Motor Boat & Yachting - July 2018

FAIRLINE SQUADRON 78

OURBOATS BOAT MASTER

Even after fi ve seasons, John Wolf’s love affair with his Fairline Squadron 78 shows no sign of cooling

A Match made in heaven

Back in 2011, Boats.co.uk and Fairline

persuaded me to order a Squadron

78, which performed beautifully.

I loved Fairline’s semi-custom build

offer, and it became slightly addictive.

After cruising the new boat for just

one season, I knew what worked well

and what I should have done better,

so I ordered another one, intending

to push Fairline’s customisation

to a new high watermark. They agreed,

to the extent that they even changed

the hull mould to add more windows.

Match turned out so well that 2018

will be my sixth season cruising her.

Normally at five years I would change

the boat, but I am going to keep Match

until I find something I like better.

Current 24m boats have many great

features but lack some things that

matter to me. Examples are long-

range fuel tanks (Match has 7,300

litres), professionally equipped

galleys, stairs from fly helm to galley,

effective flybridge windscreens,

really good blackwater kit, swim

platforms with fixed and hi-lo parts,

and patio doors positioned for

a large aft cockpit, even at the

expense of a slightly smaller saloon.

So rather than buying a new boat,

I have tinkered with various upgrades

instead. When Garmin launched

firmware for their MFD screens to

operate two radars and their new

broadband Fantom series, I ordered

a second radar. It is a radome sitting

above the open array and it’s nice

to have the high power and fine

resolution of the latter, and the clever

features of broadband including

colour-coded targets to tell me

whether they are coming towards

or going away from me. And of course

losing radar at night would be a big

deal, so a backup is comforting.

Then I had to change Match’s

anchor. The Delta anchor supplied

with the boat never disappointed but

I bent it badly in a rocky seabed off

Corsica. Lots of new-style anchors

have emerged in recent years, so

I thought I should try one. I liked the

Ultra anchor on a boat I chartered

in Croatia, and it is certainly the most

beautiful of the latest generation, so

I fitted a 60kg Ultra. I’ve been pleased

with it, but I was with the Delta too.

Another upgrade was a new echo

sounder. The Med is deep: in the Solent

and English Channel, you almost

never see 100m but in the Med,

you pass that within a mile of leaving

port and standard echo sounders

stop working at around that depth.

So I fitted a Garmin GSD 26 CHIRP

sounder, 3kW with two enormous

transducers. I can now see 2,000m!

Not life changing, but a nice toy and

occasionally I think I can see whales,

though they might just be shadows.

The one failure on Match is the

silver wrap on the hardtop. It looked

great when new in 2015, but it cannot

cope with the sun. It went streaky

and dull within a couple of seasons

and now looks a mess. Grapefruit

Graphics, who fitted it, are working

out a proposal but I think it will peel

off to reveal the original white gelcoat

underneath and I’ll just rewrap

the sharkfins. Despite the great

look of new vinyl wrap, I wouldn’t

recommend it for a boat in the sun.

That’s small beer in the context

of running a boat like this. Match has

proved herself to be outstanding, and

while I’ll look at new 24m offerings at

boat shows, I somehow think I’ll hang

on to her for a bit longer. John Wolf

John’s new 60kg

Ultra anchor

Match’s custom

dashboard

Match looks right at home

berthed in Portoferraio, Elba