Hylas 48
Running a boat with cruising systems is not unlike managing a small town. As the boat owner you are managing the water system, the sewage system, the electrical grids (AC and DC) and the transportation system. At the same time, you have to keep the whole village moving through the water in all kinds of weather and sailing conditions.
After looking at the new boats at the 2018 Annapolis Sailboat Show, the state of the art of today’s boat systems is becoming clear, with many builders now using a distributed electrical system, whereby the control panel can be quite small and innocuous. (So innocuous, in fact, that in one boat we had to ask the sales rep where it was located, and he could not find it without help from the builder!) Beyond that, though, if you look under the floorboards, into the engine spaces or behind the electrical panels on all too many modern boats you still often see a veritable maze of wires, pipes, hoses, valves, pumps and other things you might not even recognize. More responsible boatbuilders provide labeling and comprehensive owner’s manuals to help bring some semblance of order to the chaos. But not all.
With that in mind, one production boat stood out this year as exceptionally well organized: the Hylas 48,whose builder has done an excellent job with all of its components and systems. The first system we noted was the traditional electrical distribution panel. One quick look at the panel above the nav station lets you see at a glance how systems are energized. The wiring is also very neat and orderly, beautifully done and completely labeled as to system and function.
Similarly, below the floorboards, every valve, hose, pump and wire is clearly identified, and the diesel fuel system manifolds are easy to understand and manage, as is the overall systems layout. No tangles of wire or twisted hose runs here, which in turn, makes it is that much easier to trace each system through the bilge or any other part of the boat when troubleshooting.
Finally, Hylas provides excellent systems documentation, a crucial resource in the event something goes wrong. Hylas’s effort in these areas provides a great benchmark for the industry. Other builders