62S Azimut 2006

Source: Alan Harper, Power & Motoryacht Magazine

Azimut has been working hard filling the gaps in its red range. The famous Azimut 68S, which seemed such a radical departure for a builder of safe, sensible, white flying-bridge cruisers and motoryachts, was followed pretty quickly by the surface-drive-equipped Azimut 86S which was, if anything, even more off the wall.

A short breathing space followed (while the company got busy reinventing crucial areas of its flying-bridge range), and then at the Genoa boat show last autumn not one but two new red ones were launched: a great-looking little 43S with IPS drives, and this one, the best of the lot.

Radical red sports machines were never what Azimut was about, but having made the decision to jump into this new sector, it’s done it with great gusto and enthusiasm. It helps of course that the builder had the good sense to stay with its regular design team of Carlo Galeazzi and Stefano Righini, who bring a wealth of experience to the job as well as some of the most high-octane talent to be found anywhere in the world. Because while a white, family flying-bridge cruiser can look like a Volvo and still sell, a sportboat has a duty to look great.

A difference in hull length of just seven feet between this new model and the 68S might seem marginal, but the 62S is not just a scaled-down version of her bigger sister: She’s a two-cabin boat. That’s right—62 feet LOA, and no tiny third cabin that fills up as soon as you stand in the doorway and your kids refuse to sleep in, which therefore ends up full of cockpit cushions and spare fenders because it doesn’t seem to be any good for anything else. It’s a risky strategy. No, instead of the joke third cabin, this boat has a second saloon, a home cinema, a secluded study for navigation planning, and a comfortable lounging area, where you can sprawl on a sofa and enjoy a pre-dinner glass of Sancerre while offering unhelpful suggestions to the cook in the galley opposite.

Not all of these additional features are available at the same time, of course, because they’re all in the same area. And for want of a generic term to describe what is effectively a unique feature, we’ll call this area the lower saloon, which you discover as you go forward down the companionway from the cockpit. There on the port side, facing the galley, which can be closed off behind a sliding door, sit a sofa and an armchair, with a coffee table. (That’s for the Sancerre.) There is also a large screen, onto which the boat’s entertainment system can project the TV or any DVD you might have onboard. (That’s your home cinema.) And since the boat’s entertainment system is driven by a powerful integrated PC, you can also sit down here with your optional Raymarine remote keyboard and call up the plotter and radar displays as well as any of the other data displayed on the instruments at the helm.

Boat Specifications: 62S Azimut 2006

Boat Type: Other…

Standard Power: 2/1,015-hp Caterpillar C18 diesel inboards

Length Overall (LOA): 62’4″

Beam: 16’4″

Draft: 5’0″

Weight: 67,725 lbs.

Fuel Capacity: 713 gal.

Water Capacity: 238 gal.

Standard Equipment: ’55-lb. Delta anchor w/246-ft. 10mm chain; Quick 1000 bow thruster; electro-hydraulic garage door, swim ladder and 9’6″ passerelle; 10.7-hp electric bow thruster; teak side decks and cockpit; Sony saloon LCD TV and CD; master cabin CD; Tecma electric MSDs w/ macerator pumps; Tecma blackwater system; Techimpex four-burner electric cooktop; Weclo grill/microwave; 8.1-cu.-ft. refrigerator; Gaggenau dishwasher; 6.5-kW Kohler genset; 2/Dolphin electronic battery chargers; Shipmate RS8400 VHF; Raymarine C80 radar plotter, ST 6001 autopilot, ST60 Tridata log/depth; 3/24-volt automatic 59-gpm bilge pumps; 2/12.9-gpm manual bilge pumps; emergency engine-operated bilge-pumping system; Seafire FM-200 firefighting system

Test Engines: 2/1,015-hp Caterpillar C18 diesel inboards

Transmissions / Ratio: ZF V-drive/1.96:1

Props: 32.8 x 43.7 4-blade nibral

Steering: SeaStar hydraulic w/ power assist

Controls: Cruise Commander

Optional Equipment On Test Boat: 71,000-Btu tropical A/C; 17-kW Kohler genset; crew cabin; Side- Power stern thruster; Sea Energy joystick control for engines and thrusters; remote engine controls in cockpit; underwater lights on swim platform; Raritan ice maker and Vitfrigo refrigerator in cockpit; electric searchlight; Glendinning Cablemaster; electric winches in cockpit; double Racor filters; Lantic entertainment system; 2/Raymarine E120 radar/plotters, RNSV5 remote control; 24-nm Simrad radar antenna; 32″ Sharp LCD TVs in saloon and master cabin; video screen and projector in lower dinette; 20″ Sharp LCD TV/Sinodyne DVD in VIP cabin; 15″ Sharp LCD TV/Sinodyne DVD in crew cabin; 4/reading lamps; Gaggenau galley equipment; burgundy hull paint

Conditions: air temperature: 59º; humidity: N/A; seas: 1′; load: 215 gal. fuel, 60 gal. water, 8 persons, no gear. Speeds are two-way averages measured with GPS. GPH from Caterpillar electronic fuel-monitoring system. Range: 90% of advertised fuel capacity. Decibels measured at helm on A scale. 65 dB-A is the level of normal conversation.