Wauquiez 55 first look – novel hull shape for a €2m centre cockpit cruiser packed with ideas

Looking forward to your comments on this one! Toby gives a first walkaround of the extraordinary new Wauquiez 55 from its Dusseldorf boat show debut. Some new, some borrowed ideas, but plenty of them!
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and now for something really different welcome to the dorf Boat Show 2025 and the voier 55s world premiere and I can pretty much guarantee you you haven’t seen a yacht like this before cuz I haven’t why do I say that because well you can tell from this angle here just the whole shape alone it is something very very different and they have packed a lot of ideas into this luxury blue water cruiser so looking from here you can see it’s a mark Lombard design and the Lombard Studio they like a bit of reverse shear and what that is doing combined with I don’t know if you can see that on the camera angle but it actually has old school style proper tumble home so you combine those two things and the rounded shape that creates plus the beam and you get one heck of a lot of volume and they’ve also packed in a lot of glazing a lot and natural light in there as well so those the saloon Windows there 2 m long there we go seeing the model there with the swing kill in the D position and the eagle eyes may note yeah there’s two engines so when V announced this to the press this time last year I knew it was going to be something different I didn’t quite realize I’d be back here this year trying to understand just how different it is but I can hope you can see from this angle what I mean about the sheer size of it it is huge 5.25 M big I can’t even get it all in one shot it’s unbelievable so a key aspect that we will come back to is what’s inside that gold wing door because this is all the owner’s apartment area yes I used that word on a boat it’s fast and you can imagine coming up from this wide swim platform just a couple of steps and down into that anyway we’ll have a look at that in a minute cuz it’s a nice surprise to see move it up into here you can see it has a fully protected Central cockpit area Central helming Area uh totally protected from the elements before I go more into that I’m going to show you a couple of features on the deck while we’re out here again look at that amount of deck space AR as well in terms of relaxing it’s extraordinary and if I put my camera down here on the side deck I again see that if I don’t wobble it that reverse sheer line going up there and just creating more and more head space as you go forward to the interior triple guard rails moving forward hand rail on the roof it’s a big boat but it’s a safe one to move around a lot of thoughts gone into ventilation as well see the rails for the jib track there and what I mean by that I’ll show you from inside this um Center cockpit pilot station area you got three opening hatches below there and up in the roof as well so the air flow is going to come through here and and it’s going to run up that glass and into the inside as well this one has a main furl in boom furling system on it again lots of front opening hatches as well option for a self-tacking jib Rail and then a big flush for deck area once again with this look how much glazing there is everywhere again with opening ports to get that through ventilation through the boat push button handling for the sail systems and a and a fixed bow sprit with a bowel roller in there as well this first boat has all the bells and whistles on it all the options hearken CLR popup windless there and down in here big sail Locker plenty of room for your fenders warps and a Fed Up Cod tail or jica or something in there as well big old windscreen wipers for those forward facing coach Windows G ventilation up in the roof there [Music] here’s the central cockpit area I’m just going to stay as steady as I can cuz there’s some lighting in here which affecting the frame rate of the camera and it goes all flickery so I’m going to explain a little bit and then I’ll move around to reversible powered winches there two more each side behind me so you got six of those all push button so it’s all designed to be done from this offset Helm are single wheel hel area not unlike you know the AML philosophy really to have that completely protected hard top cockpit area uh what they’ve done again as I said they got a lot of ventilation from sliding long sliding windows that opens out that side that one that side you can see it’s a crack open at the moment and then above me here with this roof that obviously slides right after and you can even even enclose this whole area uh with so with a soft enclosure around here to completely protect this big deep cockpit area these popup lights in the in the table here and then access into the walkin engine room from top so you can you know easy to be able to take one of those engine blocks out so here’s your view from the wheel everything on push buttons here to be able to control everything from this single very comfortable helming position and as I say you know it has the potential to be a bit of a greenhouse in here with all that green with all that glazing so there’s your ventilation at the bottom of the screen there it is on the three small ones at the top plus the opening ones there and the side windows other thing to know is that it’s a they’ve done a partnership with Garmin so it’s a full Garmin system and they’ve tried to make that as very user friendly as possible in terms of just push buttons for turning on your lighting being able to see your systems your tankage comfort navigation packages that sort of thing this is a big boat to get through and we will hope to do a full test on this bring you another video from sailing it and that sort of thing so I’m going to do some key thoughts and point out a few of the key features of the boat uh my first impression is that fol okay you may well know the yard and they’ve done they build a lot a lot of this in-house and they’ve done for a number one bow a very good job with the Finish quality to help match what is you know a quite Innovative design really so to starboard yeah you get a proper chart table that can be a sofa area or you choose the optional arm chairs as this has yes this has a swing Keel um so you’ve got the the top of the kill within there and the ram part for it but that box stays because it helps to add um some sea seaworthiness um you’ll notice these work surfaces all have a good fiddle around them so you can grab hold of them going forward because you know we’re not all very tall Vikings this is uh quite a lot of head room on here so when you’re at heel there’s something to grab hold of going forward on that furniture nice amount of solid wood as well you can also maybe appreciate from this angle how that reverse here is bought the head room and and especially that you know there’s no raise storage up there you really appreciate how much volume and natural light is in here that’s it’s remarkable as I say for a 55 ft yacht good stoage though throughout I’ll open some not all of it um they’ve gone with these leather latches again we actually saw them at 42 PS and seen on other brands as well um but yeah they’ve built storage in lots of popup you know TV options that sort of thing I think that pops up as a footrest shase sort of thing um and just a lot of comfortable areas as well these are locked down but I think I can lift this one to have a look a little bit into the sto there guessing that’s about 70 M 70 CM deep there and then you see a tank built in below the actual Saloon but plenty of space storage space in the builders you know with a pilot Ray Saloon design like this uh there’s a lot of space below it but for a multi-layered boat there are only small steps between those layers so then you move into the VIP cabin here and yeah you wouldn’t mind being a guest would you again a lot of space there that’s a 2.1x 1.4 M Birth Island you know Peninsula Style with an on Suite proper separate shower and head compartment that birth all raises up as well for extra storage loads of it lit and ventilated natural ventilation running in behind those lockers as well nice to see that table you can see is telescopic drops down can fill in that area there a big sort of daybed area I guess this is really nice to see just it’s just a heads just a head where you want to have a head right by the companion way and just just super for liver board blue water types long-termers you’ve got a hanging Locker here wet hanging locker with drainage again right by the companion way and you move down to a Pullman cabin you know pilot passage type births and then have a look in here we invoke described this as an engine cabin I didn’t quite know what they were talking about till four of us got in here and had a nice long conversation about it so as you can see there are twin engines in here 50s are standards these have 75 horsepowers and they’ve both got optional integral high power Alternators on there as well so yeah y two well consume less you can go faster the TW twin sail drives and that you know rotating the boat if you think about a cataman from the center of the yacht so maneuverability it helps um yeah no generators in here you could obviously have one that’s optional this own has gone for the integrals um so with the that gives you 460 amp hours on 48 volts so together that’s 920 do some quick maths here um 20 4 volts so at when you’re running these at 1100 RPM you’re getting 7 Kow on each so 14 KW uh yeah it’s a lot of power um and then in terms of actual propulsion the I think it’s got 920 L diesel tanks so that will give you 1,500 miles motoring capacity you notice well like all the electronics up here on the side of the bulkheads and this is a sealed room there’s it’s a watertight there are four water type bulkheads through the boat and you’ve got your air conditioning your water maker controls your water maker down here and compressors all the noisy smelly bits are in here and it’s full standing head room I mean that it’s 5’1 anyway always nice to have a passage pilot birth on a yacht this sort of size and then some key features of they wanted a a kitchen like you would have at home again note the frizzing not a galley so 60 cm wide proper work surfaces here all the mod cars you got electric well induction cooking no gas plenty of battery power for that um loads of storage I mean this is the sort of stuff you see at home isn’t Refrigeration space is not lacking cuz you’ve also got those three drawer style fridges there one of which can be a freezer again loads of natural light bin storage look how deep these drawers are all soft closing it is very very nicely done microwave there another big deep drawer nice little hatch to pass out your mugs of tea yeah a lot of I mean this is a very very highly speced yacht indeed and then you drop down into the bit I’ve been looking forward to here’s the on Suite for right a whopping great shower it’s just an amazing amount of space you have a 5.25 M beam boat with that being carried out here and you’re using the most of it here you have got that’s what I mean an apartment huge great saf here here big island birth again that lifts up I can’t do it with one hand it’s quite heavy um plenty of storage wardrobe space outside outboard and look at the size of those ho Windows plus these after facing ones as well obviously that’s the walkway they’ve put on for the boat show but you can imagine without that there it you are flooded with that natural light got a vanity area on this side full standing mirror here but there it is let’s open that up and give you the full effect so there you are you’re just woken up walk up these steps straight off that AR Plunge in for your morning swim and then equally you know you could obviously shower off back here or but just to come down here you haven’t seen anyone else you got guests on board whatever you can go straight into the shower luxurious that is luxurious I think Wy were the first to do this on a super yacht Ticky town I think have an after Suite like this that you could walk out of and enjoy I mean but to see it on a production yacht and done with this amount of luxury premium finish it’s very very impressive you have to pay for it the standard boat whatever standard boat means in terms of cost these days but it starts at 1.6 million so you’re looking at more like two ready to sell but if you want to Speck it up to this sort of level I think this is over 2 and a half million x tax we will hope to bring you a sailing trial on this I just think it’s I’m fascinated it’s a proper Talking Point Boat let’s see if it works on the water hope you enjoyed the tour from dorf see you soon [Music]