The front of most cruising catamarans is netting you cross carefully and never sit on. The Bali 4.6 puts a solid moulded deck there instead, so the best view on the boat becomes a place you walk out to barefoot with a drink rather than a place you edge across to reach the anchor.
That is the first of two features that carry the layout. The second is the tilting aft door, which folds up so the saloon and cockpit become one room on a single level. Between them, 1,026 sq ft of usable deck on a 47'0" hull, and a main deck that opens end to end.
Who It's For
The 4.6 is where this range starts working for owners who have a charter plan as well as a cruising plan. The 4.2 and 4.4 top out at four cabins. The 4.6 adds a five-cabin, four-head layout on the same rigid-foredeck platform, and offers three cabins with three heads, or four cabins with three or four heads, on the same hull.
Take the three- or four-cabin owner's version unless you are genuinely putting her into charter. The five-cabin layout trades the lockers you want on a long trip for berths you will not fill.
The buyer this suits is the one for whom the part of cruising that matters is the hours at anchor rather than the hours under way — someone who would use a solid, shaded foredeck every morning, and who values one open main deck more than a bigger sail plan.
Design and Layout
The tilting aft door is the piece everything else follows from. It swings up and out of the way, and the saloon and cockpit stop being two rooms with a threshold between them. One continuous space, on one level, with a U-shaped galley, a forward-facing chart table and a saloon table that seats ten. Nobody steps up or down moving from the helm to a drink, which is the difference you notice on the third day rather than the first.
Above, a flybridge carries the helm, seating and sun pads. Forward, the rigid deck is a second living room — well ventilated, integrated into the deck moulding and shaded by a sail when the sun is high — and it stays usable at anchor in conditions that leave a netted foredeck empty.
Bali offers a range of upholstery schemes, so two 4.6s delivered the same month need not look alike.
She is 47'0" (14.33 m) overall on a 25'1" (7.66 m) beam, with a light displacement of 30,567 lbs (13.8 t) and 45,578 lbs (20.6 t) at maximum load. Olivier Poncin conceived her, Xavier Faÿ drew the hull and Piaton Berco designed the interior. CE approval is A: 12 / B: 16 / C: 24 / D: 38.
On the Water
Draft is 4'2" (1.27 m), and it is the number that decides where you can go: it opens the thin water through the Exumas and the Keys that keeps deeper boats out in the roadstead. It does that on a 25'1" beam that holds the platform steady at anchor.
Sail area is 1,248 sq ft (116 m²) standard and 1,679 sq ft (156 m²) maximum upwind. Auxiliary power is twin diesels rated up to 57 HP a side, driving 30,567 lbs of catamaran; if you plan to push that weight into a Caribbean Christmas breeze, the larger pair is worth the money.
The rigid foredeck does structural work as well as social work. Where a trampoline lets the two hulls flex against each other, a moulded deck ties them together, which is the yard's argument for reduced hull torsion and less material fatigue over a long life. It also gives you somewhere solid to stand when you are setting a light-air sail at the bow.
Get observed fuel burn at your intended cruising rpm in writing at sea trial and work your own passage numbers off 212 gal.
Living With It
Tankage is 212 gal of fuel and 228 gal of water. On a 47-foot boat carrying up to five cabins, that is the pair of figures to plan a long trip around, and it is the strongest argument for the owner's layout over the charter one — lockers and margin beat berths once you are two weeks out.
The mechanisms worth being fussy about are the ones you will use daily: the tilting aft door and the foredeck shade sail arrangement. Exercise the door fully at survey, in both directions, and check its seals and drain paths. Beyond that the boat is conventional to service — two diesels, ordinary electrics, no proprietary systems to chase.
Beam is the other question to settle before you order rather than after. 25'1" decides which marinas are open to you, and on a boat this size that shapes your season more than length does.
Where to Start
The 4.6 sits between the 44'3" 4.4 and the 53'10" 5.2, and it is the point in the range where a fifth cabin becomes available without changing the architecture. Its case in the mid-forties cruising class is 1,026 sq ft of usable deck and a main deck that opens from the transom forward.
If you want more room again and six-cabin flexibility, the 5.2 is the next step up. If you want the same idea in a boat one couple can handle on a tighter dock, the 4.4 is the step down.
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