Tested: Sunseeker 90 Ocean
For Sunseeker, the 90 Ocean is the beginning of something BIG.
Sunseeker 90 Ocean
For Sunseeker, the 90 Ocean is the beginning of something BIG.
A child of the pandemic, Sunseeker’s intriguing new Ocean 90 was first launched virtually, but then, attended the actual Cannes boat show last September and basked in the attention it deserves.
For this is a new kind of Sunseeker. It’s certainly unlike any that has gone before. “With the Ocean we are going for new customers,” declares Andrea Frabetti, Sunseeker’s CEO since 2019. “It’s a very wide, not especially fast, seaworthy yacht. The hull is efficient at both high and low speeds. It’s for families, people enjoying the sea—it represents a different way of life compared with, say, our 88 Yacht. It’s less formal.”
A bluff bow and exceptionally wide beam create huge interior volumes on both the main and lower decks. This is the only boat I can think of that is wide enough to feature a passageway running athwartships, with the doors to the owner’s stateroom and two guest cabins leading off to the left and right, forward and aft, like a hotel corridor. The VIP suite in the bow, meanwhile, has its own companionway. On the main deck the helm sits practically on the bow, leaving a vast area behind it for the galley, dining table and salon seating. The outside space, when you combine cockpit and swim platform, is sufficiently broad and versatile enough for Sunseeker to describe them as a “superyacht-style” beach club. It’s not complete hyperbole. The unimpeded spaces and the informality of the main deck layout ought certainly to encourage a relaxed ambiance on board, as Frabetti suggests. It’s all about the sky, the sea and the company. Shirts and shoes are optional.
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Frabetti spent nearly 25 years in charge of naval architecture and engineering at the Ferretti Group, whose brands include not just the eponymous yacht builder but such diverse household names as Custom Line, Riva and Pershing. “I got the call and didn’t need time to think,” he says when asked to recall the moment he decided to abandon the Italian sunshine for the rain-lashed fastnesses of southern England. “Sunseeker is an unbelievable brand. It was a good decision. The order book is worth 600 million Euro.” The plan, he adds, is to increase the product range from 11 models to 20, as he announced when he took over. “We’re on track to do that.”
As the first of a new product range, the 90 Ocean concept certainly seems to have hit the mark: our test boat was hull number 10, with another 10 on order. The yacht is offered with 1,650-hp MAN V12s as standard, although most customers, including the owner of the boat we tested, have opted for the MAN 1900s.
Of course it doesn’t always rain in Dorset, and the day of our sea trial was relatively benign, with a light breeze and negligible seas. In spite of its uncharacteristically bluff bow, below the chines the all-new hull design is a “deepish-V,” with a slightly warped deadrise from midships aft, and shallow prop tunnels, according to Ewen Foster, Sunseeker’s chief tech officer. Apart from the bow, he explained, the hull shape is recognizably from the Sunseeker design family.
Nevertheless, while the 90 Ocean is barely two feet longer than the 88 Yacht, it is somewhat heavier and 27 inches wider. Under way there was a ponderous purposefulness about its demeanor that one doesn’t associate with the Sunseeker brand, and a marked outward heel in turn is due, no doubt, to the considerable weight in all that glass and the huge flybridge. It handled well at all speeds, with steady acceleration and a willing enough helm response, while that wide, warped deadrise has resulted in a hull that eases itself imperceptibly onto the plane and therefore feels equally happy at 12 knots or 24. We actually managed a two-way average of 28 knots, and found a quiet and comfortable fast-cruise sweet spot at about 18 knots at 1,800 rpm. The 90 Ocean is, indeed, a new kind of Sunseeker.
Sunseeker 90 Ocean Test Report:
Sunseeker 90 Ocean Specifications:
LOA: 88’11”
Beam: 23’6”
Draft: 6’1”
Displ: 174,827 lbs.
Fuel: 3,434 gal.
Water: 400 gal.
Power: 2/1650-hp MAN 12V; 2/1900-hp MAN 12V
Price: $11.5 million
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Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/boats/sunseeker-90-ocean-sea-trial-and-review
