AZIMUT S6

Superlative handling and performance coupled with generous lower-deck accommodation – has Azimut rewritten the rulebook again?

- Alan Harper

It is nearly eight years since Azimut came out wit the first of these triple-engined beasts, the 55S in 2012, but I can still remember my amazement when I raised the hatch and caught sight of thos three IPS600s lined up across the engineroom.

The first point to ponder was how they managed to fit them all in. There barely seemed to be a cigarette paper’s width between them and virtually zero clearance overhead. The next question was why. It seemed impossible that thre small diesel engines and their pod drives could not only be lighter but also more fuel efficient than two big ones producing the same power. But so it was.

With the new S6, a stretched development of its original S model, Azimut has revisited the triple-engine concept but somehow managed to install the next size up, in a hull only 2in wider. If that seems a bold decision, it is one that Volvo probably helped to make: IPS600s are no longer available.

The three IPS700s, displacing 7.7 litres apiece compared with the IPS600s’ 5.5 litres, look like they must have been assembled in situ. There’s hardly any air down there, let alone room to move around. The centre unit nestles in the vee of the hull with just a couple of inches between it and the tender well.

To compare these 550hp motors with an equivalent pair of 800hp IPS1050s is to discover that in terms of weight and efficiency, the case for the three versus two is no longer quite so compelling as it was with the 55S. They are still superior in power-to-weight, though not by much. And they’re slightly thirstier. But such engineering considerations were never the whole story.

Which is, of course, that shorter engines need a shorter engineroom. And that means more space in the hull for cabins and bathrooms.

SPACE RACE