BUYING A USED: SEALINE F46
IN BUILD 2009-2012 PRICE RANGE £250,000 - £300,000
An in-depth look at a second-hand example of this spacious family cruiser
We don’t go very far, we mostly potter around the Solent to a few favourite haunts like the Beaulieu River, Cowes and Yarmouth, and what we really like about this boat is the amount of space for our family – we’ve slept up to eight of us on board – and the ease of handling”. Ken Moody has earned his retirement from long-distance boating after over 50 years afloat in a variety of boats that began with a 15ft Fletcher speedboat and progressed through a variety of larger cruising vessels.
He came to Sealine having sold a Fairline Phantom 40 after he and his wife suffered simultaneous knee injuries from skiing. “We decided to sell the Fairline as we didn’t think we could manage it anymore, but after a couple of years we were both much improved and missing it, so we bought a Sealine SC35” An S42 followed (a boat Ken says he wasn’t keen on – the combination of high freeboard and outdrives creating challenging berthing in windy conditions), before moving on to the F46 you see featured on these pages.
Sealine is, of course, noted for building boats with great accommodation. When the F46 launched in 2009 it was a very different looking and far more modern
boat than the T47 that it replaced. A product of Sealine’s then Design Director Carsten Astheimer and Naval Architect Richard Crocker, the most striking aspect of the new model was a huge 180° sweep of windscreen. Together with slim mullions and large side windows, the amount of light thrown into the interior is quite spectacular. Bi-fold doors open wide, seamlessly connecting the cockpit and saloon and the impression of space as you walk into the interior is exaggerated by those big windows, but it’s not illusionary. Spend some time in this area and you quickly begin to appreciate just how much elbow room there is.
It’s the same story on the lower deck. Steps lead down to a large L-shaped galley to port and the choice of a third cabin or a dinette to starboard. The majority of owners opted for the dinette for good reason – you can convert this area into occasional sleeping (it makes into a double berth) but you can’t convert a fixed cabin into a social area. And it’s quite the social area. Directly opposite the galley, it creates a lovely kitchen diner effect, but what makes it particularly special are those huge wrap-around windscreens directly above, giving an atrium feel to this area.
Ahead are a generous toilet to starboard and a completely separate shower to port. Sealine fitted doors to each from the atrium area, but also added doors through to the forward cabin with its central double berth, making both en suite. In 2009, the forward cabin would normally have been the master cabin, full beam mid cabins still being rare at the time. Of its immediate competitors, only Fairline had begun experimenting with sub-50ft full beam mid cabin boats, but the F46 has one too. With its central double bed and ample floor space, it’s a bigger space and it has its own en suite. Only the headroom lets it down a little. Sealine scalloped out headroom by utilising space under the saloon seating on either side, but that leaves a central section to duck under. In fact Ken and his wife prefer the forward cabin, leaving the mid cabin for adult offspring.
FIRST-RATE FLYBRIDGE
It’s a similar story on deck – wide side decks (teak laid on Ken’s boat), a large cockpit and long bathing platform capable of carrying the tender. But the star of the exterior has to be the flybridge. Sealine took the unusual route of fitting two pillars, one either side in the aft corners of the cockpit supporting what had to
be the longest widest flybridge in its class at the time, not to mention remarkable cockpit protection as the overhang is as long and wide as it is, both points appreciated by another pair of F46 owners, David Aldridge and his wife Amanda. Also serial Sealine buyers, the couple started boating on the River Thames in a 16ft Mayland with a Honda outboard before getting fed up with the locks. A RIB got them onto the sea and then a Sealine SC35 kept them dry. The F46 followed, before the couple progressed to a 530 and then downsized to their current
C390. “The cockpit is a good size,” says David, “and connects seamlessly with the saloon to create a great social space in which people can stay warm and dry. But the flybridge is particularly impressive – acres of space, a central helm position, a wet bar and a large dinette aft. It feels as though it’s from a larger boat”. In fact, the only area of the boat that feels compromised is its somewhat parsimonious levels of storage.
David and Amanda kept their boat for five years, berthing it in Port Solent and using it extensively. “We boat all year round, weekending in the Solent, or perhaps round to Poole or Chichester. But we have plenty of longer trips when time allows, such as The West
Country, with Dartmouth and Falmouth as favourite ports, or across the channel to the Channel Islands or the north coast of France.
“We found the F46 a good sea boat. It was more lumbering than the far smaller lighter SC35, but it dealt with the seas well and had the useful facility of being able to plane at quite low speeds. If it was rough we could back it off to 14-15 knots, remaining on the plane but hitting waves at a lower speed than the 22 knots we normally cruise at”. The couple did discover one unusual flaw. “We found it rather wet on the flybridge, but only under certain conditions. Then one day we were helming down below and realised why. At planing speeds, if the wind is 30° off the bow then the boat heels into it in common with all planing boats, and like those boats it’s easily corrected with the trim tabs. However in certain conditions, the amount of tab needed is just enough to cause the chine to send a spout of water in an arc from the
waterline, right up to the flybridge, we could hear it hitting the flybridge covers!”
All Sealine F46’s came fitted with twin CMD QSB5.9 diesel engines. At 480hp each, they gave a top speed of about 30 knots when the boat was new, light and clean. Fitted beneath the cockpit floor (which gives great access as well as creating space for the full beam mid cabin), they’re connected to Zeus pods instead of conventional shafts and rudders, which come with the unique advantage of joystick control. “The S42 we had was a real handful,” says Ken. It’s a long boat for outdrives and even with bow and stern thrusters it’s hard to overcome the effects of windage. When TBS Boats suggested an upgrade to the F46 my reaction was that it was a big boat, but TBS persuaded me not to be put off, and when I tried the joystick it was remarkable. I can handle this boat on my own”.
FINAL UPGRADE
The F46 ran to 2012, the 30 units sold reflective of difficult trading times during the recession that raged at the time. The F48 that replaced it looked eerily familiar – unsurprising given it shared the same hull and superstructure. An upgrade to twin CMD QSC 8.3 600hp engines joined the still standard QSB5.9 units, the interior finish was given a lift with high-gloss wood, and more storage solutions were added. But the big news was the mid-cabin master where the basic floorplan remained the same, but Sealine managed to find full standing headroom right across the foot of the bed.
Next month: Sunseeker Superhawk 34