FERRETTI INFYNITO 80

Can the sector's prettiest 80-footer live up to its looks?

- WORDS: Alex Smith

This is a stupendously lovely looking boat - and it becomes all the more so when you view it in its proper context. Consider Princess's X80 or Sunseeker's Ocean 156. While they're both excellent examples of modern crossover yachts, they're also pretty erudite ambassadors for the fact that making elevation and volume look good is a difficult thing to achieve.

Well, not so here. Other-worldly from the beam, potent from the bow and elegant from the stern, there’s simply no angle without some form of stylistic merit. True, the muscular angles might prove a bit forthright for some but at least what you're seeing here feels more like a conscious design choice than a side-effect of the vessel’s inherent bulk. But if the dynamic interplay between the tinted windows, fibreglass wedges and cutaway bulwarks is very rewarding, Ferretti’s approach to sheltering the open day spaces also has a big impact.

The full-sized flybridge, for instance, extends way aft above the cockpit seating. It also extends out over the side decks in the style of a trawler yacht before pinching in towards the front end of the pilothouse. And when it does begin to taper, the superstructure mouldings extend out afresh, covering those side decks and continuing to the bow itself, where a moulded roof structure extends forward from the upper deck, before curving down to integrate with the plumb bow. That creates an entirely covered foredeck lounge with a louvred sunroof so you can enjoy this space both at anchor and underway.