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Okay, I’ll admit
it. I was bedeviled by a touch of prejudice the day I first boarded the
Symbol 62 Pilothouse, despite the rave reviews I’d heard from a photographer
friend who’d recently spent a day shooting the big Jack Sarin-designed
trawler. Hardhead that I am, I was near positive my test boat de jour
would have at least a few things in common with the flaky upstart fleet
of Taiwan-built imports that stormed the American market in the early
‘90s, many of which I’d test-driven and reviewed. Questionable
aspects I was counting on included piles of galley appliances and other
equipment with unfamiliar names and manufactured in distant, tough-to-get-parts-from
places; electrical systems with sweet-looking panels and other cosmetics,
but nightmarish wire runs and connectors seemingly designed to corrode
and fail; and an interior with inexplicable design quirks, as well as
plenty of serviceable but far from stunning joinery.
Thank goodness for half-baked
preconceptions–they keep good old boys like me humble. Within minutes
of hitting the weather deck of the 62, a whole new attitude started to
emerge, primarily because I was seeing what I hadn’t expected to
see. In fact, as Jim Booth of Holiday Marine Sales, Symbol’s West
Coast dealer in Newport Beach, California, led me into the conventionally
laid-out, nicely joined cherry interior, my chary mood did a complete
180–from wary to enthusiastic–and pretty much stayed that way
for the rest of the day.
The galley’s what
got things shakin’ and bakin’. I took in an assemblage of General
Electric appliances and other equipage that from both the angles of utility
and aesthetics held its own with kitchens in most high-end condos. Superb
meals have been put together with a lot less than a four-burner, Ceran-type
Profile cooktop, full-size Profile stainless steel refrigerator/freezer,
and home-size stainless steel sink (with Grohe fixture), plus a Fish &
Paykel dishwasher, GE trash compactor, and a giant (albeit optional) Advantium
microwave/convection oven. The finish on the optional, stateside-installed
granite countertops was a little raw–the owner of our test boat wasn’t
into the standard Corian, apparently–but the workmanship elsewhere
was excellent, especially on the crisply carpentered cabinets and drawers
with enameled-steel tracks and rollers, Blum articulated hinges, and/or
Lamp positive-locking pullouts.
But the clincher for
me was the centrality of the galley within the layout itself, a telling
emphasis. This positioning engenders a main deck that’s as open and
with-it as any apple-pie-American motoryacht on the market. Moreover,
adjoining areas are just as loaded with comforts, refinements, and high-end
components. In the saloon, for example, I spent a few moments testing
the buttery-smooth marine vinyl of the L-shape sofa while watching a little
True Grit (a favorite of mine) on the Panasonic 42-inch plasma-screen
TV, augmented by a Bose Lifestyle 30 sound system seemingly "bad"
enough to blow the big, frameless, flush-fitting, tempered-glass windows
to smithereens. And from what I could see of my immediate surroundings,
Symbol addresses the sybaritic needs of other movie buffs with name-brands
as prestigious as any others onboard, the nearby U-Line Wine Captain and
adjustable Italian overhead lighting from Cantalupi and Palagi being good
examples.
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Symbol 62 continued > Page 1, 2,
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