On 26 May 2019 at 18:03 Davi Rozgonyi <davi.rozgonyi@...> wrote:

Hi there, so... I have a Super Maramu. So take this with a grain of salt...apologies to those who might have a 55. 

I have a few friends with 55s, and have explored them inside and out. I was disappointed. We are a three person family with three cats living aboard full time also. Storage space was for starters extremely important. Because of all the side windows, there is an incredible lack of interior cabinet space on the 55s (and to a lesser extent, even the 54s where the windows are cut). I don't think I could live full time on here lacking even one cabinet on this SM :D There are a million windows on the aft cabintop where the SM has a sundeck. It seems difficult to make a sundeck over all those hatches, and the sundeck is one of the best things about the SM. The 55s I've seen also have been cutter rigged. I personally dislike that because it eliminates the best spot to best secure a dinghy, ie the foredeck. In our case, a 3.3m all aluminum. It would never fit on a 55. The bow locker on the 55 seemed extremely small, at least the opening. We keep a parasailor in one of the SM's two large bow lockers; I doubt it would fit in a 55. Last but not least, the cockpit. Objectively, it is a waste of space. I spend 75% of my time in the cockpit, why make it smaller and harder to stretch out on watch?? The port bench does not extend past the captains chair (ends at it actually, making it about 5 feet long instead of the SM's 7 or 8 feet), and the whole cockpit is narrower by 2 or 3 feet due to the winches being on the outside of the hard enclosure. The cushions are narrower and the table seemed to be permanently installed in the center of things. There are giant glass windows but they are so far in front of the wheel that it effectively becomes a meter long dashboard where putting anything is awkward or dangerous, ie a waste of space. I also don't know if you can pop up out of the hard top of a 55 ( i dont think so) when you need a better look or just because it feels nice... And all of this for a price tag 3-5 times what a SM costs. 

In short, being a full time livaboard, I would never even trade my SM straight up for a 55 (or a 54 for similar reasons, altho the 54 seems much better value for a liveaboard). If I had the scratch to buy a 55, I would buy the newest SM redline 2000 I could find, and upgrade her new everything and with every little tweak (a king size bed in the back is the best one, followed by a hydraulic table in the saloon that turns it into a king size movie bed ;)  And then put the other 400k left over in my cruising kitty.