Our resident used boat expert Nick Burnham explains how to find a good Windy 48 Triton on the secondhand market.
“Overpriced or reassuringly expensive? Only you can be the judge of that” concluded our thorough eight-page review of the Windy 48 Triton. It was a fair question.
At a list price of just over £600,000 including VAT when new (but not including a plethora of options that included such basics as illumination for the wardrobes or warps and fenders to tie the boat up with), it did look a little on the pricey side compared to similar sized and powered boats like the Sunseeker Portofino 47 which retailed at a cool £150,000 less.
Add the incoming economic turmoil that coincided with the 2008 launch date for this model, which slotted into the range between the flagship Windy 52 Xanthos and the smaller 41 Typhoon, and you can see why the 48 Triton is a pretty rare beast.
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On the secondhand market however, we can ignore that hefty initial price as market forces exert their pressures to reposition the price point, and concentrate instead on why exactly people were prepared to pay such a premium.
It boils down to that rare Windy combination of quality and seakeeping that keeps people coming back again and again. People like Paul Rouget, who keeps his Windy 48 Triton in the Queen Elisabeth 2 marina in Guernsey.
“The Triton is our fourth Windy. We started off with a Windy 800, upgraded that to a Windy 11600, then moved on to a Windy 42 Grand Bora. When we were looking to take our final step to our forever boat, it was always going to be another Windy.”
Step on board and it’s easy to see why. These boats are built to last. Just one small example — the model badge on a similar era Jeanneau is made of individual silver-faced plastic letters glued to the GRP which may eventually drop off.
On the Windy, the model badge is cut from stainless steel plate and affixed to the superstructure with six stainless steel screws. The whole boat is shot through with that same sense of quality. For example, virtually every single deck fitting is stainless steel, right down to the filler caps for the diesel tanks.
This is all very splendid of course, but of little consequence if it’s the boat’s only virtue. Fortunately, there are plenty of others, and space is, quite literally, the big one.
Read our full report on the Windy 48 Triton in the June 2021 issue of Motor Boat & Yachting, out May 6.
