Boat test for the 2006 Azimut 62S with boat pictures, boat specifications, and boat test results. Includes pricing, videos, engine test reviews, and ratings for the 2006 Azimut 62S.

Azimut has been working hard filling the gaps in its red range. The famous Azimut 68S, which seemed such a radical departure for a builder of safe, sensible, white flying-bridge cruisers and motoryachts, was followed pretty quickly by the surface-drive-equipped Azimut 86S which was, if anything, even more off the wall.

A short breathing space followed (while the company got busy reinventing crucial areas of its flying-bridge range), and then at the Genoa boat show last autumn not one but two new red ones were launched: a great-looking little 43S with IPS drives, and this one, the best of the lot.

Radical red sports machines were never what Azimut was about, but having made the decision to jump into this new sector, it's done it with great gusto and enthusiasm. It helps of course that the builder had the good sense to stay with its regular design team of Carlo Galeazzi and Stefano Righini, who bring a wealth of experience to the job as well as some of the most high-octane talent to be found anywhere in the world. Because while a white, family flying-bridge cruiser can look like a Volvo and still sell, a sportboat has a duty to look great.

A difference in hull length of just seven feet between this new model and the 68S might seem marginal, but the 62S is not just a scaled-down version of her bigger sister: She's a two-cabin boat. That's right—62 feet LOA, and no tiny third cabin that fills up as soon as you stand in the doorway and your kids refuse to sleep in, which therefore ends up full of cockpit cushions and spare fenders because it doesn't seem to be any good for anything else. It's a risky strategy.

The red hull isn't the only sizzle aboard the Azimut 62S.

No, instead of the joke third cabin, this boat has a second saloon, a home cinema, a secluded study for navigation planning, and a comfortable lounging area, where you can sprawl on a sofa and enjoy a pre-dinner glass of Sancerre while offering unhelpful suggestions to the cook in the galley opposite.

Not all of these additional features are available at the same time, of course, because they're all in the same area. And for want of a generic term to describe what is effectively a unique feature, we'll call this area the lower saloon, which you discover as you go forward down the companionway from the cockpit. There on the port side, facing the galley, which can be closed off behind a sliding door, sit a sofa and an armchair, with a coffee table. (That's for the Sancerre.) There is also a large screen, onto which the boat's entertainment system can project the TV or any DVD you might have onboard. (That's your home cinema.) And since the boat's entertainment system is driven by a powerful integrated PC, you can also sit down here with your optional Raymarine remote keyboard and call up the plotter and radar displays as well as any of the other data displayed on the instruments at the helm.

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