Sunseeker 90 Ocean

The 90 Ocean measures 88' 11" overall on 23' 6" of beam, which it shares with the 90 Ocean Enclosed - between them the widest flybridge platform Sunseeker currently builds below the 134 Yacht and, at 181,440 lbs half load, the heaviest below it too. Draft is 6' 4", quoted as a maximum at full load, and half load is the condition every weight figure here describes.

The tanks are what separate this boat from the 82 beneath it. Fuel is 3,434 gallons, 1,189 more than the 82 Ocean carries, an increase of better than half again for six extra feet of length. Fresh water is 400 gallons. That is four gallons more than the 82, on a boat that is longer, two feet wider and now carries crew. The fuel-to-water ratio here is roughly 8.6 to 1, against 5.7 to 1 on the 82, and it is the single most revealing pair of numbers on the sheet.

Accommodation is published as four cabins and four heads plus crew. Note the direction of that: the 82 beneath it offers four to five cabins, so the bigger boat publishes fewer, and the extra volume has gone somewhere other than into another guest cabin. Crew accommodation appears here for the first time in the class.

Power is twin MAN V12-1650s, 1,650 HP a side, the same engines the 82s carry. Maximum speed is 27 knots, two better than the 82 on identical power.

There is a small puzzle in this specification worth stating plainly, because it runs the opposite way to expectation. The 90 Ocean weighs 181,440 lbs at half load, 16,909 lbs more than the 82 Ocean, and carries the identical engines, twin MAN V12-1650s making 3,300 HP between them. It publishes a higher maximum speed: 27 knots against the 82's 25.

The heavier boat is the faster boat, on the same power. That is a longer hull working, not a mistake, and it is a useful reminder that on displacement-heavy flybridge hulls length pays where horsepower does not. In power-to-weight terms the 90 carries about 55 lbs per horsepower against the 82's 50, and still goes two knots better.

Twenty-seven knots is the top of it, and it is not the speed you will spend your seasons at. Get the figure that is: on the sea trial, hold the rpm you actually intend to run at and have observed consumption at that rpm recorded in the report, with the load aboard and the tank state written beside it. On a boat carrying 3,434 gallons, that figure decides how the boat is genuinely used, and it describes your hull at your loading rather than the model in general.

Draft is 6' 4" at full load, and the figure carries no reserve because it already describes the loaded condition. On 23' 6" of beam, check it against your berth, your lift and any bar you cross regularly.

Four cabins, four heads, plus crew. That is what Sunseeker publishes, and the interesting part is the comparison downward rather than upward: the 82 Ocean offers four to five cabins in a hull six feet shorter and two feet narrower. The 90 is the bigger boat and publishes the smaller guest count.

Which means the volume went somewhere else. On a 23' 6" beam over 88' 11", with crew accommodation appearing on the specification for the first time in this class, the obvious places for it to go are cabin size, crew space and the machinery and tankage that come with 3,434 gallons of fuel. If you are stepping up from an 82 expecting a fifth cabin to arrive with the extra length, read the sheet again. It does not.

Crew accommodation is the structural change between the two boats. The 82s publish cabins; from 88' 11" up Sunseeker publishes cabins plus crew, and this is the boat where the transition happens. That reframes the ownership model. The 82 is drawn for an owner who may run it themselves. The 90 assumes somebody is aboard to help.

Fresh water is where I would spend attention. Four hundred gallons, on a four cabin boat with crew aboard, is barely more than the owner-run 82 carries. Against 3,434 gallons of fuel that is a ratio of roughly 8.6 to 1, and it means the boat's legs are limited by water long before they are limited by fuel. A watermaker is not an accessory on this specification. Settle it at contract.

The 90 Ocean sits at the top of Sunseeker's Ocean class in its open form, and it shares with its Enclosed sister the widest and heaviest flybridge platform in the current range short of the 134 Yacht, which is the only Sunseeker with more beam at 26' 1". Below it, the 82 Ocean is the same idea with two feet less width and 1,189 fewer gallons. Beside it, the 90 Ocean Enclosed is the genuine variant rather than a cosmetic one: it publishes an extra inch of draft and, on the specification table, five cabins and six en-suites against this boat's four and four.

That is the choice inside the class. Open deck and four cabins, or enclosed deck and a larger published cabin count. Unlike the two 82s, which are identical on every figure, these two actually differ, and the difference is accommodation rather than atmosphere.

Outside the brand, the closest comparison on the market is the Princess X90, which is published at exactly the same 88' 11" and the same 27-knot maximum, and carries four cabins and four heads plus crew as this boat does. The Sunseeker is the wider of the two at 23' 6" and carries more fuel. The Ferretti 860 at 88' 5" is the Italian answer to the same brief and is quicker on paper.

Against all of them, the 90 Ocean's case is width and tankage, which is the same case the whole Ocean class makes. It is the least sporting way to buy a 90-foot Sunseeker and the most comfortable.

Buy the 90 Ocean if the way you use a boat rewards width and fuel rather than speed. Twenty-three and a half feet of beam over 88' 11" produces a platform that stays settled at anchor and lives far larger inside than the length suggests, and 3,434 gallons means passage planning stops being organised around fuel stops.

It suits an owner stepping up from an 80-something who wants more boat rather than a different kind of boat, and who is ready for crew. That last part is not optional in the way it is a deck below: the specification publishes crew accommodation here, and the boat is sized to be run with help.

It does not suit you if you want a fifth guest cabin. The 82 beneath it publishes four to five and this one publishes four. If cabin count is the reason for the step up, the boat you want is the 90 Ocean Enclosed, whose table gives five cabins and six en-suites, and the general arrangement drawing for your hull is where you confirm it before deposit.

It does not suit you if you want to be quick. Twenty-seven knots is the published maximum, and while that is two better than the 82, the Predator 75 does 40 on a lighter hull.

And it does not suit a long-legged cruising plan without a watermaker. Four hundred gallons of fresh water against 3,434 gallons of fuel is the constraint that will actually stop you, and it is cheap to solve at contract and awkward to solve later.