've seen a lot of IPS issues in yachts 2014-2016ish lately.

Thanks for your reply, gents. I have been on all three boats and as you well know everything is a compromise. We plan on mostly ICW cruising (70%) and some offshore. Would like a 3 stateroom boat for staying onboard a week at a time. Have a slip that will accommodate 55 feet total LOA. Prefer the advantages of pods with docking, efficiency, noise, vibration, etc.....Also, appreciate some range, having a hardtop and getting the thing fixed easier. Lastly, I plan on keeping this boat 7-10 years. I am 57 years old and would rather not wait and will most likely buy between now and March 2021. Thanks much.

Check out the Tiara in the 50' range, they also have IPS drives and are a higher quality yacht than all 3 and some also had seakeepers.

So is the rationale why all the big SF brands don’t have forward facing windows or hull windows (though you can often get one small one installed as an option) is to prevent the potential ingress of water when offshore? I believe the problem when recommending Hatteras/Viking SF compared to the Maritimo/Riviera is that they don’t have much of the same liveability as the latter and it doesn’t seem like that is going to be coming as an option. It seems that the closest US SF builder doing things like this is Bertram with their 61.

Yes, water ingress is one reason. But the real reason is it makes the house much stronger for the flybridge and with the windows it would shift in seas and that would cause the leakage, it also keeps a lot of the heat from the sun out of the boat. The other reason is that is generally where a SF puts the galley and makes sense to put galley cabinets there and also a place to house electrical systems AND storage, since with windows all of that would be lost. A SF is plenty liveable as a live aboard. You just don't get as much natural light inside (still get plenty IMO) and also not as much airflow if you're a windows open type of person.) The Maritimo has other liveability features, like walkways to the bow, more built in stuff in the cockpit like sink/grills etc.

Both the SF builders and Maritimo still suffer from less liveable exterior space as well. I suppose you could bring loose foldable furnishings for the bow. The other issue is that a lot of the SF builders have gone away from full beam masters in their smaller SFs. Not sure about Bertram’s quality but their 61 does look like a great boat that can be used competitively or as a long distance cruiser.

Curious on this as well, why do none of the MY builders add the tankage that you see on these SFs? A couple euro builders did this on their 85’ class (which have higher tankage than even their larger yachts) but even Hatteras for example has less capacity on their 75 MY than the 70 GT I believe.

WEIGHT. The additional weight of the flybridge, all of the additional seating and everything else on the MY's makes them come in heavier than a typically sized SF. The hull's designed to only carry so much weight and then over that the weight is more detrimental to ride and seakeeping. On many of the motoryachts I run from 50-75', there's a huge difference in speed at cruise between full fuel and 1/2 fuel. Usually I see a good 10-20% speed difference at 80% load on all of them. You can also feel the difference in ride as they lighten up. On the SF you see 5-10% and 10% is rarer. Most Euro motoryachts (under 75') only have the tankage to run 7-8 hours at cruise with a 20% reserve. The Hatteras 75' has easily 12 hours or more at 26 knots which is far different than the Euro MY's in the size range. I agree it's nice to have the extra range. How many hours a day at cruise in the ocean can you really stay alert? The Hatteras 75' has a 21' beam and has a displacement of 155,000 lbs, The GT 70' has a 21'4 beam and displacement of 120,000 lbs, so easy to carry the extra fuel.

But let's take a closer comparison. GT 59' 18'9 beam, 1750 gallons fuel, 89,000 lbs. 60' MY 18'2 beam, 1200 gallons fuel, 87,700 lbs but much smaller/lighter engines.

I agree it's nice to have the extra range. How many hours a day at cruise in the ocean can you really stay alert? I recently did a delivery on a 50-55' Sportfish that had enough fuel to run 12 hours a day at cruise and the owner wanted to push and push every single each day. I was at the helm for 10+ hours a day for 10 days straight, just under 12 hours on the last day of the delivery. It was BY FAR the most exhausting delivery I have done in well over 10 years, and the most hours I've worked in 10 days. Realistically it was too much on all accounts and really hard to stay focused, safe, and alert towards the end of each day. It's one thing to do a 12 hour day to beat weather or push, for 1 day, but far unrealistic and unsafe to do it every day of a delivery.

Well if you were doing trips as the OP suggested, there are some stretches where fuel stops are few and far between and those ports that do have fuel may be out. That’s when the additional range becomes important.