Azimut 77S Review, the Triple-IPS 77 Azimut Explained

Why Azimut gave the 77 three engines

Most people searching "77 azimut" or "azimut 77" mean the Azimut 77S, the only 77 in the builder's catalog, sometimes written S77 on listings. It is a 78-foot sportbridge, a hardtop sport yacht with a compact flybridge, and it was Azimut's boldest bet of the mid-2010s: three Volvo Penta IPS1200 pod drives in place of the twin shaft-driven V12s every rival used at this size.

The logic was about space, not speed. Power & Motoryacht explained it plainly in 2015: the only way to get about 2,700 horsepower out of Volvo's IPS system was to fit three 900 hp D13s, and pods let the engines sit far aft. That freed the widest part of a slim hull for a full-beam master suite and three more en suite cabins, so a narrow, sporty boat could sleep eight like a much beamier flybridge cruiser.

The 77S made its public debut at the Cannes Yachting Festival in September 2014 with four hulls sold before launch, according to Motor Boat & Yachting. YachtBuyer shows the model in the range until about 2021, by which time Azimut had moved its sport line toward the S6, S7 and S8 family.

A sportbridge that hides its flybridge

Stefano Righini styled the 77S with a near-vertical bow, a muscular, almost military profile and big square hull windows. PMY's design columnist compared the curve of the foredeck into the deckhouse to a Maserati GranTurismo coupe, and from most angles you barely notice there is a flybridge at all. Underneath, the hull was resin-infused and the superstructure built in carbon fiber, part of Azimut's push to cut weight high up.

There are three outdoor zones. The foredeck has a sunpad and dinette that stay private when moored stern-to, shaded by an electrohydraulic bimini that folds away. The cockpit has twin stairs, an outdoor kitchen with grill and icemaker to starboard, a table for eight and a hidden sunshade that deploys from the overhang. The flybridge is short, with a helm and open deck meant for loose furniture rather than built-in sofas.

Aft, a pivoting bathing platform folds down to water level, and the garage beneath swallows a jet RIB of about 12 feet 8 inches plus a personal watercraft. That garage is a major reason owners chose the 77S over flybridge cruisers of the same length.

A main deck with no galley in the way

Carlo Galeazzi moved the galley down to the lower deck, forward on the port side, which leaves the main deck as one long social space: a dining area forward near the single helm seat, a lounge aft and a three-panel glass bulkhead nearly 9 feet wide that slides open to the cockpit. A sunroof above the helm and very large side windows make it bright. Yachting's tester singled out the sight lines from the raised helm as excellent.

Below, the full-beam master amidships has a dressing room, bathroom across the aft bulkhead, a dinette and a dressing table. A VIP sits in the bow and two twin-berth cabins flank the corridor, all en suite, with headroom of at least 6 feet 6 inches throughout. Crew get two cabins and a head, reached by a private staircase from the afterdeck, so a captain and stew can work without crossing the guest areas. The big double berths lift on gas struts for stowage.

• Master: full beam with dinette, dressing table and walk-in wardrobe
• VIP forward plus two twin cabins, all en suite
• Galley on the lower deck with Miele appliances
• Crew: two cabins and a head for up to three

Two sea trials and what they taught the testers

PMY and MBY both ran the first hull, and their reports tell the same story. At Cannes the boat would not reach its rated rpm and felt sluggish. Volvo blamed the props, Q5s instead of larger-diameter, finer-pitch Q4s, and the first hull had come out about two tonnes heavier than planned, with optional Seakeeper gyros adding another tonne. Two weeks later at Savona, with new props, the tender and jet ski removed, about 700 liters of water drained and half the crew left ashore, she ran a two-way average of 33 knots and PMY's tester said she handled like a real thoroughbred.

Yachting tested in the chop of Cannes Bay and found 22 knots at 67 gph and 28 knots at 89 gph, with the bow staying low on the climb to plane and the boat carving flat, confident circles at 34 knots. MBY also tried running on two engines with the center drive shut down and still reached 23 knots, a useful data point for anyone worried about redundancy.

The lesson for owners is simple. The 77S is a narrow, performance-oriented hull, and loading it like a family flybridge with full tanks, toys and a dozen guests costs real speed. MBY noted that the Azimut 80 of the same era is 28 inches wider and carries weight far more easily.

Fuel curve, range and the twin-versus-triple debate

PMY's instrumented test, with 525 gallons of fuel, 100 gallons of water and six people aboard, logged 32 knots at 2,450 rpm burning 134 gph. A fast cruise of 30.8 knots took 121.8 gph, and 25.3 knots needed 87.2 gph, for ranges between roughly 230 and 280 nautical miles from the 1,057-gallon tank. Sound at the helm stayed between 52 and 73 dB(A).

PMY also weighed Azimut's claim that three engines beat two. The three Volvos with drives weighed about 15,212 pounds against 9,775 pounds for a pair of MAN V12s with gearboxes, before counting the twins' shafts, struts and rudders. At wide open throttle the triple burned 134 gph against about 139 gph for the MAN pair. The magazine's conclusion was that the gains show up in the accommodation rather than the fuel bill, which is a fair way to frame the whole boat.

Living with three pods and a crowded engine room

Every tester commented on the machinery space. Three engines, two 28 kW Kohler generators and the intrusion of the tender garage fill it almost completely, and MBY called it claustrophobic. Routine checks are possible, but anything major takes longer, and three engines mean three sets of drive services, anodes, filters and belts.

In return you get joystick docking, low noise thanks to underwater exhausts, and a large centerline fuel tank that avoids the side-to-side trim shifts of wing tanks as fuel burns off. Owners who run the boat themselves often prize the joystick more than the speed. The Volvo Platinum package on the option list added joystick, autopilot, automatic trim and dynamic positioning.

The used 77S market in 2026

This is one of the more liquid big Azimuts. YachtBuyer recently counted ten 77S listings worldwide, from 2016 to 2020 builds, asking between about $1.8 million and $2.6 million with an average near $2.1 million. Over three years 20 boats came to market, averaging 244 days listed with only about a 2 percent average cut from first ask. A 2017 example in Costa Rica with twin Seakeepers, Starlink and about 2,300 engine hours was listed at $1.9 million in late 2025.

Annual running costs depend heavily on crew. An owner-operator with a part-time captain might spend in the low hundreds of thousands, while a fully crewed boat in Florida or the Med climbs toward $400,000 before fuel. IPS drive services at the recommended intervals are not optional on a boat like this, so budget for them every year.

Telling the 77S apart from its siblings

There is no older Azimut 77 to confuse it with. Shoppers do mix it up with the Azimut 80 of 2013 to 2021, a beamier shaft-driven flybridge cruiser, and with the smaller 72S, the sport model that preceded it in the range. The 77S is the one with the vertical bow, square hull windows, three pods and a garage. Azimut's current S Series runs to the S8 at 80 feet 10 inches, which carries the sport-yacht idea forward with newer styling.