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Okay, I'm gonna brazenly reveal my vintage here—I sea trialed the very first Riviera Yacht to arrive in the United States from the Gold Coast of Australia in 1988, back when Supertramp, Billy Ocean, and The Miami Sound Machine were big. The boat was a 38-foot convertible, a sportfishing cruiser with a roomy and comfortable flying bridge, gutsy fiberglass construction, savvy engineering in her machinery spaces, and lines that were angular, at least by comparison with the Eurostylers that were then just starting to influence the American marine scene. The 38 came to mind recently during a sea trial I did on one of her direct descendents, the new Riviera 56 Open Flybridge Convertible, designed and built in Australia especially for American sportfishing/cruising enthusiasts.
Why the stroll down memory lane? From the moment I stepped into her cockpit, the 56 seemed to share a number of basics with her long-lost predecessor. To begin with, she was also a sportfishing cruiser, with a heavier emphasis on fish-fighting perhaps, but more amenities onboard than half the full-fledged midrange cruisers on the market today. Moreover, she offered a flying bridge that was exceptionally roomy and comfortable, an all-'glass construction regime that was gutsy, engineering that was savvy, and, although she came unquestionably close to modern Eurostyle design, a touch of the very same angularity I'd admired years before.
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But the most dramatic slice of commonality between the two vessels struck me shortly after I'd climbed the aluminum flying bridge ladder and settled in behind the 56's state-of-the-art, Palm Beach-style helm pod. Yeah, the old 38 had been fun to operate—I remembered her sportscar-like pizazz in open water and how gracefully she'd re-entered her slip in Stamford, Connecticut, at the end of our sea trial. But this new one? Driving her wasn't just fun, it was flat-out joyous, despite the fact that the wind blew 25 knots for the entirety of our test day, with gusts whoofing considerably higher occasionally.
Indeed, although HMY's slip at Waterway Marina in Stuart, Florida, was tight—with about a foot of clearance on either side—I eased the 56 straight out without so much as sniffing a piling by simply bumping both single-lever, Palm Beach-style engine controls into forward gear simultaneously. At the mouth of the slip, I used the crosswind to help me twin-screw the boat through a smooth turn to starboard and then headed for a long, straight stretch of the St. Lucie River to do speed and acceleration runs. Tracking at dead idle was steady and arrow-straight.
In the river, the average top speed of 46.1 mph I recorded was rather rousing given the fully loaded heft of our test boat and the substantial amount of hardtop-induced wind resistance she had to contend with. The all-American penchant for lounging casually topside proved rousing as well. Five brawny passengers—Aussies and Yanks—sprawled comfortably all over the place while I recorded my measurements. Taking full conversational advantage of the console-type wet bar to port (with drained cooler under the adjoining benchseat) and convertible U-shape dinette/sunlounge to starboard just forward of the steering console, they had a whopping good time.
We did the sea trial in the Atlantic after exiting the St. Lucie River through the dicey little inlet of the same name. Offshore conditions were sporty, with four- to six-footers, and a few eights, coming straight out of the east. Negotiating the inlet went smoothly, though, maybe because the tide wasn't doing anything dramatic, maybe because our 56's powerplants were so big and torquey, or maybe both. Once we got beyond the end of the channel, I poured the coal to the matched set of 1,550-bhp Caterpillar C30s in the basement, and the games began.
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