2017 Belize Motoryachts 54 Daybridge with IPS

If the legendary wooden boats of our past had kept evolving, how might they look today?

Belize could well offer some insights.

We sense they may have stayed with a lower profile than many of todays offerings. Not just for beautys sake, but because the more tall and top-heavy a boat, the more ungainly and susceptible to windage.

As you well know, the geometry beneath any planing powerboat is crucial to performance.

Belize was never going to make do with some off-the-shelf version, nor even settle for creating their own in the absence of propulsion data.

First prize, really, is to design in conjunction with the particular drive setup a boat will have.

The superstructure shape on the Belize is also somewhat less bluff than traditional predecessors. The coach roof is angled just enough to shed headwinds and shrug off spray, but upright enough to provide good volume in passenger spaces.

Note too the way the roofline swoops down, ever so gradually, almost to mid-cockpit.

Elsewhere, visual cues recall art deco influenced boats of the 20s and 30s (when they were referred to as gentlemens launches).

As the cradle of our civilisation, Europe still quite deservedly influences our design sensibility. Even so, we tend to take it with a grain of salt.

We try to cherry-pick and adapt ideas to suit different cruising distances, light levels and lifestyles, in many locations.

The Belize designers have struck a keen-eyed balance between European panache and Australian practicality.

But it is full-sized beds and roomy staterooms that fill the Belize down below.

Rarely seen on a motoryacht of this style and size, the master stateroom extends the full beam of the boat. Its large queen-size mattress a very cosseting eight inches thick, with storage under its baseboard.

Rising at your command is a 24-inch TV/DVD.