Azimut Seadeck 6 Yacht Review and Sea Trial

Fortuna Favors the Brave

In an ancient Italian port city, we trial Azimut’s “conscious” new Seadeck 6—and chart their trek towards sustainability.

Back in 49 B.C. before he quite literally crossed the Rubicon en route to inciting a civil war and launching a wild affair with Cleopatra, the 51-year old general Gaius Julius Caeser “stopped at Rimini with two legions … occupying Pesaro, Fanum and Ancona with a single cohort by city.” The eventual emperor’s recollection of this Adriatic conquest appeared in his memoir Bellum Civile, and it’s actually the first known written reference to a walled port town known at the time as Fanum Fortunae. This “Temple of the Fortunate” was surrounded by mountains and farmland, inhabited by artisans, fisherfolk and wayfaring sailors and lorded over by its patron Fortuna, the goddess of luck.

I mention this historical tidbit because if you ever find yourself beneath the ancient Arch of Augustus or sipping a cappuccino within the remarkably preserved walls of old Fano, you can consider yourself a fortunate person indeed. If you find yourself a few miles out to sea from this delightful city piloting an Azimut, well, you’re considerably more fortunate still.

I ended up in Fanum Fortunae this past spring to test Azimut’s Seadeck 6. The 57-footer is the first in a planned three-model Seadeck line that will ultimately include the 71-foot Seadeck 7 and 84-foot Seadeck 9. Azimut/Benetti is pinning serious hopes on—and planting serious technology inside these Aviglina, Italy-built boats. They’ve designed the 6 as a long-distance family cruiser that offers excellent fuel economy and speed along with cutting edge and high efficiency power management. Overall, they say, she produces 40 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions than a comparable, purely petroleum-powered yacht of similar size. There’s also what I found to be a remarkable use of both sustainable and recycled materials—cork, tens of thousands of plastic bottles and even cast-off nylon fishing nets.

In terms of hybrid technology, the 6 will be the “mildest” hybrid of this line. Her substantial house/hotel systems including galley, Seakeeper and climate control are powered via a multi-source lithium-based system fed by a BMW automotive battery pack, but her trio of Volvo Penta IPS drives, while efficient, run on straight diesel. The pending Seadeck 7 and 9 however, are slated to not only bear these lithium-based house systems, they’ll also be propelled by Volvo Penta’s diesel-electric hybrid drive systems.

To hear Azimut’s Research Project Manager Iacopo Senarega and Azimut’s Communication Manager Laura Sandrone tell it, the creation of the Seadeck line started with a push that began over a decade ago to simply build more fuel-efficient yachts. Today though, they say there’s a burgeoning awareness among Azimut’s management, staff and customers of the need to also decrease carbon emissions and basically reduce a yacht’s environmental footprint. In the case of Azimut and several other companies, including Fano’s Wider and Silent Yachts, builders are already exceeding stringent emissions reductions and sustainability government mandates. “In terms of environmental impacts of their everyday lives—from cars to houses—it reflects on the boat they’re willing to buy,” said Senarega. “Customers are getting more and more interested in these topics and at the same time, we know we have to go towards that direction—so we’re kind of walking it together.”

Azimut’s customers, Senarega and Sandrone added, are also becoming much more aware of technical details they previously didn’t much understand, or care about. How much CO2 an engine emits, how many kilowatt-hours are in a battery pack, how many of those kilowatts it might take to run a boat’s systems for a day or how many kilowatts a solar system is capable of delivering; these are all questions that might be asked today by a potential buyer. “Automotive is leading the way,” said Sandrone. “People want a hybrid boat because their car is a hybrid. They want solar panels because their houses have solar panels. And from their experiences with cars, or other products, they are aware that today in a lot of cases, the most technological products are also the ones that are the most environmentally conscious.”

And then of course, Azimut buyers (and employees) are not ignorant of issues like the exploitation of Indonesia or Brazil’s tropical rainforests. They’ve seen Boyan Slat’s Ocean Cleanup project harvesting thousands of tons of cast-off plastic nets and bottles from oceanic gyres. They’ve also found plastic littering the secluded Caribbean or Mediterranean beach they’ve reached via tender with their kids. That’s why the plastic used in the construction of the main deck and superstructure of the Seadeck 6 is no longer PVC (polyvinyl chloride), but rather PET (polyethylene terephthalate) sourced from around 15,000 used plastic water bottles per boat. Countertops—even those holding a remarkable induction cooktop—are made of natural stone. Linings of the interior walls, and even the rugs are made from PET. Outer railings and floors are coated not with synthetic teak, but durable natural cork. It’s both grippy and cool to the touch on hot days and can be harvested multiple times over a tree’s life without killing it. “So, in terms of impact, it’s less damaging than traditional teak,” said Sandrone.

As for its design, the Seadeck 6 is, to me, a strikingly beautiful machine both inside and out. The hull was designed in a partnership between Azimut’s R&D team and Names, an Italian naval architecture firm they’ve not worked with previously. “We worked on a lot on the chine, the fairing of the chine, on the spray rail and the overall dimensions,” said Azimut engineer Francesco Serra. The hull, he added, is quite wide at the stern, to get the yacht on plane quickly and lend a relatively wide range of efficient cruising speeds. Serra added that Azimut concentrated, heavily on weight. While the hull itself is a tough and shock-absorbing traditional GRP layup, “we used a lot of carbon fiber for the deck and superstructure. More than 40 percent of those surfaces are carbon-fiber laminated.” Filled with 634 gallons of diesel and 155 gallons of water, the 57.5-foot Seadeck comes in at 60,000 pounds. For a little comparison, the 60-foot Azimut Fly 60, while still infused with plenty of carbon fiber, displaces 80,000 pounds.

Styling-wise, the Azimut team turned to the proven work of design veteran Alberto Mancini. If a boat can be at once both sleek and burly, Mancini has brought those two conflicting ideas handsomely to life. The bow, as is the rage these days, is nearly vertical, with a slight, sternward curve near the waterline. The substantial forward spray rail kept water from erupting over the deck during our sea trial. The carbon-fiber roof’s curve matches that of the gunwales and holds 1.4 kW of embedded solar panels. I’d add too—the boat features handholds in most strategic spots—including removable railings for the gunwale platforms and brilliantly designed and nearly hidden grab rails at the point where you leave the rear deck to make your way forward.

At the stern, Azimut really did their homework with their cork-floored, so called, “Fun Island.” Were I aboard this boat with my family, they would absolutely love this space. One point that Sandrone emphasized about 6’s stern space in particular, is its ‘descending’ openness. With the cabin door open and the huge galley window lowered, a captain or crew member would have no problem communicating from the galley with folks on the lounge, those lounging on the huge, fold-out gunwale platforms, guests kicking it on the swim platform or even kids bobbing in the ocean.

Moving inside, you enter the realm of designers Matteo Thun & Antonio Rodriguez. The pair are award-winning veterans in the field of ecologically sustainable terrestrial design. “They basically invented the concept of eco resorts,” said Sandrone. “But this the first time for them doing the design of a yacht.” Sandrone calls the concept behind Azimut’s partnership “Conscious design.” Yes, that’s surely marketing speak, but considering the quantities of sustainable and recycled materials Thun and Rodriguez have conspired to melt, weave (the carpeting is even made of fishing nets) and glue into this vessel, Azimut appears to be also walking the walk. You’d never know in the hundreds of years it might take a plastic bottle to degrade at sea, that these recycled building materials are anything but high end. Colors are bright beige-y and light-brown neutrals. Walls above and belowdecks are a pleasing, fluted PET composites. Lighting itself is mostly hidden and again, of a pleasing amber hue that appears soothing incandescent as opposed to jarring LED.

You can control and monitor a dizzying myriad of systems from the helm—from lighting and climate control to the impressive electrical array that runs the house systems. And in a Blade-Runneresque touch, this yacht has also been equipped with Google AI assistant. Speak to the boat, and you can turn on lights and control the climate. When Serra told her to lower the temperature in Italian, she complied—in Italian. It was spooky, and cool.

Belowdecks, the Seadeck is luxurious and functional. The bow stateroom has plenty of sturdy storage with secure lift-up drawers and a forward-oriented double berth. An en suite, rainshower equipped head also serves the starboard cabin via the companionway. The starboard guest suite doesn’t offer much by way of space, but it’ll sleep two in relative comfort. The amidships master suite is the coup de grace and will seriously impress anyone who steps aboard. The suite spans the Seadeck’s 16.5 foot beam and offers not only an ample athwartships queen berth, but a full-sized couch and a huge head that also spans around two-thirds of the beam. Little touches count—and add up. From the individual climate controls to the modern USB-C power ports to another Google AI equipped pad belowdecks to a nice sweep of windows that capture plenty of natural light, this is a seriously livable space.

So what of the electric tech? Azimut had a tall order creating this boat’s electrical systems. A tiny, separate room that also nominally doubles as a cramped crew quarters holds a Torqeedo-modified 42-kWh battery that’s essentially the same tried-and-tested module that BMW runs in its electric cars. Watts reach those batteries via a set of six Torqeedo power converters that ingest juice from shore power, a 3-kW alternator, the 1.4 kW solar array, or if ultimately needed the 15-kW variable speed (depending on load) diesel generator. Those batteries take in all that electricity and then send it back out to the climate control, Seakeeper, galley, lights—all the house systems. A monitor—mirrored at the helm—instantly tells you where power is coming in from—and where, and how much of it, is going back out. Basically, Azimut says the system can run the boat’s systems for eight hours at night, or four hours during the day. Now if you’re not really using the A/C or have the Seakeeper switched off, your run times could be much, much longer. The system is at once complex, but also simple and seamless in operation. If you want to geek out and monitor it for max efficiency, you can. If you don’t want to be bothered by it, well, it can run just fine in the background.

At the helm, the Seadeck was a boat I thoroughly enjoyed throwing around. Hull number one was driven by a trio of 450-horsepower Volvo Penta IPS drives (triple 380’s are also available), which appeared to be easy to access and service from a low-overhead, but spacious engine room. The first truth of the IPS setup is, of course, the maneuverability it affords. Joysticking the boat around offshore was, well, a joy. Though she’s also equipped with bow thrusters, I think they’d mostly be collecting barnacles.

The triple IPS in combination with the well-designed hull made for an incredibly quiet ride. I measured about 75 dBA with the yacht running at 20 knots with the rear window and door open, and about 65 dBA closed up. Honestly, it was among the quietest yachts I’ve ever driven at speed. Moving at low speed across the Seadeck’s own wake, the ride remained comfortable and level. Then when you pegged the throttles, the broad stern seemed to literally jump onto plane at 16 knots—a run that took only around seven seconds. She then steadily and strongly accelerated to a top speed of 33.4 knots. During our day offshore, Fano’s seas were only lightly ruffled by an offshore breeze, so I was forced to manufacture a sea state through a series of tight, fun-as-hell, high-speed turns to create a sizeable, confused wake zone. Turning, even across three feet of wake, was precise and controlled. I tried to see if she would break free by turning back across a spot I’d previously turned her full throttle in a tight arc, but the Names-designed hull heeled over perfectly, and romped over the confused waves.

Consumption-wise, the Seadeck’s planing hull consumed 5.2 gallons per hour at 8 knots. That climbed to 12.5 gph at ten knots and 31 gph at a 17-knot plane. At 22 to 23 knots, which Serra said is the “sweet spot,” we were at 45 gph. That figure leapt to 66 gph at 30 knots and 76 gph at the 33-knot top speed.

After the sea trial, I took a few hours to wander through old Fano back to my hotel, taking pictures, and scarfing down a pizza chased with a Pelligrino Limonata. Eventually I found myself spooning a gelato at a piazza along a busy pedestrian thoroughfare called Corso Giacomo Matteotti. The late-afternoon weather was perfect and there was no shortage of smiles or conversation. Every other person, it seemed, knew every other person. Folks were constantly stopping to embrace with a twin-cheeked kiss, engage in a few minutes of animated banter and then continue their strolls—before happily bumping into someone else they knew 50 yards along. It was a quintessentially Italian scene that I reckon has played out along this narrow street since Julius Caeser marched through on his way to an emporership. It occurred to me that original name for this town was indeed spot on—the people who call Fanum Fortunae home are fortunate indeed. And if fortune does favor the brave, then Azimut should have a hit on its hands with the Seadeck 6.

Seadeck 6 Specifications:

LOA: 57’ 6”
Beam: 16’ 6”
Displ: 60,000 lb.
Fuel: 634 gal.
Water: 155 gal.
Power: 3/450-hp Volvo Penta IPS
Price: $2.9 million

This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.

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Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/boats/azimut-seadeck-6-yacht-review-and-sea-trial