Sunseeker 88 Yacht

The Sunseeker 88 Yacht is the second boat in the Yacht line and the first on MTU power. It measures 86' 7" overall on a 21' 3" beam, draws 7' 0" at full load, and displaces 170,417 lbs at half load. Accommodation is four cabins and four heads, plus crew quarters. Fuel is 2,907 US gallons and fresh water is 370 US gallons. Sunseeker quotes up to 28 knots on twin MTU 10V 2000 M96Ls. It is built at Poole in Dorset.

The comparison that explains the boat is the one immediately below it. The 76 Yacht carries the same four cabins, four heads and crew quarters on 1,585 gallons of fuel. The 88 carries them on 2,907. That is 1,322 gallons more capacity for identical accommodation, which places this boat as the distance member of the pair rather than the roomier one. Beam grows from 19' 6" to 21' 3" and displacement from 118,140 lbs to 170,417, so the volume is real, but the cabin and head count is unchanged.

What you give up is speed and shallow water. Maximum drops from 32 knots to 28, and draft goes from 5' 7" to 7' 0" at full load.

Sunseeker quotes up to 28 knots for the 88 Yacht. That is a ceiling on a flat day, and the setting you will run for hours is yours to establish: take the boat to the rpm you intend to sit at on sea trial, and get observed burn at that rpm in writing on the day.

The installation is twin MTU 10V 2000 M96L, and the rating that goes with it belongs on your own contract from the yard rather than on a listing.

The two figures that do the explanatory work are displacement and tankage. Half-load displacement is 170,417 lbs, up 52,277 lbs from the 76 Yacht, and that increase is most of why the maximum falls from 32 knots to 28. Fuel is 2,907 gallons against the 76's 1,585. Draft is 7' 0" at full load, sixteen inches deeper than the 76, and on this brand every draft figure is a maximum at full load rather than a lightest-case number, so it is the figure to give a marina.

To settle in writing before signing: the MTU rating as installed, rigged weight for your hull, tankage as fitted, and observed consumption at your intended cruising rpm from a sea trial on a boat carrying a realistic load.

The published accommodation for the 88 Yacht is four cabins, four heads and crew quarters. That is the same count the 76 Yacht carries eleven feet shorter, and it is the single most useful thing to know before you walk aboard: nine feet two inches of extra length on this boat did not buy another cabin.

What it bought is beam and displacement. Beam goes from 19' 6" on the 76 to 21' 3" here, and half-load displacement from 118,140 lbs to 170,417. Volume at this length is a beam-and-depth question rather than a length question, so the main-deck and lower-deck spaces are genuinely larger even though the room count is identical. Against the cross-shops, 21' 3" sits close to the Princess X90 at 21' 8" and the Azimut Grande 27M at 21' 7", and comfortably wider than the Ferretti 860 at 20' 5".

Fresh water is the number to interrogate. The 88 carries 370 US gallons, which is exactly what the 76 Yacht carries while displacing 52,277 lbs less, and it is 92 gallons less than the 95 Yacht one step up. Four cabins plus crew on 370 gallons means water-making rather than tankage is what keeps you off a dock, so establish the watermaker specification and the storage arrangement at the order desk rather than after delivery.

Where a boat is offered with layout options, the model name is not a specification. Ask for the arrangement drawing and the equipment list attached to your own hull number, and read them rather than the brochure.

At 86' 7" the 88 Yacht lands in one of the most directly comparable segments on the water, and the comparison is unusually clean because three obvious rivals sit within two and a half feet of it.

The Princess X90 is 88' 11" with a 21' 8" beam, four cabins and four heads plus crew, 2,905 gallons of fuel, and up to 27 knots on twin MAN V12-2000s. Two gallons of fuel and one knot separate the two boats on paper; the Princess is two feet four longer and five inches wider. The Ferretti 860 is 88' 5" with a 20' 5" beam, four guest cabins plus two crew, and 1,849 gallons, quoted at 28 knots in standard form and 31.5 with the optional package. The Azimut Grande 27M is 87' 10" with a 21' 7" beam, four or five cabins plus two crew, and 2,510 gallons, quoted at 28 knots.

On accommodation, tankage and speed the Sunseeker sits squarely in the middle of that group, which is the honest positioning: four boats separated by inches of beam and single knots. Take your own observed numbers off a sea trial of each and you can rank them on something better than a brochure.

Inside Sunseeker's own line, the 88 is the distance boat of the lower pair: same accommodation as the 76 Yacht, 1,322 more gallons of fuel, four knots slower and sixteen inches deeper.

The 88 Yacht fits an owner whose cruising is measured in passages rather than day trips. Fuel is 2,907 US gallons against 1,585 on the 76 Yacht for exactly the same four cabins, four heads and crew quarters. If the boat below already gives you the accommodation you need and what you want is to go further between fills, this is the boat that answers it.

It fits an owner who wants more volume without another bedroom. Beam grows to 21' 3" and half-load displacement to 170,417 lbs, so the spaces are meaningfully bigger even though the room count is unchanged. If your requirement is a larger main deck and larger cabins rather than a fifth cabin, this is a cleaner buy than stepping to the 100 Yacht, which does add cabins and a great deal else.

It fits deep-water cruising grounds. Draft is 7' 0" at full load, which is sixteen inches more than the 76 Yacht. On the Mediterranean, the US east coast in open water and most European marinas that is unremarkable. On the Bahamas bank or a tidal creek it is the whole conversation, and the 76 is the better boat.

It is the wrong boat, unmodified, for long stretches away from a dock with a full complement aboard. Fresh water is 370 US gallons, the same as the 76 Yacht at 52,277 lbs lighter.