The first glimpses of the Sabre 52 Sedan created a stir and our design office has continued to work on the details of the design and on additional renderings. Modern technology is so amazing. These views will show you what the Sabre 52 Fly Bridge will look like underway (which of course she will not actually do until January of 2010.
As for me, "still my beating heart". I love this look !
Lovers of the fly bridge sedan concept are sure to admire our new entry into the market. The very first major decision when we tooled the Sabre 52 was whether to go Express or Bridge first and as it turns out the Express won. With 15 boats now in the hands of happy owners, we agree that decision was right for the time. But we know there are boaters who regretted our decision too and we always knew that the bridge design would follow in time.
As you can see, the design begins with a stainless steel spiral stair case to get from the cockpit to the bridge. The house with it's stunning corner windows remains intact The slope of the stair case is gentle and the stairs do not intrude significantly into the cockpit. On the bridge features include Stidd helm chairs, a wet bar with drinks fridge, sink and "smart server" to the interior galley. To starboard a comfortable lounge stretches along the length of the bridge. What a great layout !.
The discussions about bridge versus express will go on as long as their are boaters to talk about it. Maybe you have an opinion?
Every three months we hold quarterly meetings with all of our associates with the goal to inform everyone of goings-on within the company, and in the marketplace. We also use these occasions to acknowledgege individuals and make service awards. Last week we recognized Pam Gill who has served our company in the wood shop for 33 years. Pam has chosen to retire.
You may not recognize Pam but if you own or have ever been aboard a Sabre, you have probably held one of the thousands of hand rails that she crafted or touched one of her laminated trims on a bulkhead or counter top. I love this about our boats, that one person can build things that are so recognizable and that the traditions like this are a part of our culture. These pieces all carry Pam's signature craftsmanship and add to the sum of the parts which are Sabre quality.
I will miss Pam as will all of her friends at Sabre. I wish for her a happy, warm and much deserved retirement and each time I lay my hand on a hand rail I will think of her with great fondness.
It's hard for you who are not intimately involved in the Sabre 40 design to envision from our color renderings and drawings, the precise details of the cockpit seating. Like so many details in the 40, cockpit seating was the subject of a lot of discussion. The cockpit of a motor yacht is the center of outdoor social activity and as such it needs to be well equipped and very comfortable.
In the drawing you can see the evident (gray shaded) parts of the design:The long L-shaped settee and the aft facing seat opposite. What has been the subject of a lot of questions is "what goes on to the starboard side of the back door to the salon?" The image here shows the standard part which is a one person seat styled to match the aft facing seat on the port side. Another option that we have developed for this location is a cabinet with electric grill and icemaker that replaces the standard seat.
To complete this comfortable space, a custom table is attached to the forward side of the L-settee. The table folds in half to expose a stout handrail when the table is not in use. Additional images of the table to follow.
Enjoy the spring weather wherever you are
Sabre 40 hull number one is off to the commissioning yard and before the (bottom) paint even dries we are on to the next project. Well that's a bit of an exaggeration but it's not too far from the truth either. From the get-go we wanted to be able to offer both a sedan and a fly bridge sedan using the same deck mold and configuration. Our profile renderings for the 40 Fly Bridge, as seen here, were created back when we began the design study so as to be sure we could accomplish both styles.
In order to get from the cockpit to the bridge, we designed a secondary mold that creates a recess in the back of the cabin house, into which a gently sloped stair case is placed. The salon entry door and port side window remain the same and another smaller window is positioned in the recess. I am a big fan of fly bridges although recently I have been driving a hard top express.
I would leave the boat "sans canvas" top. I love the look just as it is. After all there is still a helm station in the salon
An item that leaves a lasting impression of our boats is the finish and the detail of the main salon table. In my role as "company listener" I spend a lot of boat show hours just standing aboard our boats and waiting for comments. Second only to "why the heck do we need to take off our shoes?" the table finish is a big deal. I can tell you that our tables are a lot prettier than the foot odor we have to deal with some days. Maybe we should insist that people leave their shoes on?
Here's an image of the table top prior to being fitted into the boat. It's typically the last thing installed prior to shipping and the boat ships to the commissioning yard later this week. This is a leaf table but not a drop-leaf table. These leaves rise and flip over on top of the center leaf. Flip over creates knee room below the table where as drop leaf puts the leaves right in front of your knees. The concept here is to convert the salon to a living space once the dishes are cleared rather than sitting around in the dining room for the rest of the evening. The table is mounted on a hi-lo base and it also has a slider to open up the aft end of the settee.
The details just keep coming.
Fridays our shop is closed down so that our associates can have three day weekends. (They work (4) ten hour days and then have three off) I was hoping to have this day to get some better images of the interior but true to form some of our boatbuilders showed up to keep working on the first Sabre 40 Sedan. I did my best but there are still blue tapes on varnish and work goes on hooking up the electrical panels in the cabinet aft of the helm chairs. I'm going to try again later today and might replace this image then.
One of my favorite things (as Julie Andrews would sing) is the curved fiddle along the top of the also-curved bulkhead that separates the galley from the guest cabin. It is finished with high gloss polyurethane just like the salon table (images coming on that beauty)
The galley is complete, albeit with the protective wrap still on the fridge, and now you can catch a good idea of how the galley integrates with the salon. This mid-galley is a real treat for those of you (most of us) who have argued the "up-versus-down" galley issue over the years.
Just a few more days in the shop now. This is really an exciting time when a new boat gets this close to the water. Incidentally we weighed the boat as built this week and our weights are within 1% of the original estimate, made almost 14 months ago.
A quick thirty minute sea-trial is never enough to really get the feel of a boat prior to buying one. I can tell you a lot of funny stories from "our side of the table" about sea trials. My favorite is the fellow who made sea trial appointments with a whole series of dealers and showed up with the picnic basket and the entire family at the appointed hour each time. Only when a group of dealers were telling client stories at the bar one evening did they all come to realize that they had shared the same "prospect" and had given this family a whole series of days on the water at no cost whatsoever.
A better way to approach the need for more than just 30 minutes away from the dock is to charter. When we first launched the Back Cove 33 we were invited by our dealer in Bellingham, Washington to bring Motorboating Magazine to their location and use one of their stock boats to do the test for the magazine. As funny as this may seem, this three day adventure in the San Juan Islands actually sold me on getting a Back Cove 33. You can read about that charter on our web site and find contact information for our dealer there as well.
Nothing gets the juices flowing like a good discussion about a helm station. I know I am going to come off a little "manly" here but unless you have been involved in a discussion about controls, gages and navigational electronics with a bunch of guys, you may not understand this post. It's fantasy land for the control freak in the family. I have noticed lately that my wife wants to hold the remote for the TV/DVR etc so perhaps the days of male dominance when it comes to things like this are over (?)
In my family anyway, I get the choose the electronics but that is more and more a shared undertaking with many boating couples. I know Graham and Erica made this decision together. I guess my point in this post is to show you how much space we have provided for you to fill. That's like getting a really big stocking at Christmas !
Here's an image of the dash. Of note are the beautifully crafted cherry components and the Ultraleather cover over the front of the instrument panel. Aft on the wedge are the SmartCraft displays for the Cummins-Zeus engines. Brilliant bits of kit (as the Brits would say). On center the Zeus tilt helm pump and to port of the wooden wheel (not seen) the Mototron Joy Stick and trim tab control panel. To starboard of the helm out of sight here are the Skyhook/autopilot control pad and the engine control levers.
Best of all and left for you little boys and girls to fill with as many toys as Santa brings, is the navigational electronics panel. Oh what fun it will be !
I'm in Palm Beach and talking about air conditioning seems timely. Bob came by the show yesterday and gave me a hard time that I'm not blogging enough. So let's talk air. (and Bob I hope this keeps you happy for a day or two)
AC works best when you send the cool air out on top of the hot air and the cool air then falls pushing the hot air back to the blowers. So with the 40 we wanted to make the air as effective as we could and have chosento blow the cool air out of the valance on the port side of the salon. The valance shown here is temporarily in place and in a day or two we'll be cutting slits into this piece so the air can be blown into the box and will come out through the slits, flowing across the salon. (Note the elegant curve created by laminating this part to form the corner)
We've learned a lot about air over the years and with David Newcomb now heading up the engineering team at Sabre we have a fellow who lived air conditioning in Florida for a number of years and fully understands the capacities and pump sizes that the Florida weather requires. The 40 has enough air to keep the hottest Floridian and Maryland summer temperatures at bay.
So keep cool and stay tuned. I'm off to the show to sell some more Sabre 40's. Just a few weeks before launch day now