F53
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Tiara Yachts continues to push boundaries, using the platform initialed by the C50 back in 2013. No fewer than four models have sprung from the initial scantlings, including the F50 (the flying-bridge version) and last years C53, which added about 30 inches in running surface to the 54-foot 6-inch LOA. If you’ve been following Tiara’s evolution of this product line, you realize that it can make sense to invest in architecture and engineering, since a hull will stand up to multiple designs. Based on sea trials of other models in this design family, Tiara really made this system work by staying true to its roots and always paying allenlion to the way the hull runs. Because Volvo Penta IPS allows a builder to place the engines very far aft in the hull, the temptation to go hog wild on the accommodations is strong. And if you’ve seen what’s available out there since IPS made substantial inroads, you’ve no doubt noticed many builders give in to the urge. But Tiara knows that, in this size range, the guy who is buying the boat is also driving the boat and he wants performance. That's not all he wants, either. He also wants to spend time with family while lie's driving, and Tiara certainly doesn’t skimp on the interior to make that happen. Indeed the C50 was a watershed design for the company in terms of creating onboard furniture that really looks like something you'd want at home and Tiara has continued on that path with the F53. Two- or three-stateroom layouts each have two heads. And at the bottom of the companionway, there’s an atrium area in the center of it all that changes the whole feel of the boat—it turns the windshield into a skylight. That's not a new trick, but its one that works here because the design team doesn’t try to do too much with it—that windshield-cum-skylight isn’t trying to illuminate a dour, cramped galley, for example. On the main deck, elevated seating in an L-shaped lounge and settee opposite takes advantage of the glorious sightlines from all-round glazing near the starboard helm station. Aft there’s a wonderfully open galley that serves the interior and the cockpit with equal aplomb. “After listening to the marketplace, we made some adjustments, mainly to accommodate more socializing in the saloon area,” says Andrew Bartlett, advanced design manager at Tiara Yachts. “So we introduced the loveseat area and then extended the L lounge, and adjusted the proportion of the saloon and galley.” The cockpit is very cool and shaded, and has a very sleek, curving settee across the transom. But it’s from that cockpit, via a port-side ladder, that you get to visit the star of the show, the flying bridge. Up top, beneath a substantial hardtop, I found a centerline console with a pair of helm seats that looked like they were teleported from the first-class cabin of some swank luxury airliner—an impression surely aided by the thick, upholstered arm in the middle (equipped with Volvo Penta joystick). The console behind the helm seats is a wet bar—the centerpiece of the party. The helm is surrounded by sunpads that morph into lounges on either side as you move aft, where eventually you find a C-shaped dinette. “The party island is a unique arrangement and brings some of the taller elements—countertop heights—to the center of the flying bridge and away from the perimeter, so the whole boat has a lower profile,” Bartlett says. “Take away some of that stuff along the sides of the flying bridge and of course it allows you to wrap that whole island with seating, and I feel like we have more seating than any of our competitors." And most of it is right around the helm, so everyone can be together. See how that worksi—Thon Y. Wood Tiara Yachts, 616-392-7163; tiarayachts.com

The Command Center is at the heart of the flying bridge.