2018 Belize Motoryachts 54 Sedan with IPS

Sheer elegance

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.

The surface below the surface

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.

Subtle signs

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.

A more gracious time and place

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.

Below decks, above standard

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.

In its elements

Time spent on a luxury machine such as the Belize 54 is as much an outdoors experience maybe more so than it is an indoor one.

A lot of attention has been devoted to making the most of that experience.

Harnessing technology

The sense of any classical or retro references quickly disappear when we examine the technical side of the 54.

Theres nothing at all nostalgic or backward-glancing about resin-infused composite construction, double vinylester outer skin, or watertight, stepped collision bulkhead and independent foam-filled hull compartments. Or a deck both screwed and glued to the hull, with the final seam girded by a full-perimeter 60mm 316 stainless steel rub rail.

Few and far between

As attractive as all these Belize benefits might be, desirability is no substitute for availability.

The reality is, there will be a very finite number of Belize Motoryachts built each year.

The Belize 54 Sedan. One continuous level of luxury.

The Sedan owner could well be new to boating and just wants it to be as easy and simple as possible. But they could just as easily be a veteran cruiser who has owned Flybridge vessels but no longer wants split-levels and stairs, either in their boat, or their living quarters on terra firma.

Unlike many of todays leisure vessels that developed as game boats and come with bridge decks either fully enclosed or with all-around clears, this boats primary purpose is less about chasing lunch as more social pursuits. Not so much about catching fish, as catching up.