If you put the Sanlorenzo 50X-Space and the 50Steel side by side on a spec sheet, you would struggle to tell them apart. Fifty metres. A 9.30-metre beam. 499 gross tons. The same MAN pair, the same 55,000 litres of fuel. The differences are not in the numbers, and that is exactly why they are worth spelling out.
First, the honest framing
The 50X-Space is a forthcoming model. Sanlorenzo does not currently carry a page for it on its own fleet site; the specification here comes from the yard's own archived 50X-Space page and from its official distributor network. Every image published of this yacht so far is a manufacturer rendering — there is no delivered hull to walk through, and nothing below should be read as a description of one.
So this is a review of what Sanlorenzo has designed and published, which at this stage is the honest thing to review.
Who it's for
Twelve guests and nine crew across a 164-foot hull, at 499 gross tons. That is a genuinely large boat operating just under the 500-GT threshold — the same engineering discipline Sanlorenzo applies to the 44X-Space, carried up a size.
The buyer is someone choosing between the two 50-metre routes Sanlorenzo offers, and the choice is not about capability. It is about where you want to live when the yacht is stopped.
What separates it from the 50Steel
This is the whole point of the model, so it deserves to be said plainly. The X-Space concept is an aft open-air living room: a large sheltered outdoor space at the back of the boat that Sanlorenzo treats as a primary room rather than as circulation, and that opens further still on folding balconies.
On the 44X-Space, the yard puts a figure on that expansion — an additional 18 square metres. Sanlorenzo has not published the equivalent figure for the 50X-Space, so we are not printing one; but the architecture is the line's defining idea and this is the larger hull it is drawn on.
The 50Steel is a different proposition built to the same dimensions and the same tonnage. If you are cross-shopping the two, do not do it on the spec sheet. Do it on the general arrangement, because that is the only document where the two boats stop looking identical.
It is worth being blunt about why this matters. On a yacht of this size, the great majority of hours are spent stopped — at anchor, on a mooring, alongside. The question that actually shapes your years of ownership is not how the boat crosses a stretch of water at 16 knots, because both of these will do that identically. It is where everybody ends up when the engines are off. The X-Space answer is a large sheltered outdoor room at the stern that grows on demand. That is a preference, not a superiority, and you are entitled to prefer the other one — but you should make the choice knowingly rather than discover it after delivery.
The methanol question
Sanlorenzo has designated the 50X-Space as the model to introduce a bi-fuel green methanol propulsion package developed with MAN. That is a significant thing for the yard and for the segment, and it is a legitimate reason to be interested in this hull specifically.
It is also announced rather than delivered, and that distinction is the whole story for a buyer. Bi-fuel means the boat can run on methanol or on conventional fuel; what it does not tell you is bunkering availability on your intended routes, the tankage penalty against conventional diesel, the certification path, or what the arrangement does to the engine room and the crew's operating procedures. None of those are published. All of them are answerable — in writing, by the yard, for a specific hull and a specific delivery slot.
Performance: what Sanlorenzo publishes
Twin MAN D2862-LE489 diesels. Maximum speed 16 knots. Fuel 55,000 litres, or 14,529 US gallons. Gross tonnage 499. Length overall 50 metres: 164 feet 1 inch. Beam 9.30 metres: 30 feet 6 inches. Draft at full load 2.96 metres. Twelve guests, nine crew.
Sanlorenzo does not state a kilowatt rating for the MAN package on the archived 50X-Space specification, so we are not printing one — take it from the engine documentation for the build.
Sanlorenzo publishes no cruise speed, no range, no fresh water capacity and no displacement. The 499 GT is gross tonnage — enclosed volume, not weight. Any figure circulating for the missing four did not come from the builder.
Ownership: the questions worth asking
Ask for the general arrangement for both the 50X-Space and the 50Steel and compare them directly. On two boats with an identical spec sheet, the GA is the document that makes the decision.
Ask for the balcony specification: deployment time, permitted conditions, service intervals and what class has approved. On an X-Space that is the model's reason for existing.
Ask for a written methanol scope — whether the bi-fuel package is standard or optional on your hull, what it displaces in the engine room, what it costs in tank volume, and what bunkering it assumes.
Ask about build slot and hull number. On a model with no delivered example, delivery timing and the specification freeze date matter more than anything on the brochure.
Where to start
The 50X-Space is an interesting yacht for a specific reason, and it is not the one the spec sheet gives you. It is the aft living room, the balconies, and a propulsion package that puts Sanlorenzo somewhere new. Judge it on those, get the general arrangement, and treat the methanol package as a set of questions rather than an answer until the yard puts it in writing.
Talk it through with Tony Smith — TS@MintedYachts.com or +1 (404) 805-9819 — or send the form on this page and we will come back with the yard's own documents.