Azimut 58 Flybridge Review and Used Market Guide

Two different boats wear the Azimut 58 badge

Type Azimut 58 into a listings site and you will see two generations that share nothing but the number. The older Azimut 58 was built from 1995 to 2002, and YachtBuyer records about 125 of them; it is a 57-foot 9-inch flybridge usually found with MTU diesels and priced like the 20-plus-year-old boat it is. The newer Azimut 58, often listed as the 58 Fly, was unveiled for the 2008 season with a Stefano Righini exterior, a Carlo Galeazzi interior and twin MAN R6 engines, and stayed in the range until about 2011.

This guide concentrates on the 2008 boat because that is the one tested by Power & Motoryacht, Yachting and Motor Boat & Yachting, and the one most US buyers mean when they search for an Azimut 58 Fly for sale. The older boat gets its own section further down.

An interior that keeps revealing compartments

Power & Motoryacht's tester compared touring the 58 to opening an advent calendar. The grain-matched, raised-panel pickled oak looks uniform, so drawer fronts and wall panels are hard to tell apart, and behind them Azimut hid a surprising amount: mortised cutlery and porcelain drawers along the galley bar, the stereo and TV remotes in the lounge paneling, a brushed aluminum breaker panel under a hinged writing surface at the lower helm and a washing machine behind a fabric wall that pops open on a push latch above the companionway.

The forward cabin brings the trick that Motor Boat & Yachting liked most. Its two V-berths are hinged only at the head, so the bases slide together like scissor blades to make a centerline queen in about a minute, or stay apart to leave a large floor area for two singles. Azimut first used the idea on the 62S sport yacht. Overhead, a 22-inch hatch and long opening ports give real cross ventilation.

Motor Boat & Yachting summed up the finish as unbridled luxury: real leather where rivals use fabric, solid limed oak everywhere, and joinery of consistent quality even if some fiberglass moldings are left exposed. If you like that warm, tailored Italian look, it has aged better than the glossy schemes of the same era.

Split levels versus open plan

The main deck is arranged on two levels. A lower lounge sits just inside the cockpit doors with settees on three sides, then two steps lead up to a raised dinette and a galley that takes up more than half the beam, with the single helm seat forward on centerline. Motor Boat & Yachting contrasted it with Ferretti's single-level saloons of the time and concluded that the Azimut traded some openness for privacy and coziness, which suits a 60-foot boat with guests aboard.

Yachting's reviewer was less convinced by the dinette, which seats six at a fairly narrow table, and noted that saloon headroom is lower than average because of the sporty, low profile. The cockpit table is large, and in practice most dinners happen outside.

Below, the master sits amidships with a diagonal berth and a vanity desk under a big hull window, and its en suite shower is large enough for two. The VIP shares its head with the twin cabin to port, a compromise you will also find on most three-cabin 58 to 60 footers of the period.

On the water, more Range Rover than Jaguar

Motor Boat & Yachting's December test off Savona saw 32.0 knots from the twin 800 hp MAN R6 engines and found the boat relaxed cruising at about 27 knots. Power & Motoryacht ran the 58 into three to five foot Ligurian swells at 25 knots and reported that it tracked straight with hands off the wheel, made tight loops at 1,800 rpm with modest heel and turned six times lock to lock.

Where the testers differed was on character. Motor Boat & Yachting said Azimut's flybridges could not match the razor-sharp handling of the best British boats and that the 58 felt twice the size of a Princess 61 or Sunseeker Manhattan 60, then added that in cruising mode it is excellent. The comparison it used was a Range Rover against a Jaguar XK8, which is a fair way to set expectations.

The optional Azimut joystick, which blends the gearboxes, rudders and thrusters, impressed Yachting because it worked without pods. Power & Motoryacht found it spun the boat in its own length but was a little less responsive walking sideways than a true pod system.

One engine option and a sensibly planned engine room

Azimut offered the 58 with a single power choice, a pair of MAN R6-800 inline sixes on ZF gearboxes with 2.037 to 1 reduction and four-blade props. Motor Boat & Yachting approved, arguing that standardization lets the designers place every service point where it belongs and improves parts support.

Access is through a cockpit hatch. Headroom is only 5 feet 2 inches, so you work hunched, but the Racor filters, foam fire suppression and batteries are pushed to the sides, leaving clear floor in the middle. The 20 kW Kohler generator sits athwartships against the aft bulkhead. Motor Boat & Yachting liked the raw-water diverter valve that turns an engine into an emergency bilge pump and the clear-bowl fuel filters, but noted that only one fuel tank had a drain cock and neither had a separate sight gauge.

The optional crew cabin aft has under six feet of headroom, a 5-foot 3-inch head compartment and only a hatch from under the cockpit settee for access, so most US owners keep it as a lazarette.

The 1995 to 2002 Azimut 58

The first Azimut 58 was a flybridge of 57 feet 9 inches with a 15-foot 1-inch beam, about 687 gallons of fuel and 235 gallons of water, according to YachtBuyer, which also credits it with roughly 125 hulls. Listings we found pair it with MTU diesels of about 767 hp each, including the 8V 183 TE93. It has three cabins and the softer, rounder styling of 1990s Azimuts.

These boats now ask roughly 250,000 to 325,000 euros in Europe. They can be good value for a hands-on owner, but at this age assume that hoses, wiring, air conditioning and electronics are original unless the paperwork proves otherwise, and price the boat on its survey rather than its brochure.

When the 58 became the Azimut 60

Azimut did not retire the 58's hull. Power & Motoryacht reported that the Azimut 60 revealed at the Genoa show was built on the same hull and machinery as the 58, with a new hydraulic swim platform for tender stowage that accounts for the extra length, a 550-pound flybridge davit, bigger saloon windows and a reworked crew cabin with a transom door.

That matters for buyers because the later boat's test data is the closest proxy for a 58. Power & Motoryacht's 2012 test of the 60, with the same 800 hp MANs, recorded 26.1 knots at 51.8 gallons per hour and 21.8 knots at 40.7 gph, with an optimum fast cruise around 22 knots. A 58 with a clean bottom should behave much the same, so budget fuel on that basis.

What an Azimut 58 costs to buy and keep

When it was new the 58 cost a little under 1 million pounds in the UK, and Power & Motoryacht called its test boat a $2 million yacht. Today, 2007 to 2011 boats in Europe ask about 550,000 to 700,000 euros, and a well-kept US example should sit between about $550,000 and $800,000.

Plan on $75,000 to $140,000 a year for an owner-operated 58 in Florida or the Northeast, covering a 60-foot slip, insurance, haul-out and bottom work, MAN and generator servicing, canvas and electronics updates. Engine overhauls on the MANs and a Seakeeper retrofit, if the boat lacks one, are the big-ticket items to price before you sign.