Creature Comforts

My own boat is a 39’ x 14’ x 4.5’ bridge deck motoryacht, so I am always interested in seeing other design ideas that fit the same envelope. Sometimes I like them; sometimes I fail to see the point. I had the chance to review Sabre Yachts’ new 40-foot sedan at the Miami Show, and I’ll tell you that the boat, built for a West Palm Beach, Florida, family, scored points with me.
First of all, the boat was easy to board, and that’s not always a sure thing at fixed docks. There were several choices for feet and handholds suitable for high or low tides and guests of varying height and agility. This was the first instance where Sabre’s sailboat background was obvious. The first Sabre that came to market was a 28-foot sailboat in 1971. That boat was a success and 588 of them were built. Sabre entered the powerboat market in 1989 with a fast trawler and then found its niche with Down East boats build on a deep-V planing hull.
While Three Rivers looked traditional, she is all modern construction with high-tech systems. All Sabre’s output is now built using dry-stack resin infusion to bond bi-axial E-glass to an Airex foam core for a greener, leaner boat: less resin and a closed environment for the process yields less air pollution and a lighter boat requiring less fuel to achieve fun speeds.

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Speaking of fun, the 40s run with Zeus pod drives and a joy stick, which should take the panic out of parking the boat or waiting for a bridge to open in a congested waterway. The vectored thrust unique to pod drives is more efficient, meaning the designed top speeds can be achieved with less horsepower. Power is a pair of 380-horsepower Cummins QSB 5.9L engines coupled to CMD Zeus 3500 drives with integrated steering and trim tabs. The sweet spot is at 2,400 to 2,600 rpms,  where the boat runs in the low to mid 20s at .9 nautical miles to the gallon.
A 9 kW Onan genset handles the house electrical needs. Sabre includes as standard equipment many of the things owners want or need such as a sound shield on the genset, a galvanic isolator, drawer-style refrigeration, and even niceties such as two flat-screen TVs and a built-in coffee maker.
A single sliding door leads from the cockpit, which has plenty of built-in seating, to the saloon. Sabre builds its boats with the kind of wood craftsmanship you would expect of a yard in Maine. Three River’s interior is a light American cherry offset by a noise-absorbent faux leather overhead.
“We chose individual helm chairs rather than a bench seat because the chairs can be adjusted individually and the inboard chair can be swiveled around to face the rest of the seating,” said Bentley Collins, Sabre’s vice president of sales and marketing. The galley is on the lower level, which makes the main deck more elegant for socializing and less cluttered during operation.
Although Three Rivers had a guest cabin opposite the galley, Bentley says 80 percent of the boats are being ordered with the space configured as a convertible dinette or lounge/media area. A sliding pocket door connecting the space with the galley is perfect for this purpose and both benefit from the light spilling below through the helm windows.
The guest and master stateroom forward share a single large head on port, although the master stateroom has private access to it as well. The master stateroom features a surprising amount of storage space for a boat with a fine entry and the cedar-lined hanging locker is a nice touch, as is the cherry lath used on the hullsides, a warm and attractive technique carried forward from the sailing yachts for dealing with curved surfaces. I could feel at home here.