Beneteau Sense 55 is the largest boat of the new Sense range. After testing the design ideas on shorter yachts, Beneteau took the risk of launching a large boat. The main advantages are the same - large social areas, salon and cockpit, ease of operation, good speed qualities. The boat is positioned as an "apartment under sails" for demanding yachtsmen, as well as for those who want to change a catamaran for a keel yacht (to keep the boats in crowded marinas in France is becoming more and more difficult and more expensive). In terms of layout, the yacht has one interesting feature that is rarely found on boats of this length - the latrines and the owner's shower are separated from each other.
To make it easier to control the yacht, she can optionally be equipped with an automatic staysail and a Dock&Go system that integrates a SailDrive type rotary drive and a bow thruster, allowing them to be controlled with a single joystick.
Let us give the word to Olivier Racupo, designer of Sense. "The main message of the Sense series was to combine a single hull yacht and catamaran as close as possible in one bottle. A single hull yacht was required to take the convenience of mooring in the harbour, ease of operation, spacious cabins, and a catamaran with large areas of 'social areas', cockpit and salon. Unlike the previous Oceanis series boats, this wasn't the place to paint a small apartment and then think about how to get it to sail well. The sailing qualities - performance - were for Chenne on one of the first places. Roughly speaking, today's catamaran owners should feel comfortable on these yachts. That was the challenge. In addition, the boat is oriented to owners who with the boat at the "you" - it is formally, of course, there is a tiny cabin in the yacht.the left hand cockpit locker, which can be used for a regular bosun, but it's actually a yacht for the owner and his guests. No regular crew was planned for Sense. There's no Sense, that's the point." However, it cannot be said that the boat we tested (hull number 5) was free from drawbacks, first of all, it concerns the arrangement of things - here the company has something else to work on.
