Sunseeker Camargue 55

[Byff]

I've been looking at the 55's as I think the layout suits our needs perfectly. Good cabin space, three cabins for 6 berths, the garage for a jetski, nice open area's for the wife to get her sun fix, and a bimini top so I have shade. I'm not too fussed about the (apparently) horrendous fuel consumption, it'll be mostly used in one location for a few months before moving on, so it's living space is more important then performance.

Looking around, I've noticed the layout changed to a much nicer S-shaped lounge around '95-'96 but looking at adverts, I've noticed quite a few are misleading. Is picture stealing rife in the boat world? For instance, there's a pic of someones hat on the settee in two seperate adverts for different year boats in different locations.

Is there anyone with any information on the camargues? I would love to find original layouts, years, engine options etc as I read they were built with Detroits, but a lot are listed with MAN's etc etc, so would this be an engine change or were they an option? There is also differences with internal layouts, two cabins or three (I originally thought the two cabin layout was the 51, but I've since noticed other changes which helps tell them apart).

Anyone with experience of these boats or could offer an alternative?

[Ocean53]

Can’t really help on Carmargue, but I had a Caribbean at that time.
Options were Detroit 550 or Man 680. The Detroit didn’t really do the business, so they put a large shoe on the stern underneath platform to try and gain better lift. I then found that they retro put the shoe on the boats with Mans if customer grizzled.
At that time there was a lot of gloss laminates, which didn’t age too well but each to their own.
I might still have brochures if you indicate a year

[Huntsman]

You'll get a lot more info if you log onto YBW forums, the motorboat section.

[droopsnoot]

Byff said:

but looking at adverts, I've noticed quite a few are misleading. Is picture stealing rife in the boat world? For instance, there's a pic of someones hat on the settee in two seperate adverts for different year boats in different locations.

I'd imagine the relative difficulty of taking decent shots inside a limited area with patchy lighting makes it tempting to just grab someone else's photos and hope no-one notices. A chap I used to work with used to hire out his boats, and another colleague commented on how nice the interior looked on his web site. That was because he'd scanned the images from the brochure. Although digital cameras were much less great back then, in fairness. I guess there's nothing wrong with it if the real interior is basically the same, the photo isn't misleading in some way.