Prestige M48

The Prestige M48 opens the M-Line, Prestige's power-catamaran range, at 48' 6" long on a 19' 7" beam. Draft is 3' 11", light displacement 41,092 lbs, full load 57,242 lbs. Fuel is 317 US gallons, fresh water 159, and Prestige rates it CE category B-12 / C-14 / D-16 with accommodation for six or eight plus one.

The beam is the whole point. Nineteen feet seven inches on a 48-foot hull produces a main deck with the volume of a much longer monohull, and Prestige uses it for an exterior saloon that runs more than nineteen feet across, with several seating configurations for different parts of the day.

Below, the full-beam forward owner's cabin carries a king berth framed by a desk and a sofa, and two guest cabins have full standing headroom and sea views. Prestige draws the boat in three-stateroom / three-bathroom and four-stateroom / four-bathroom versions.

Philippe Briand drew the hulls and Garroni Design the boat. Power is a pair of Volvo Penta D4-320 V-drives - 320 hp a side, which is where the M48's argument really is.

Prestige quotes a 16-knot cruise and a 19-knot maximum at full load, and the page describes the usable cruising band as eight to eighteen knots. That band is the honest description of the boat: it is not a fast yacht, and the speeds are quoted in the condition you will actually run it in.

Power is twin Volvo Penta D4-320 on V-drives. Six hundred and forty horsepower total on a 48-footer is the number to sit with. The monohull flybridge boats of similar length in Prestige's own range carry considerably more - the 420 takes twin Cummins QSB 6.7s at 380 or 425 hp a side, and the F4.3 twin Volvo D6-440s. The M48 does the same job on smaller engines because two slender hulls take less pushing than one wide one. Prestige's own material puts the fuel saving against a monohull of equal living space at 25 percent and the CO2 reduction at 30 percent against a motor yacht of equivalent length.

Draft is 3' 11", which for a boat this wide is genuinely shallow water access. Maximum air draft is 19' 4". Light displacement is 41,092 lbs and full load 57,242 lbs.

Fuel is 317 US gallons. On sea trial run the boat at 16 knots, then again at 10, and have observed burn recorded in writing at both. A catamaran's consumption curve is the reason people buy them, and it is worth documenting on your own hull.

Three cabins and three bathrooms as drawn, or four and four - Prestige publishes both layouts, and on a 19' 7" beam both are real rooms rather than compromises.

The owner's cabin is forward and full-beam, with a king berth framed by a desk on one side and a sofa on the other. That is a bedroom, not a berth. The two guest cabins have full standing headroom and their own view of the water, and each cabin in the standard layout has a separate shower - a specification that at 48 feet on a monohull is essentially unavailable.

The exterior saloon is the room that justifies the architecture. It extends more than nineteen feet across and reconfigures through the day: lounge in the afternoon, dining in the evening. Forward on the deck there is a second, more sheltered saloon for a quieter conversation; above, the flybridge; aft, a mobile swim platform for diving and for getting a tender in and out.

Large windows light the cabins, and the galley is specified to feed everyone aboard rather than to make coffee. Fresh water is 159 US gallons, the calorifier 16, and the holding tank 46. At anchor with six or eight people aboard, water is the number that runs out first - plan the week around it.

Prestige describes the M48 as the model that opened the M-Line, and it sits at the entry point of a four-boat range alongside the M6 and below the M7 and the M8 EVO. The line is the brand's multihull range, and the M48 exists to answer a question the F-Line cannot: how to get four cabins and four bathrooms, or three of each with separate showers, onto a hull short enough for an ordinary marina slip.

The nearest comparison in the range is the M6, which Prestige publishes on the same footprint - 48' 6" overall, the same beam, 3' 11" draft, 317 gallons of fuel, 159 of water, the same CE categories and the same six-or-eight-plus-one accommodation. The difference is the engine package and the generation of the interior: the M48 runs Volvo D4-320s and the M6 D6-380s. Same footprint, different presentation.

Outside the brand, the Aquila 46 Yacht at 47' 2" and the Aquila 46 Coupe at 47' 4" are the closest American cross-shops, and the Horizon PC52 at 53' 2" is the step up in size. What separates the Prestige is the interior programme and the finish level Garroni brings to it - this is a French motor-yacht interior on a catamaran platform rather than a charter cat with a nicer galley.

This fits an owner who wants a floating apartment more than a fast boat, with six or eight people aboard for a week at a time. Three or four cabins, a bathroom for each, 317 gallons of fuel and 159 of water is the package, and the boat is honest about being a 16-knot cruiser.

Take it seriously if separate showers for every cabin is on your list. At 48 feet that is a specification a monohull simply cannot offer, and it is the single clearest reason to be looking at this boat. Take it seriously if you spend most of your season at anchor - the stability of two hulls is felt at rest more than under way, and that nineteen-foot-wide exterior saloon is where the boat lives.

Take it seriously, too, if fuel is a running consideration. Six hundred and forty total horsepower on a 48-footer is a lot less engine than the 42- and 43-foot monohulls in Prestige's own F-Line carry, and that shows up on every fill.

Look elsewhere if you want to run at 25 knots, or if 19' 7" of beam is a problem for your slip, your lift or your marina's pricing. Confirm the beam charge before you sign anything - many marinas bill multihulls at a premium, and on a 19-foot beam that is a real annual number.

Before you commit: settle the three- versus four-cabin layout, confirm the marina will take the beam and at what rate, and get observed consumption at 16 knots and at 10 knots recorded in writing at sea trial.