SAY 42 Sea Trial and Review
The German-built, carbon-fiber SAY 42 is a distinct and efficient vessel—a good match for an owner who can tame her.
Carbon and Brass
The German-built, carbon-fiber SAY 42 is a distinct and efficient vessel—a good match for an owner who can tame her.
One of the more enjoyable aspects of my job is the standing order I have from Power & Motoryacht’s editor-in-chief Dan Harding to find the coolest things the marine industry has to offer, and then write about them. At boat shows, I go sniffing the docks like a pointer in the brush looking for boats and stories that make me feel something primal in my gut. The SAY 42 was my latest quarry.
I’d never heard of SAY before the 2022 Ft. Lauderdale boat show. The Constance, Germany-based builder has three models on the market, and the new 42 nabbed top billing in Lauderdale. I was kicking around just south of the Bahia Mar hotel when I first saw it, and even among a gleaming, murderer’s row of multi-million-dollar offerings, this 42 stopped me in my tracks. For one thing, among all the white fiberglass, its metallic orange hull made it pop like a dollop of salmon roe on a porcelain plate. For another, the lines were distinctly reminiscent of a machine that should be airborne. Razor-sharp gunwales undulated ever so slightly back toward an oversized swim platform that fanned out like wings. I was looking at an Ironman suit on the water.
I immediately whipped out my phone and texted Dan. “Have you seen this SAY 42?” I asked. He hadn’t seen it in person, only on social media. But he was interested.
So was I.
I walked up and introduced myself to Karl Wagner, SAY’s CEO, and asked about the boat. “Well, we build in all carbon fiber,” he said. “Everything is carbon fiber?” I asked, mildly incredulous. “Yes,” he responded with no-nonsense Teutonic certitude.
Well then.
Wagner’s background is in the automotive industry, and that has deeply informed his waterborne pursuits. “I was in carbon-fiber production, supplying Porsche, McLaren and those guys,” he told me, with some modesty. (I would soon discover that in reality, he won the contract for the very first carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) monocoque for automobiles, and helped secure a victory for driver Sebastian Vettel at Monza in 2008—the youngest man yet to win a Grand Prix race.) Suffice to say, few people in the world know more about building vehicles with this specific material than Wagner.
In 2015, Wagner came over to SAY first as an investor, and then, shortly after, as an executive. “I brought with me this desire to make everything as light as possible, for performance and efficiency,” he said.
Impressed, I made an appointment to take the boat for a sea trial directly after the show. On test day, I walked back down the docks, hopped aboard, and got an inkling as to what “light as possible” meant. As my feet hit the deck, the boat rocked deeply and in a much more significant fashion than a boater used to fiberglass would expect in a boat this size. But that’s no surprise. The 42 displaces a scant 9,700 pounds. Compare that to another dayboat, the Solaris 44 for example, which at less than two feet longer displaces a comparably Rubenesque 25,000 pounds. As one might expect, a Seakeeper 2 was aboard.
As we puttered away from the docks and out to sea, I took the downtime to investigate this boat’s design. The first thing that jumped out at me is that the on-deck space—designed by the German firm KET—was quite literally, sharp. I don’t mean that in a low-quality, catch-a-splinter-on-an-unfinished-edge type of way, but more like the “sharp” you might find in a modern Scandinavian (or Biscayne Bay-front) home. There was high-quality fit and finish for sure, but not in a way I’d deem cozy. I tried to envision my young son on board, and all I could hear was him complaining about various bumps and bruises. This is why I was surprised to find that SAY is marketing this boat for families. I suppose that could work, but between the edges and the open transom—not to mention the twin 430-horsepower Volvo Penta stern drives offering speeds reported to be 50 knots, I really see this more as a boat best fit for someone unburdened by the sweet joy of offspring.
The subsequent performance in the one- and two-footers in the Atlantic would only bolster my feelings.
I was admittedly a bit gun shy at the controls to start. I’ve driven a small handful of full-carbon boats in my day—most built by Delta Carbon Yachts, which does a fine job. But I also once tested a carbon-fiber boat ten years ago that was so squirrelly that it put the fear of God in me. To this day it remains the only truly negative boat test I’ve ever written.
But even with a cautious hand on the throttle, the boat launched as if flung from a slingshot. My apprehension soon gave way to an old, familiar joy as the 42’s Petestep-designed hull tracked true, with the seas and against them, and provided reassuringly soft entries off the wave crests, a quality complemented by helm chairs designed by Shockwave. With the hammer down, I saw a top speed of 43 knots. Cruising at 30 knots, and burning 22 gph (yes, you read that fuel burn correctly, SAY claims 50% less fuel consumption than a comparably sized yacht), I took her hardover in a single boat length. And here’s where we hit a little hiccup. That’s how I would term what the hull did. It was digging into the water with assuredness when suddenly there was a quick release of the grip, and the hull zigged when I was expecting a zag. The moment of centrifugal weightlessness I experienced before the hull locked back on track was undeniably small but certainly perceptible. I take some blame here. It’s very possible there was some user error while driving such a fast and unusually light boat. But I also wasn’t inclined to spin the wheel that hard again.
I asked Wagner afterward about it and wondered if maybe some more ballast in the hull might be a good thing. “No,” he said explaining that more weight would hinder the boat’s acceleration, and he was not worried about the hull slipping out of a turn—ever. “It will hold,” he added.
On our way back in, I eyed the carbon-fiber Champagne bucket built into a convertible dining table/sunpad in the SAY’s cockpit. I could imagine a bottle of iced Dom Perignon waiting to be popped open after another Grand Prix win. The kind of race it takes real bravery to win.
SAY 42 Specifications:
LOA: 42’0″
Beam: 13’0″
Draft: 2’9″
Displ.: 9,700 lb.
Fuel: 211 gal.
Water: 79 gal.
Power: 2/430-hp Volvo Penta stern drives
Cruise Speed: 30 knots
Max Speed: 43 knots
Base price: $1.1 million
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This article originally appeared in the February 2023 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/boats/say-42-sea-trial-and-boat-review
