What do you think about the new Predator 55. Why does the shipyard haven't published any pictures or video on the official website? As far as I know they have already built 2 "small" predators. Can someone help me on this and if someone has any pics of the new boat post them on the forum...Thanks
I know its an old thread. Anyway here's my 1st post on the forum. The 55 is identical to the 53 Portofino as far as interior goes. It used the same hull. Differences are: Areneson drives mean a longer bathing platform (hence the extra 2 ft) The optional hardtop, comes with the two see-through glass panes as standard I believe. This is a GBP £1300 extra to be fitted to the Portofino 53. I was on the Portofino 53 a week ago. I'm very interested in this model to buy, since the Predator 62 is a huge step up in cost. The Predator 62 has already had its interior fully built in "mock up" at Sunseeker, as is standard procedure and the first boat should be ready to view mid March 2006. Sadly, it wil use the same cramped shower units as the 53/55.
Mr_Sunseeker thank you for replying on my post. We finally bought a Predator so feel free to ask me any questions you may have because as you know it is almost identical with the portofino. Let me correct you that the real price of the hydraulic hard-top is much much more than 1300GBP. May I also ask you what do you mean about the showers of the 62? Have you gor any pictures from the building process of the Predator 62?
Hi Yes first, the correction, the hard top on a 53 is GBP £38553.00. Congratulations on your Seeker! The comment about the shower is that the Pred 62 has the exact same small shower units, I think they're pretty small and not very refined for a luxury boat. It's one of the things I least like about the 53/55/62. I don't have any picutures of the 62 interior. The 1st photos will be on Sunseekers site soon. All I have is a huge floorplan file wich you can already see in smaller size on their website. Yes I'd love to ask you a few questions: 1 Using the Arnesons to manouvre aft, does the reversing of the props throwing the water against the transorm cause unpredictible/difficult manouvering ot the pontoon? 2 Which engines did you select and why? 3. Whats the best thing about the Pred 55 and the worst thing, anything that annoys you? 4. How long have you stayed on board at a time? You feel comfortable for long weekends on board or a week? Thanks very much in advance!
We were the first people to order a Predator 55 from Sunseeker. We didn't choose though to be the first to have one delivered for us as this would be in Autumn period when the bgoat would be useless. Until the time we got ours delivered they had only one 55 equiped with MAN 1050 which we didn't have the opportunity to attend sea trials. The boat we tested was one with MAN 900 which cruised easily and efficiently at 36knots so we went for this option. I think that the use of 1050 engines would make the engine room very very tight. We chose to install a pretty big watermaker, 240lt/hour, extra battery pack, and an 11KW Onan genarator(which is a great and silent machine) so we wanted the space. Regarding manouvring the use a of the bow thruster makes it a game. (I also had previous experience from arnesons with our previously owned baia.) The thrust of the propellers in manouvring is massive if you trim the propellers down. If you want smooth maouvring you should trim them centered. The best thing about our 55 is the comfortable speed and building quality. There isn't anything that annoies me. I will give this an extra thought and I will come back to you. Sunseeker made us a favour and customised a bit the boat for us. Let me explain this to you. We have converted the garage space in the aft in a crew cabin (with airconditiong) so there is a huge storage space left for us under the garage door!We are using the platform to store our tender and we also have a custom gangway which allows us to lift the tender up on the platform. I have stayed on board for a maximun of about 3 weeks during the summer vacation and I found the boat very comfortable. We returned to the marina without even a small damage. If you have any further questions or queries do not hesitate to post me!
Hi and thanks for your detailed and interesting response I appreciate it. The crew bed conversion sounds great, I didn't think there would be enough space. You access the crew berth by opening the normal garage door only, or via a hatch? How does she handle in [slightly] rougher seas? In your case, why did you think the hardtop worth it? Did you get the washer/drier option in the aft cabin? Excuse my ignorance on this one, but doesn't the swim platform lower into the water to allow the jetski to mount up? I thought it moved due to the ASDs anyway? Having the jetski outside, do you worry much about theft? What other boats did you look at in your descision making process? What do you think of the Riva 52? Thanks again.
You are welcome. We access the crew cabin through a hatch located on the top of the sun cashions. There is a wall that seperates the crew cabin compartment with the rest of the garage space so there is a rather big space left for storage on the back. The garage door operates normally as if the crew cabin wasn't there. The platform is not able to lower in the water because of the Arneson drives. Generally we are very much satisfied with her performance, we have never felt her struggling between the waves. One of the main reasons we weren't interested in the rivale is because it has the philosophy of a 1-2 day cruiser. The absence of a hard top makes it difficult to use the boat for a week ot two. In our predator we have installed a large air conditioning unit in the cockpit which cools the atmosphere a lot and makes a fresh environment. The existence of the hardtop makes the boat very solid and makes you feel much safer. It makes you feel you are in a bigger boat. We didn't install a washer/dryer in the aft cabin. We thought it was too much for a 55 footer. We mostly use swimming suits and t-shirts and we do not use the boat during winter. We do not have a jet-ski, we use a rib bot (3.20m with a 25hp outboard engine). We cover the tender whenever we do not use the boat. Generally in Greece we haven't much heard of stealing tenders and jet-skis. I hope I have helped you in resolving all your queries.
