Absolute Navetta 48 Review, Layout, Range and Price

The smallest Navetta, and why it sold out

Absolute's Navetta line began with the 58 at the 2014 Cannes show, added the 52 a year later and the flagship 73 in 2017. The absolute navetta 48 arrived in 2018 as the little sister, and Yachting reported that a full year of build slots sold before most people had stepped aboard. It went on to win Best Flybridge Yacht up to 55 feet at the 2019 Asia Boating Awards, was a Motor Boat Awards finalist in the passagemaker class and was nominated for European Powerboat of the Year.

The appeal was obvious. For under 50 feet you got the Navetta look, with its plumb bow, high foredeck, deep and sheltered side decks, near-vertical windshield and tall glass superstructure, plus the range's signature comfort: three cabins with the owner in the bow, an optional crew cabin, a long flybridge and a semi-displacement hull happy at 8 knots or 25.

Production ended in 2025 and Absolute replaced the boat with the Navetta 50 for 2026, which makes the 48 a used-market proposition. Search results for navetta 48 for sale and absolute 48 navetta all point to this boat; Absolute never built another 48-foot Navetta.

A diagonal king in the bow

The owner's cabin sits forward and several steps down from the saloon, a position Yachting compared to the master suites on many megayachts. The door is on the centerline but the rest of the room is asymmetric, with the king set close to a diagonal so there is walking room on both sides and a view out through windows about 44 inches wide. Opening portholes 22 inches tall sit on each side, and Yachting measured more than 6 feet 3 inches of headroom.

Hull No. 1 so impressed MBY's tester that he wrote it overturned the theory that modern masters belong amidships, adding that your hull windows will not line up with your neighbor's when you lie stern-to in port.

Two midships cabins and an $18,900 crew option

Because the owner's head protrudes forward on the diagonal, the amidships volume splits into a double to port and a twin to starboard, both with large hull windows. MBY thought the port VIP felt like a mini master, with a walk-around double and a walk-in wardrobe so large you might choose it yourself. Floor and ceiling heights shift in places, but where the headroom drops the floor drops with it. The two guest cabins share the second head, which is also the day head.

The optional crew cabin in the stern, reached from the swim platform, has a single berth, its own toilet and shower and windows in the transom. On US boats it cost $18,900 in 2019. PMY expected Americans to use it for storage, but MBY argued it makes a superb second day head, a changing room for swimmers and an overflow cabin for teenagers.

A 108-inch windshield and a single-level galley

The galley sits aft on the same level as the cockpit, so the two spaces join across a flush threshold with a forward-facing bench aft and room for loose furniture. The lounge and helm step up two levels forward. Décor mixes high-gloss paint and various oaks, and air conditioning vents are hidden in the overhead so, as Absolute's US president put it, the air is never blasting on your skin.

The lower helm is to starboard beside a full-height, mostly glass pantograph side door. The real event is the windshield, a single near-vertical sheet of laminated glass that Yachting measured at about 108 inches wide; BoatTEST noted it is set at exactly the right height for a remarkable view whether you sit or stand. Absolute also said the Navetta 48 was the first boat to integrate EmpirBus digital switching.

A flybridge that runs almost to the stern

The flybridge extends nearly to the transom with no steps from front to back. The helm is central, with a sun lounger beside it that can seat up to five; MBY called it perhaps the most sociable upper helm you are ever likely to see. Aft there is a U-shaped sofa around a teak table for about six and an outdoor galley with fridge, ice maker, barbecue and sink. The fly's overhang shelters both the cockpit and the side decks on the way forward to a modular bow lounge.

A hardtop was optional. In the Southeast it is worth paying extra for a boat that has one.

Eight knots for distance, eighteen for schedule

All Navetta 48s were built on Volvo Penta IPS, launched with twin 435 hp D6 IPS600 pods; later Absolute literature lists the D6 under an IPS650 designation, so confirm what a given boat carries. The hull is semi-displacement, and PMY's editor noticed it came onto plane at a surprisingly low 11 knots and stayed there at 12, tracking straight through 3- to 6-foot rollers with 10 people aboard.

Top speed is about 27 knots. Yachting saw 27.5 knots at 3,700 rpm on a light hull No. 1, and BoatTEST reached 26.7 knots at 3,550 rpm burning 44 gph. Where the 48 shines is lower down the range, and Yachting's figures show why owners call it a long-legged boat for its size.

• About 8 knots at 1,600 rpm: roughly 520 nautical miles (Yachting, no reserve)
• 10 knots at about 13 gph total: roughly 330 nautical miles (Yachting, excluding a 10 percent reserve)
• 18 knots near 3,000 rpm: roughly 250 nautical miles (Yachting)
• 18.7 knots at 3,000 rpm on 29.5 gph: BoatTEST's best cruise
• 20 knots: about 130 liters per hour, roughly 34 gph (MBY)

Built inland, finished on the coast

Absolute's yard in Podenzano, near Piacenza, is around 70 miles from the sea, and that shapes how every Navetta 48 was built. Hulls are hand-laid rather than infused, and the Integrated Structural System, a jigsaw of CNC-cut plywood and composite panels assembled overnight by robots, is bonded inside the hull with wiring, plumbing and cabinetry already fitted. Each boat then spends two to four days in a test pool with more than 1,000 checks before hull and deck are separated, trucked to the coast and permanently joined.

Testers consistently describe the result as tight and quiet. MBY wrote that it had never tested a hull No. 1 of a new range that felt so well put together.

The Navetta 50 successor and what a 48 is worth

With the Navetta 50 now in production, the 48 is only available used. US supply is thin, so expect about $750,000 for an early 2019 boat to roughly $1.35 million for a late, well-equipped hull. Annual running costs typically land between $55,000 and $95,000 for a 50-foot slip, insurance, IPS service, generator and air conditioning, bottom work and fuel. Cruising at 8 to 10 knots, fuel becomes a minor line item.