Alain Mortain and Yannis Mavrikos designed this new 44- foot model, produced by Privilege Marine, and I liked this design the moment I saw it. I find all the proportions pleasing to my eye. The aim of the design is a fast cruising boat with a nice balance of speed and comfort. 

This design is offered with a lifting keel or a fixed keel. I will confine my comments to the lifting keel version. This is a light boat with a D/L of 167 and an L/B of 3.16, so it's not overly beamy. The freeboard appears moderate, but I think they are doing a very good job of fooling the eye with that high bootstripe. But heck, it fooled me. I like the subtle spring to the sheer. We see so many straight sheerlines these days, and I think of the sheerline as one place the designer can have a little fun and produce a pretty boat like this one. 

There is a stub keel that holds part of the centerboard trunk and the cast iron ballast. The centerboard is raised and lowered with an electric winch, although you can do it manually. This tells me the centerboard is not weighted beyond neutral buoyancy. There are twin rudders. In plan view the stern is not overly broad, and there are no chines. Note the deep forefoot knuckle. 

You can choose from two interior layouts. One has mirror-image quarterberth cabins aft while the other has one quarterberth cabin to port and stowage to starboard. The owner's stateroom is forward with a centerline double berth, head with shower pan and a large hanging locker. The saloon has settee berths and a drop-leaf table. There is an island counter for the galley that may be hiding part of the centerboard trunk with the center portion of the drop-leaf table hiding the rest. 

There is a nav station to port. One aft head serves the aft accommodations, and it looks like there is a stall shower on the starboard side aft of the galley. It's a good, workable layout with no cramming and jamming of features. The finish is in light wood veneers and it looks contemporary. 

The standard fractional rig is an aluminum two-spreader mast with the spreaders swept 20 degrees. The sailplan shows no sweep to the upper spreader, but this must be a drafting error. The SA/D is 22.3, using the light displacement figure. That's plenty of rig for a cruising boat. 

I like the contours to this deck. It's very sculpted but the shapes are strong without being weird. I like the long, gently curved wedge on the foredeck. It almost gives the look of a flush deck forward. The cockpit is big and open with a single wheel. I suppose the designer could have given this boat twin wheels, and that would have opened up the access to the swim platform, but it won't take any gymnastics to get around this wheel, and one wheel unclutters the cockpit. I'd rather have one big wheel than two dinky wheels. I don't see any outstanding feature in this design. Maybe that's why I like it. To my eye there is a good blend going on and the result is a handsome boat with the advantage of 2-foot 4-inch board-up draft.

Feeling Yachts | 85100 Les Sables d'Olonne, France

+33 (0) 2 51 22 22 33 | www.feeling-lines.com

Our best estimate of the sailaway price $528,000