Hardy 50DS review: £2M Passage-Making Monster

Alex Smith Alex Smith

Alex Smith gets behind the wheel of the Hardy 50DS an offshore passage-making boat with extra little extra finesse

When award-winning west country boat builder, Cockwells, acquired Hardy’s assets back in 2020, it also inherited the Hardy 50DS. It came very much as an unfinished platform with a pair of D13-800s, a wholesale hydraulics system and, like a lot of Hardy boats, a sturdy reputation as an offshore passage maker of genuine calibre.

But that wasn’t so much what Cockwells was about. Then, as now, it was better known as a builder of custom and semi-custom motor launches, both as standalone boats for high-value clients and as bespoke tenders for the superyacht sector. Hand-crafted elegance was at the heart of what it did – so what can we expect of a boat with such outwardly divergent influences as this?

Well to be absolutely honest, we had no idea either so to find out, we jumped on board with Dave Cockwell himself for a delivery run from Salterns Marina in Poole to Ocean Village Marina in Southampton.

The superstructure is large, the flybridge is small and the bow is uncommonly fine. Photo: Paul Wyeth

Deck Saloon day spaces

The shape of the Hardy 50DS immediately betrays what it’s all about. The superstructure is large, the flybridge is small and the bow is uncommonly fine. It backs that up with a purposeful three-part reverse screen, robustly elevated full-length rails, compact hull windows and all kinds of commercial-grade seamanship gear.

And yet its “DS” suffix actually suggests that this boat comes with a fair degree of recreational sophistication. It stands for Deck Saloon, which means that, as on the Hardy 65DS, the external cockpit and the internal saloon occupy the same single-level space with a three-part aft door system to better integrate the two zones.

A dinette at the back end of the flybridge relegates the tender to the main deck. Photo: Paul Wyeth

In reality, there’s an inch or so between the two deck levels but the fact that the galley is further forward on a slightly raised section behind the helm station means that the lower saloon’s big C shaped dinette is in the perfect spot to help unify that big aft social zone.

The bow space is less versatile though. On the test boat, there’s little more up here than walkaround decks, a raised central moulding and a collection of heavy-duty cleats, winches and fairleads, so if you fancy taking the occasional trip to the bow for something other than crewing duties, some well-placed cushions would be a good investment.

Happily though, the flybridge does a much better job for leisure boaters. It’s relatively compact by the standards of most 50-footers, because Dave is keen to keep the weight down and the windage in check.

That means its begins a good way aft of the windscreen and finishes short of the transom, so the cockpit requires a canvas extension to shade it from the sun. But it’s a handy platform, with room for a three-man companion seat across from the helm, a small transverse wet bar amidships and a shallow U-shaped dinette at the aft end.

You can specify the boat without a flybridge at all but given that it only adds £100,000 (or around 5%) to the price, it seems like a false economy to ignore it.

As a DS (Deck Saloon) model, the saloon and cockpit inhabit the same single-level deck. Photo: Paul Wyeth

Deck Saloon day spaces

As an offshore passage-maker, you would expect the practicalities to be strong on this boat and they very much are. For instance, there’s a pair of fuel fillers, one on either side, and the fact that they feed the same tank means you can approach a fuel berth from any angle you like, safe in the knowledge that there will be a filler to hand.

The main tank is also connected to a keel tank, which augments the common-sense design of that compact flybridge by keeping the weight of the extra fuel right down in the bottom of the boat, as low as possible, until the primary tank actually requires it.

The practicality of the lower helm is also strong. Like the upper helm, it sits pretty much on the centreline for maximum visibility and control. There are side doors to both port and starboard, plus handy side gates and plenty of rails and cleats within easy reach. There are also wipers on all three sections of the reverse-angled screen, plus a huge commercial-style compass bang in the centre and a chart table to port of the co-pilot’s chair. But the common-sense design goes beyond commercial-style pragmatism to incorporate some handy recreational touches too.

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At the galley, for instance, there are steel trivets built into the worksurface, plus a brilliant space-saving corner unit. It lifts up at the flick (or rather the touch) of a virtual button on one of the helm’s 16in MFDs, emerging from a flush-mount hatch in the worktop to give you direct access to a whole load of jars and bottles that would otherwise be consigned to the condiment scrapyard alongside your Angostura Bitters and Chinese Five Spice.

And as you make your way down the curving staircase to starboard of the helm, there’s a big space on the way down for a washer-drier. It fits neatly behind a door beneath the starboard side deck and the fact that it’s positioned alongside a vent for the integrated dehumidifier makes all kinds of sense in terms of keeping the lower deck fresh and dry.

That said, it’s still not quite as slick and simple for the casual family boater as you might expect to see on a more leisure-oriented boat. For instance, to access the storage compartments beneath the cockpit’s bench seats, you need to remove the cushions and hold up the lid manually; and access to the engine bay also requires a fair bit of faffing.

There are doors on both sides, a chart table to port and a compass the size of your head. Photo: Paul Wyeth

You have to shift people away from the saloon dinette and remove the table before hinging up the deck – and once you’re down there, the test boat’s big D13s mean there’s not a lot of space to play with. Again though, the space is well managed.

There’s room for all your hydraulics gear on the starboard side plus a calorifier and generator to port. The key touch points for the fluids and filters are all usefully positioned at the aft end of the compartment in the ideal spot to make routine servicing that bit easier; and if you spec this boat with the intended rig of Volvo D11-725s, you’ll streamline this space just that little bit more.

Bespoke living

In standard guise, the Hardy 50DS provides a really generous pair of double cabins – an owner’s full-beam suite amidships and a VIP in the bow. The owner of the test boat, however, wants space to cruise with his kids, so the VIP bow cabin has become the owner’s bedroom and the midships space has been divided in two, creating a small convertible cabin to starboard and a larger permanent double to port. It works well too.

The arrangement of the port double is neatly optimised to mitigate the impact of the dipping deckhead beneath that port dinette in the saloon; and in spite of the fact that it features much the same size of bed as the owner’s bow cabin, it also provides plenty of storage and a compact but neatly integrated dressing table.

Across in the smaller starboard cabin, there’s a fore-and-aft bench seat that can be used as a single or converted into a decent double without the need for an additional infill – and as in the port cabin, the fact that you get a pair of hull windows means this is the best place for light and views on the entire lower deck.

As a tough offshore boat, the ratio between glass and fibreglass is skewed heavily in favour of the latter. Photo: Paul Wyeth

As a semi-displacement platform, the bow cabin is of course quite starkly tapered. To compensate for that, the forward double is raised for extra breadth and the coach house roof is elevated to provide the extra headroom that an arrangement like that demands – and that enables you to sit up in bed with a foot or more above your head.

As intimated though, the windows in here are less impressive. You get just a couple of very modest portlights on each side that look out across the side decks to the slab-sided fibreglass of the bulwarks.

Views then are not a strength but everything is of course very powerfully built and the bathroom facilities get an interesting design too. They are split across the central companionway – the shower to port behind the hanging storage; and the heads to starboard behind a neatly integrated vanity unit. Splitting the facilities like this is a major bonus on a long-term cruise and there’s still space aft of the port shower for a day heads with access from the central atrium.

The larger of the two guest cabins does a good job of managing the deckhead height. Photo: Paul Wyeth

Smooth and soft

The elevated central position of the lower helm does a very peculiar thing to your mindset. Like sitting at the wheel of a big powerful 4×4 in a sea of tiny, trivial little sports cars, it makes you feel distinctly imperious – and the way it operates at sea fully validates that.

This is a semi-displacement cruiser and, precisely in line with Dave’s own claims, it has the capacity to “flatten out the seas”, lulling you into a sense that those 4-footers are little more than ripples. It is of course quite a wet boat, but when you really consider the issue, that’s not a criticism. After all, there’s generally a balance to be struck between splash deflection and preservation of momentum.

In the absence of a full-beam master, the bow space becomes the owner’s cabin. Photo: Paul Wyeth

The Hardy 50DS favours the latter, which ought to mean a softer, smoother ride in lively seas, and that’s exactly what it provides. True, plenty of water makes its way inboard but with rock solid build and high-capacity drains, it doesn’t make the slightest difference unless you happen to be sitting out on the aft deck while underway.

And today, lashed as we are by chilly 20-knot northerlies, that’s not a problem. Instead, as we plough on through the seas, the slim bow cutting a path and flattening out the peaks, it’s very much the boat, rather than the water, that is dictating the quality of the ride.

Smooth, stable and commanding though it is, you can still have a decent play. There’s a moderate bit of heel in the turn, allied to a degree of steering response that sees us executing a rapid 180 in little more than three boat lengths with remarkable stability and unexpected preservation of pace.

As you do so, the upper helm feels entirely rigid and flex-free and its position, a little way aft, closer to the boat’s centre of pitch, actually makes the magic carpet ride of the Hardy 50DS feel even flatter. Down below, meanwhile, the refinement at the lower helm is just as striking.

The softness of ride is quite extraordinary. Photo: Paul Wyeth

Sound readings of around 73 decibels make long-distance cruises a pleasure and with 3,016L of fuel capacity as standard, you can ease along at 7 knots with a 1,000Nm range or cream along at the 28-knot top end with a range that still pushes well beyond the 200-mile mark. More to the point, you can do so, entirely confident that if you do choose to go slowly and the seas get up, you’re in the perfect place to relax and enjoy it.

Hardy 50DS specifications

LOA: 51ft 10in (15.80m)
BEAM: 16ft 1in (4.90m)
DRAFT: 4ft 7in (1.40m)
DISPLACEMENT: 25,700kg (dry)
FUEL CAPACITY: 3,016 litres
WATER CAPACITY: 735 litres
ENGINES: Twin Volvo D13-800s on shafts
RCD: A14
CONTACT: cockwells.co.uk

Hardy 50DS costs & options

Price from: £1,700,000 ex VAT.
Test boat includes the following options…
Twin Volvo D13-800s
Joystick controls
Dynamic positioning system
Hydraulic stern thruster
Upgraded battery banks and charger
Cockpit enclosure

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Verdict

This is not your typical 50ft motor cruiser. It doesn’t have quite the seamless ergonomics or the pace of a Targa or a Sargo. With a modestly sized flybridge and relatively sparse ‘trick-free’ foredeck and cockpit, it also lacks some of the space, flexibility and features you get from a modern production flybridge cruiser. But in a market that places ever greater emphasis on adventure boat credentials, the 50DS delivers the goods to an extraordinary degree without explicitly signposting it. There’s no fuss or fanfare; just smooth, safe, comfortable progress on a boat that’s styled like a patrol craft, built like a bunker and engineered to boss a seascape like little else out there. For our money, that sees it flex more towards the heritage of Hardy than the custom elegance of Cockwells but if you are looking for a serious passage maker with a premium quality interior the new 50DS will feel like a stupendous success.

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