It is time for my next Boot Duesseldorf 2025 walkthrough. This yacht, the new Solaris 55, also needed some time before publishing. I am honest: Upon seeing her for the first time I was litterally shocked! She is a big, big boat that completely seems to differ from what Solaris (at least for me) stands for and has been standing for in the past years. Shaken and also a bit disappointed, it took me three days into the show from just roaming around her bow to finally enter the booth to take a thorough look at her.
Don´t get me wrong here: „Shocked“ isn´t necessarily bad. The same way I was shocked to see the great interior works in the new Bavara C46 last year or the then-brand new „French“ Hanse 460 – shocks, breaking with the ordinary, leaving behind the costumary, also always mean something new. Mostly, that is something good. As for the Solaris 55, I´m honest, this was a bit bigger chunk to swallow, and here´s why …
Massive volume!
Pictures speak for themselves, and so let me begin by just posting a sight onto the bow of the new Solaris 55. This is such a deviation from the past designs that you may understand my initial shock in this regard. Solaris went for a massive increase of bow volume here, apparently, which resulted in a bulky, heavy, rounded and imposing stem:
We know these from many other boats. On the one hand, derived from the scow-bows of the racing boats and copied by the cruising yacht designers, for example in the said new Bavarias for more volume. On the other hand these are also increasingly used with the aluminium yacht manufacturers: The new Ovni comes with such a bow design. I´m not a naval architect and of course I understand how and why this is done for a performance-oriented racing boat, as for the leisure yachts, first and foremost creating volume may be the prime driving factor of it.
I was shocked to see it in a solaris because – as shown in the picture above – especially Solaris and Javier Soto Acebal´s lines have until now been the sexiest of them all. Including the nice, fine entries. The Solaris 50 is in my eyes still the by far most attractive Mediterranean-style sailing yacht you can have, she is an absolute head-turner and pure sex with a mast! What a difference between both designs! So, why do they do it?
How volume creates space
Well, as I said, it´s about volume I guess. People who have the spending power needed to afford a Solaris budget – or in a broader sense – who can afford the budgets for those upper brands like Solaris, first and foremost look for a luxury toy. It´s not so much about practicality, about seawortiness, long haul-capabilities and not even so much about high-performance, I would say. It´s about luxury, indulgence and passion.
In this, on such a restricted space like a boat – be it even 55 feet – I guess that every cubic meter of volume is a gift. Because it increases the stage on which the designers let take place their play of luxury. Standing on the massive deck of the Solaris and letting my view sweep the vast, flush area makes this even clearer: With a maximum width of five meters, also a bit boosted by the already wide bow, the internal volume must have been increased a lot compared to her predecessor. I check it and can instantly see it down below:
The owner´s cabin is not a cabin anymore – it´s a huge ballroom! I mean, my picture is a bit misleading as it cannot convey the reality of this room, but look at this! Just compare the King Size-island bed to the wide passages to both of its sides. Or just check out this massive ceiling height … you could easily fit a grown-up chandelier to the roofing and still be able to walk freely underneath. Okay, I´m exaggerating here, but you get what I mean: This volume is massive, even for a 55-footer.
Reacting to a market demand?
A trend we are witnessing in big production boats since years is the increase of volume, amenities, luxury and weight. It is accompanied also by a decrease of sails area or performance with now having self-tacking Jibs and inmast-furling mainsails being standard for most production yachts. „Easy sailing“, as the marketing says, maybe a cover-up for „we know that less and less sailing is done with our boats“. Does this also apply to the top-shelf products?
I don´t know about the current Solaris customer-profile. But I know that this shipyard has performed very well and did nothing short of a spectacular transformation. Their growth has stirred up the market, not the least with their acquisition of CNB. Maybe an increased market penetration and now bigger share of the cake also „thinned“ the profile of their customers: A bit away from hardcore passionate sailors and shifted more towards comfort-oriented people. Maybe. The signs and facts to be seen in the Solaris 55 indicate something like this.
The wide, voluptuous hull makes for a huge cockpit area above the waterline – again, with nothing less than a spectacular view over the flush and low deck. But it also creates the volume below to fit likewise spectacular aft cabins. I mean, such a volume for your guests is usually only possible in yachts starting at 60 feet or even bigger!
In this, Solaris does indeed make a bold statement with their new 55 and offers a big-big boat with „just“ under 16 metres waterline-length. But also: This boat displaces massive 23 tons. This is a lot, I think, even compared to production boats. Jeanneau Yacht 55 weighs in at 18.5 tons, the Oceanis Yacht 54 even less, 16.6 tons. Grand Soleil´s 52 with a similar size (even a bit wider) clocks in at 16.5 tons. Well …
Solaris 55: Still a sailing machine?
Judging by the layout in the cockpit, the new Solaris 55 is still a fun boat to sail. There is more than enough space for the helmsman and the guys grinding the winches for active sailing. As all lines of the running rigging are nicely diverted backwards, they do arrive at a pair of decent sized winches. I put myself in the position of the trimmer.
Located right in front of the steering wheels, there is more than enough space to stand or kneel and work the different ropes. You may also step on the side deck nicely to check the tell tales in the sails or the Windex at the mast top. All winches are electrefied and can be used both by pushing buttons located near the drums or on the panels of the steering posts. Push-button-sailing all along.
All of the boat´s trim lines are to be operated from abaft. Once put onto the respective winches, you can basically sail the boat completely single-handed from here. One aspect of a Solaris, the nice flush and clean deck, makes for the whole industry´s best view over the boat. Even here from far abaft you can easily see everything in front of you: Nothing obliterates or hinders a free sight. As I had put it in one of my older articles about Solaris: These are basically huge surfboards.
A palace below
Soto-Acebal achieves those low superstructures by raising the freeboard. A Solaris´ hull always came with much more volume than boats of comparable sizes. This can best be seen on their „smallest“ boat, the Solaris 40. By raising the deck, the superstructure „sinks“ into it and thus makes it appear so flush and clean. Another volume-increasing effect: This is a sailing palace!
Going down below, the Solaris-typical style welcomes you. And might take away your breath. I´ve always admired the level of handcraft quality that goes especially into the joinery of these yachts. One of these specialties in this respect is the choice of the very materials. Having a continuous grain in each surface, running all the way from aft bulkhead to the front bulkhead is a matter of course in these yachts. Pure eye-candy!
Apart from the sheer size and volume down below (again, look at the awesome ceiling height here, even at the very far sides underneath the walking deck!) the Solaris interiors are always spilling luxuriant with abundant natural light. It´s like a miracle because there aren´t all too many hull-windows or skylights. But of course, having such a coherent, unobstructed single volume makes the lightrays fly around without being bounced off of too many surfaces.
The Solaris 55 wants to be recognized as a „sailor´s-boat“ as well. The large navigational area with a huge chart table is the manifestation of this claim. A massive wooden chart table, with a lot of practical stowage for charts, a laptop and other „Captain´s-stuff“ is put right where it belongs: Upon coming down the companionway to the starboard side.
And in this I begin to understand that it is not as easy as I thought. It´s not just adding more and grow bigger. Not just an increase of luxury through volume. There must be more to it. Maybe this new Solaris 55 is just the biginning of a paradigm shift for Solaris? Not a single iteration, an experiment in design, but indeed something completely new? I don´t know, because that´s something only Javier or the shipyard could answer. For now, I just try to interprete the signs.
Practicality meets design
But let´s not focus too much on these things. Apart from that, the new yacht of course offers everything you seek in a boat. Her layout is absolutely classic with a daybath (also en-suite bathroom for the cabin) to starboard side and a large Galley facing it on the opposite side.
I´m sure you can play around with how many fridges and freezers you want to have. There´s more than enough space here. The galley is L-shaped, though one could say it is a small „U“ indeed. A winde cooler, two stainless steel sinks, the said fridges and a standard 3-flame gas stove with oven. Again, I am sure that a yacht this size also offers amenities like a dish washer and maybe a washing machine/dryer for one of the aft cabins.
Speaking of bathrooms, there are three of course. For a 55-footer having a dedicated private bathroom for each of the cabins is customary. In this, owners can play a bit with the layout, at least for the fore cabin: You could either have a classic island bed, centre aligned, with a bathroom to port side (as shown here in the picture) or you go for a bathroom at the fore-bulkhead with a portside-located owner´s bed. Your choice.
The bathrooms offer separated shower cabins, all three of them, which is a nice thing. Electric WCs and some stowage. Again, I appreciate every shipyard that is putting wooden gratings into their heads because I hate nothing more than the feeling of cold, wet bare GRP underneath my feet when taking a shower. All in all, the bathrooms are simple and plain – no waste of precious materials, everything is there where you need it.
Is this the new Solaris-way?
So, that´s basically it. My walkthrough in Solaris´ latest yacht draws to an end. What´s my conclusion here? Well, without having spoken to neither the shipyard nor the designers, I would interprete it as a paradigm shift. This is why I named this article the way I did. Clearly, the new Solaris 55 derives from the sleek, „thin“, sexy and clean design towards embracing a new, bulkier approach.
This in turn creates much more volume and so the boat – although being large already – conveys an atmosphere only to be found on much bigger yacht. 60, 65-footers maybe. In this, the new boat may be attractive for customers seeking this sensations but maybe being restricted by berth sizes or budget. On the other hand – and here for me the initial „shock“ I talked about at the beginning of this article, at least for the most part, dissolves – looking at the new Solaris 55 on the dry of a boat show is completely different than the looks of her when in the water:
From the Solaris website I take these two pictures showing the yacht in the water. Her bow section still appears voluminous, but far, far less massive. On the contrary, the nicely done very slightly inverted sheerline is barely recognizable but, if sensed, ingenious. As well as the wonderful „stroke“ by Javier which makes the chine to rise and dissolve towards the stern. Seen from this perspective, instead of looking „bulky“, she looks strong, almost aggresive! She kind of reminds me of the Pogo 44 here in some was …
Also, when under canvas and sailing, like in the picture above, the massive hull almost disappears. The all so typical lines for Solaris are triumphant, like a flat huge surfbord with a massive rigg she ploughs through the seas. It is fascinating how different my impressions are, comparing the boat seen in Duesseldorf and this boat, so graciously sailing and mooring in the above pictures. In this, I am happy having taken my time to think about what I write here and not to give in to the first, rough and unfiltered impressions I´ve had during the show. So, here we are: Nice work, Solaris, really!
More Solaris-articles:
From wooden mock-up to the real boat: Solaris 44
Talking to Javier Soto Acebal about his unique Solaris-style
The Solaris-shipyard in Aquileia