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The Ocean 58 SS, the replacement for the 57 SS, is the baby of John Leek IV, known around the industry as J4. This is J4's second boat as general manager—his first was the 54 SS—and if he and his team were looking for a challenge, they found one. The 57 was one of Ocean's top sellers, so any redesign had to be conservative enough to keep traditional Ocean Yachts buyers happy and progressive enough to lure new buyers to the Ocean family. To meet these requirements, J4 and his team conceived a tournament-capable sportfisherman with interior spaces offering significantly more comfort.
Since the 57 had a reputation for being fast in heavy seas, the design team started by keeping the 57's Dave Martin-designed hull but adding 11 inches to it. It did, however, introduce prop tunnels to reduce the shaft angle and draft and, by delivering cleaner water to the props, increased efficiency. Pockets also let the designers slide the engines a few inches aft, freeing up space forward in the engine room and redistributing weight farther aft to improve running angles.
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Of course, none of these alterations were readily visible when I stepped into the cockpit of the 58 in North Palm Beach, Florida. What was in the cockpit, however, was the mezzanine, the single feature that really prompted the redesign. J4 told me he had wanted a boat with mezzanine seating but only if he could get one that had other improvements as well. I could see why he wanted the mezzannine, for it's not simply a place to sit, it also provides a home for a stainless steel bait-prep center, a stowage area for cleaning supplies like chamois and mops, and a convenient place for twin tackle drawers. Since these drawers are part of the mezzanine step and elevated, anglers won't have to hunker down to access them as they often do on conventional boats. The fishboxes are also slightly larger (they're now 5'8"Lx2'10"Wx2'2"D) and can be converted to either refrigerators or freezers. On my test boat optional teak coaming enclosed the cockpit on three sides, a single massive slab of teak covering the entire aft gunwale. At its widest part (two feet), there was an oval flip-up door providing access to the centerline livewell, while to starboard was an optional transom door without a gate to maintain an uninterrupted coaming. J4 said Ocean did this partly for looks and also to prevent a taut line from snagging on the hinges.
Compared to the alterations in the cockpit, those on the bridge deck seemed relatively minor. The 57 had a centerline helm molded to the starboard side with a port-facing, C-shape settee forward; the 58 has a pod-style centerline helm with an aft-facing, U-shape settee that loops around the helm (a lot like a well-thrown horseshoe around a stake). This configuration not only seats more guests, but improves traffic flow by allowing people to pass on either side of the centerline helm. Lifting the settee cushion reveals stowage in the forward section, and on both port and starboard sides there are insulated boxes with independent thermostats that allow you to use them as stowage, refrigerators, or freezers.
Our helm console was uncluttered: just two Northstar 6100i displays on either side along with digital readouts for the MANs, the Simrad AP 26 autopilot, and the Furuno RD-30. I wondered what had happened to the analog gauges until Ocean captain Gene Hawn, who was standing at the helm, revealed a flip-out panel at his feet that housed not only the fuel gauges for all three tanks but also the remote pull levers for the Sea-Fire fire-suppression system and rocker switches for the windlass, fuel-transfer pump, and horn. I would have preferred to have seen analog tachometers to corroborate the electronic readouts, but I'm obsessive about redundancy. Speaking of which, in an overhead compartment, our boat had twin Icom VHFs (one is standard), so you can simultaneously monitor two channels without scanning between them. Another overhead compartment just aft of the helm contained the twin optional Miya Epoch US-Super 8 electric teaser reels.
But all the exterior changes taken together were moderate compared with those in the interior. When I slid back the door to the saloon and stepped into the aft seating area, I found myself staring at a Miami Dolphins football game being displayed on the 42-inch Solé LCD TV. It's on electric struts so it can be raised and lowered out of a cabinet, the front of which opens so you can watch programs when the seas are too rough for the TV to be raised. Because it's a few feet farther aft on the starboard side than on the 57, anyone working in the galley has a much better view of the screen.
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