450 Sea Ray Sedan Bridge

Source: Pierce Hoover, Yachting Magazine

Given the choice, would you rather enhance your appearance or your physical performance? If you answered “both,” you’re on the same page as the Sea Ray engineering team.

When tasked with updating its popular 450 Sedan Bridge to accept pod drives, the Sea Ray team responded with much more than a propulsion retrofit and instead instigated a full makeover of the boat’s running surfaces and topside lines. They introduced the next-generation 450 in January and showed it to the public at the New York and Miami boat shows.

My first glimpse of the new 450 came several weeks before the public unveiling while the boat was going through final performance testing at Sea Ray’s Merritt Island, Florida, facility. Seen from a distance, there was no mistaking the new 450’s profile for anything but a Sea Ray. A closer inspection revealed a number of subtle but notable difference from its predecessor.

Most obvious were the addition of sweeping two-tiered deckhouse windows and an enlarged, cantilevered hardtop. There was a bit more rake to the windshield, more window ports in the hull sides and the curves were more accentuated on the cabin house moldings and faux sheer line. Overall, the new 450 certainly gained some style points as a result of the redesign process.

Stepping aboard, it was evident the redesign wasn’t done purely for dock appeal. The enlarged salon windows and additional hull ports bring in significantly more natural light, providing a more open feel to the interior. Tweaks to the living spaces are subtle and result both in an enhanced visual sense of spaciousness and some actual increases in elbowroom in areas such as the galley, salon and raised dinette.

The two-stateroom, two-head configuration provides privacy and ample comforts for two couples or a family of four, with additional sleeping capacity in the salon. Master and guest heads are of equal proportion, and both are realistically sized for adults. The raised dinette to port can be deleted in favor of a lower station. Even with this change, there is still seating for six in the salon, plus room for a high/low table.

Up top, the flying bridge now sports a two-passenger bench seat to port, which swivels to face the U-shape dinette and lounge situated aft. The helm sits a bit farther to starboard than on the earlier 450. This move freed up some additional dashboard space to allow for dual 15-inch displays.

A refrigerator plus an available climate control and flat-screen entertainment system complement a layout that turns the upper deck into a sky lounge. Instead of the aft-facing radar arch found on previous models, the 450 now sports a streamlined hardtop, which provides enhanced weather protection and a secure foundation for a full canvas enclosure. As an option, the center section of the top can include a sunroof with a retracting canvas center section.

Wide molded stairs lead to the cockpit, which is fitted with an L-shape bench seat and can include a table, wet bar, icemaker and refrigerator. Partially sheltered by the flying bridge overhang and connected to the salon by a wide sliding door, this space is ideal for entertaining or outdoor dining. Among the topside amenities owners can add are upgraded sound systems, additional flat-screen monitors, a forward sun lounge and a hydraulic lifting swim platform.

The dockside walk-through confirmed the retooling indeed made what was already a very good cruising boat even better. Now, it was time to turn over the engines and determine the potential benefits of the change from conventional shaft-drive props to Zeus drives.

Sea Ray has long since perfected the use of V-drive transmissions, which allow for aft placement of the engines and larger interior spaces. Switching between V-drives and Zeus pod drives is a much simpler change than would be the case with straight shafts, but rather than simply drop the new drives into an existing hull, Sea Ray invested in a new hull with running surfaces optimized for pods.

Instead of the 492 hp, 8.3-liter CMD QSC power plants standard on the earlier 450, the new boat is fitted with the smaller CMD QSB5.9-480 HOs, which are rated at 473 hp. A 600 hp version of the QSC block will be offered as an optional upgrade. The QSBs fill the engine compartment, but there’s ample room on centerline to inspect and service systems while standing in the large center hatch. Moving forward to access other ship systems is also straightforward and won’t require contortions or awkward reaches.

After putting the 450 through its paces, I compared the numbers against archived performance records from a 2009 450 with V-drives and shafts. Not surprisingly, the Zeus boat was a couple of miles per hour faster but took a few more revs to come on plane. This is typical of pod drives, which use a pair of smaller propellers to increase efficiency at higher speeds but don’t have quite the low-end bite of larger conventional props.

In addition to running 2 mph faster at wide-open throttle, the Zeus boat provided similar increases in performance at cruise speeds from 24 mph on up. At an optimum cruise of about 28 mph, the new 450 consumes about 10 percent less fuel than its predecessor. At today’s fuel prices, that translates to a savings of $15 to $20 an hour.

The Zeus system provides joystick maneuvering, but I also found the 450 to be an easy handling boat when using throttles alone. A practiced skipper can position the boat with precision using a light hand on the controls, employing the joystick for finishing touches rather than a crutch. The Zeus skyhook automatic positioning system is also standard.

With best-in-class accommodations, a fresh new look and better performance, the new 450 is a worthy successor to one of the most popular sedan bridge cruisers on the market.

Boat Specifications: 450 Sea Ray Sedan Bridge

LOA: 45’6”

BEAM: 14’5”

DRAFT: 4”

DRY WEIGHT: 36,600 LBS.

FUEL: 375 GALS.

WATER 130 GALS.