USED BOAT: FAIRLINE SQUADRON 55
This legendary flybridge cruiser from 2008 was built with no expense spared and makes a great used buy today
Acompany very much on the front foot with its spanking new waterside factory and impressive looking new products in the pipeline, such as the Squadron 68 and F-line 33, it’s easy to forget that Fairline went through some tough times in the early Noughties. Then owned by investment bank 3i, the 2009 recession hit the company hard and it was sold to Better Capital and Royal
Bank of Scotland in 2011 before succumbing to financial pressures and slipping into administration in December
2015, finally being reborn as Fairline
Yachts in early 2016.
Which is what makes this Squadron 55 (the second boat in Fairline’s history to wear that badge) so interesting. Launched in 2008, this is a pre-recession, proper old school Fairline, sporting the lavish build quality and amazing attention to detail that the company was famed for.
You feel it the moment you step aboard and open the transom door, only to find a gas strut on the back, stopping it from slamming and holding it in position. Who else puts a gas strut on a transom door? Even the moulding is impressive, with a separate fillet of GRP wrapped around it. And we’ve not even reached the cockpit yet. When you do, you’ll find thick teak on the floor, chunky stainless steel handrails adorning the teak flybridge steps and twin teak handrails built into the flybridge overhang. Venture out onto the side decks and it’s the same story, from the sculptured grab rails to the useful fender stowage built into the coachroof and teak handrails.
Head inside and two things strike you. This is a previous generation boat, lacking the now de rigueur galley-aft layout or the huge side windows that no self respecting flybridge boat does without these days,
leading to a more cosy, cocooned interior.
But the no-expense-spared ambience of the exterior ratchets up another notch. It’s a riot of expensive lacquered walnut joinery and beautifully detailed linings. Concealed mood lighting makes the saloon seating seem to float above the floor and all the overhead lights have dimmers. It feels rich and luxurious.
“The Squadron 55 was a pre-recession Fairline,” agrees Stuart Riley, who bought the 2009 example you see here three years ago from Boats.co.uk, trading up from a Sealine T50. “It’s a glorious thing, in fact it’s the only boat we’ve seen, let alone owned, that my wife really likes. We’ve never found anything to compare to it”. Living in Derbyshire, they commute to Weymouth to go boating so the interior is particularly important, given that popping home if the weather is inclement isn’t an option.
Although not a galley-aft layout, the
Squadron 55 does sport a main deck galley. It’s ahead of the saloon, one step up and opposite a large dinette with a folding table. It’s a layout that creates two distinct social areas. The helm further forward on the main deck is also worthy of mention for its twin Recaro seats, optional side door and very detailed helm with its floating console, illuminated switches and air vents.
SPACIOUS LIVING
On the lower deck it’s a surprisingly generous three-cabin, two-heads layout – the forward cabin acting as guest VIP with direct access to the day heads at the base of the curved stairwell, and cabin three getting twin side-byside beds. Although pre-dating the modern trend for long, large hull windows, the fore cabin features a window that wraps down over the coachroof to the foredeck, augmenting the light coming through the overhead hatch and allowing a view forward. Previous generation it might be, but the 55 catches the trend for full beam master cabins amidships, unusually with a double berth athwartship rather than centreline. The heads to this cabin is particularly good, with open plan access to the sink and shower and only the toilet closed off behind a solid door.
The accommodation was also key for Ian Sellwood, who is into his third year with his
2009 Squadron 55. Coming through the ranks of sportscruisers, Ian previously owned a
Fairline Targa 34 and Targa 43 before defecting to a Princess V53 followed by a V45 (on outdrives, which Ian says worked very well) and a new generation V48 (on IPS, which he’s less keen on). “For the size of boat the Squadron 55 is amazing. We looked at new and secondhand boats, and a lot of new boats fell short of this one in terms of both finish and accommodation. My wife particularly likes the galley-up layout; galley-down boats made her feel ostracized. And coming from sportscruisers, we find the
flybridge very sociable and huge – in fact, I don’t know of any similar boats with as much space ”.
But of course it’s not all about cabins. When the Squadron 55 launched in 2008, Volvo Penta D12-800 engines at 775hp a side were the default option, D13-900 motors appearing on the options list in August 2009 at 900hp each and Caterpillar C15 865hp providing a third way in April 2010. All were conventional shaft drive, and even the smallest options pushed a highly specced boat to a credible 30 knots when MBY got behind the helm in the summer of 2008. Combined with a Bernard Olesinski hull, the result was the kind of sure footed handling we’ve long grown used to from Fairline boats.
“When we go cruising we don’t just go out to Studland and back” says Ian, who keeps his boat in Poole. We go to the Channel Islands, to France, to Dartmouth, Salcombe and so on, so we do some distances.
SEEKING BIGGER BERTHS
“Despite coming from an IPS boat, berthing has never been an issue. In fact I found I enjoyed being back on shafts, which perhaps goes against the grain nowadays. In terms of boat handling, stability and just the position of the engines within the boat, it’s brilliant. You can bash through some seas if you need to and it doesn’t bat an eyelid”. The only issue Ian has occasionally found is getting a berth on arrival. “In some areas of this country, 55ft is on the cusp of what marinas can accommodate with ease, although generally we seem to be pretty lucky and get into most places without issue. And against that, this size and type of boat does cope extremely well with the sometimes turbulent sea conditions we get in the UK”. It’s a point Stuart also makes. “We never intend to go out in rough seas, just because there is no point being uncomfortable. Force 4 is our usual limit, which the boat doesn’t even notice. But we’ve been through overfalls in the Channel Islands surrounded by 5ft waves and it barely registered”. Stuart says that they usually cruise at 22-24 knots, agreeing with the 30-knot V-max MBY found when originally testing the boat. He also finds the boat very steady in close quarters, much easier than his previous Sealine T50.
Like Stuart, Ian has a stern thruster as well as a bow thruster and despite it being the largest boat he has owned, describes close-quarters work as “being able to stick it on a sixpence”.
And like Stuart, Ian handles the boat with a crew of two. “It’s usually just me and my wife, we don’t need anyone else”.
THE END OF THE TRILOGY
The Squadron 55 had a three-year run, from January 2008 through to December 2010, the 16 boats sold indicative of the incredibly difficult financial climate of the time. But the story doesn’t quite end there. The Squadron 58 that launched in 2011 was essentially the same boat, but with an extended bathing platform better suited to carrying the larger tenders that were becoming ever more popular. The only key difference apart from the platform was a rework of the master cabin, evidenced mainly by the bed being rotated through 90˚ onto the centreline. And in 2012 that boat morphed into the Squadron 60, which added a high/low hydraulic lift platform so long it almost looked like you could park your tender lengthways on it, a model that finally brought the 55/58/60 trilogy to a close in 2015.
Intriguingly, Fairline’s current mid-50-footer, the 53, offers, amongst its multitude of main and lower deck layouts, a very similar galleyforward on the main deck layout as well as galley-aft and galley-down alternatives. But what’s most reassuring from the company is a return to form in terms of the fit, finish and attention to detail that make boats like the 2008 Fairline Squadron 55 so very desirable to this day.