Selene 47
By Peter A. Janssen, Photography by Billy Black
Above all else, the new Selene 47 is an honest boat. A full displacement trawler built for long-term cruising or living aboard, it does what it's supposed to do — and it does it very well. Indeed, after spending some time on the boat off Solomons Island, Maryland, I can easily understand why it received the People's Choice Award at the Trawler Fest there a few months ago.
With a new hull for greater fuel efficiency and handling in following seas, superb carpentry and joinerwork, an elegant wiring system, a comfortable pilothouse, a super-large and protected flying bridge plus a Portuguese bridge, the two-stateroom, two-head Selene is simply made for easy cruising. It is also one of the quietest boats I've ever been on, registering just 68 dB-A at its top speed of 10.1 knots. Its fuel efficiency is outstanding. Even at a comfortable, all-day cruising speed of 8.5 knots, its Cummins 330 hp diesel burns only 5.9 gph.
The boat I was on during this brilliant late fall day was named Holiday, a highly optioned version of the new generation of Selene hull designs. It came about largely as a collaboration between Howard Chen, the president of Jet Tern Marine, the parent company in China that's been making Selenes for the past 11 years, and Chuck Wistar, the president of Selene Annapolis Yachts and the Selene dealer for the east Coast north of Florida. For his part, Wistar — who laughs when he calls himself a retired serial entrepreneur — is a veteran long-range cruiser who knows what it takes to make a good boat. Indeed, he and his wife, Andrea, cruised their own Selene 53 some 14,000 miles a few years ago. Returning to land and looking for something to do, he hooked up with Chen and opened Selene Annapolis Yachts.
Holiday came about when Bart Beckman, the owner of an Ohio transportation company, started looking for a cruising boat as he approached his retirement years, a typical situation for Selene buyers. Working with Beckman and Chen, Wistar put a lot of features on Holiday, both to keep Beckman happy and to make the boat attractive to charter customers. Wistar runs a small charter fleet out of Selene Annapolis, and Holiday will join that fleet for a few years until the Beckmans want to have full use of it themselves.
To make docking easy, the boat has bow and stern thrusters. The stern thrusters are molded into the hull and its curved, rounded stern quarters. This is part of what Selene calls its next-generation hull. The idea is to get the engine lower, which helps with the center of gravity and also produces a straighter, more efficient line from the drive shaft to the prop. The aft section of the hull is relatively flat, adding to fuel efficiency and stability. The boat's large single prop is wellprotected by a deep keel and a skeg.
Wherever you head, I'm sure you'll be comfortable on the Selene 47. I've always enjoyed the real-ship feel of a pilothouse, whether driving, navigating or relaxing on the back seat or quarter berth. The Portuguese bridge and reverse angle of the Selene's windows all add to that feeling while also providing protection against heavy weather and even glaring sun. Another personal favorite on the Selene are the Dutch doors all around — from the cockpit to the salon and then on both sides of the pilothouse to the wide, protected, nonskid side decks. You can walk up to the bridge from interior stairs in the middle of the pilothouse; this is safe access in any weather conditions. The bridge itself is wide and large, is protected by the hardtop and has great sightlines. Beckman wanted all this so he could use the bridge as an outdoor social area for guests as well as for an upper helm station. In any event, the view from up there is spectacular.
The salon is gracious and inviting, with an l-shaped sofa to port, facing a beautiful inlaid cherry table with leaves that pull out (all the grain matches), and two chairs to starboard. The galley, with large granite countertops and lots of drawers and storage space, has two big stainless sinks and a fridge and freezer behind a large wooden door. From the salon you either go up to the pilothouse or down to the staterooms. The guest cabin is to port behind a doublehung door with over and under berths, a large hanging locker and a private head with a shower. There are lots of drawers and cabinets everywhere; all the small drawers have louvers and are finished inside, a very nice touch. The master is in the bow, with a queen bed and even more storage and shelves and with a larger head that includes a shower behind two glass doors. The door leading to the master is designed with a slight arch and includes a rubber gasket to dampen sound.
All in all, the Selene 47 is full of little details that add up to making long-term cruising a pleasure. It would be very easy to spend a long time on Holiday. Indeed, it would produce vacations you'd never want to end.
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Selene Owners: Bart and Beth Beckman
Bill Barry-Cotter has been in the boat business his entire life and — whether racing or building boats or creating new companies — he usually comes out on top. Sitting on the salon settee of his new Maritimo C50 at Australia's Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show, Barry-Cotter says he cobbled together his first boat when he was 19, completed his boatbuilding apprenticeship two years later and started building Mariner Cruisers on Sydney's northern beaches shortly thereafter. That was about four decades ago.
In 1980, he sold Mariner Cruisers and created Riviera Marine; he then bought Mariner Cruisers back and formed the larger Riviera Group, one of Australia's largest builders. He sold that in 2002 for the equivalent of about $150 million. "They wanted me to stay in design and development," he says with a shrug. "That lasted three days." Didn't he want to just count his money and retire? "That was never an option," he replies, a bit more forcefully.
Instead, Barry-Cotter formed Maritimo — named after his offshore racing team, Maritimo Offshore — and built the new Maritimo factory about a long kangaroo hop across the street from the Riviera plant. He launched the first Maritimo, a 60, at the Sydney International Boat Show in 2004, and it was an immediate success. In fact, the Australian Marine Industries Federation named it both the Cruiser of the Year and the Australian Boat of the Year. Maritimo now makes about 100 boats a year, from 48 to 73 feet.
Barry-Cotter is not made to sit in an office. He's hands-on in the factory, and he's become famous as an offshore racer, creating buzz for his brand and bringing advances in engines and technology from the racecourse back to the production line. Along the way, he won seven Australian offshore championships, more than anyone else, ever. Now his son, Tom, a college student in Queensland, and his stepson, Luke Durman, who's Maritimo's marketing director, have taken over on the racecourse.
Meanwhile, Barry-Cotter is happy doing what he's doing. "I love building boats," he says. "I'll keep doing it until they carry me out in a box." |
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