Azimut Magellano 50

The Magellano range sits apart from the rest of Azimut's output. Where the yard's Flybridge and S collections are planing boats built around speed and deck volume, the Magellano boats use a semi-displacement hull and far less installed power, and are meant to be run for long distances rather than short coastal hops. The hull, drawn by the British naval architect Bill Dixon, is marketed as "dual mode": a convex bow section and a hull form that works at two separate efficient speeds, roughly 6 to 8 knots in displacement trim and again in the high teens once the boat is running semi-displacement. The claimed benefit is a softer entry in a head sea than a planing hull of the same size and much lower fuel burn at slow speed, at the cost of the 30-knot top end an equivalent Azimut planing boat would have.

Azimut presented the 50 at the Genoa boat show in autumn 2010 and built it until 2013, when the Magellano 53 took its place. The 53 is essentially the same boat stretched by about three feet, mainly to fit a crew cabin aft of the engine room and to enlarge the cockpit, and the earlier boat is generally described as the better-selling model of the two during its run.

Below decks the standard arrangement is two cabins and two heads for four guests: a full-beam master amidships with an athwartships berth and its own head, and a VIP in the bow with private access to the second head. A three-cabin, six-berth version was offered, and the space between the two main cabins could instead be fitted as a study, a second dinette or a laundry. The saloon is on one level with a lower helm forward, and the galley sits aft next to the cockpit door so it serves both inside and out. There is a flybridge with a dining settee and a barbecue. Hull and superstructure are GRP. The boat is CE design category A, and Azimut also had it certified to RINA's Green Plus notation, with FSC-sourced teak used for the decks.

There was one diesel package: twin Cummins QSB5.9 rated 425 metric horsepower each, on V-drive shafts. An "Easy Hybrid" option added two 23 kW electric motors for silent running at up to about 7 to 8 knots. Fuel capacity is 3,000 litres. Range figures vary with who is quoting them, and they matter here because range is the boat's whole argument: Azimut material of the period quoted roughly 1,000 nautical miles at 10 knots, while a Power & Motoryacht test recorded 2.3 gph at 6 knots for a calculated range near 1,900 nautical miles, and about 40 gph at 18.3 knots. Top speed is quoted as 20 to 22 knots; the same test reached 18.3 knots on a fouled bottom. The buyer was someone wanting Italian-built accommodation with the passage-making habits of a trawler.