HORIZON 20M
BUILT: 2005 PRICE: £499,950
Half a million pounds is an awful lot of money but if you don’t mind dropping back a few years, it will buy you an awful lot of boat! The Horizon 20M is probably as close to proper motor yachting as you can get; indeed many of the features – waist deep bulwarks, watertight doors, 40mm diameter handrails and side deck overhangs feel decidedly superyacht. And that’s no coincidence. Take a look at the Taiwanese builder’s current range and you’ll discover that it stretches from 70 to 150ft!
INTERIOR The inside of the 20M is vast. Featuring three ensuite double cabins on the lower deck, plus a large ensuite crew cabin that would easily double as cabin four, the sense is of a complete lack of compromise. It’s a similar story on the main deck where the galley is forward, opposite a dinette and close to the helm, leaving a huge saloon area. As with all Horizons, the woodwork is exemplary.
EXTERIOR From the stainless steel rails around the bathing platform to those wide and deeply bulwarked side decks, every area of the exterior of this vessel feels safe, accessible and seaworthy.
The bathing platform will take a RIB as a tender, the flybridge crane providing lifting and launching duties. The flybridge is every bit as palatial as you’d imagine and features an interesting helm station – there’s a GRP clamshell section that rotates to protect all of the instrumentation.
PERFORMANCE Sat in a full height walk-in engineroom, Caterpillar C18 engines are
Length: 66ft 3in (20.2m) Beam: 17ft 4in (5.3m) Draught: 5ft 7in (1.7m) Displacement: 34 tonnes Fuel capacity: 3,800 litres
Engines: Twin Caterpillar C18 1,000hp diesel engines
another nod to the serious business of motor yachting – these engines are very popular on the large boat scene. But even with 1,000hp a side, performance is stately rather than spritely. Flat out the 20M will just about reach 25 knots, with a natural cruising gait of up to 20 knots. Drop the speed to 8 knots and you will triple the range of its 3,800 litre tanks from about 230 miles to 750 miles.
SEAKEEPING Nearly 40 tonnes of displacement, when fully loaded with fuel and water, should go a long way to flattening out most seas, and thanks to good visibility from both helms the skipper should be comfortable too.