Running Fast, Running Silent

Whatever else might be said for the Belize 54 Daybridge, her strongest suit is her overall performance—handling, running in a seaway, sustainable speed, and the like.

The IPS units are fitted with dynamic positioning and vectoring joystick controls. When we pulled away to sample the yacht’s performance, it was only necessary to push the joystick directly to starboard and her IPS drives vectored her away from the dock on an axis exactly 90 degrees to the face of the fuel dock, without bow or stern thrusters. Low-speed maneuvering was easy and sure, with joystick control that is more responsive and precise than traditional rudder and throttle. At slow speed in-harbor, she moved with minimal wake and once clear of the inlet entrance, accelerated smoothly up through the 20s to a genuine 30-knot max speed at WOT (with full fuel aboard and confirmed by making multiple runs in opposite directions).

That was with the twin 600-horsepower D8 7.7 liter Volvo Pentas that are fitted standard. According to McCafferty, the optional 700-horsepower version of the engines will yield a top speed of a solid 33 knots at WOT.

During our test, wind and sea conditions were relatively mild, even outside in the ocean. At most, a two-foot sea was running onshore with a breeze coming from the same direction. But the crests were pretty widely spaced and seemed more like swells than seas, so the best we could do was create our own disturbance