ESCAPE
HIGH SEAS
Exploring the OUTBACK
Outback Yachts’ new Outback 50 blends trawler style with cruiser performance—and it comes with a wonderful back deck By Howard Walker Andrew Cilla knows boats. For 40 or so years he headed up Fort Lauderdale–based top yacht brokerage Luke Brown Yachts. And full disclosure here, I came this close to buying a 55-foot Fleming trawler he had listed back in 2011. So, when Cilla decided the time had come to sail off into the sunset, he knew exactly what he wanted in the boat of his dreams. It would need to be in the 50-to-60-foot range. It had to be fast, but not too fast, with a 20-knot top speed. It should have trawler-style lines and be comfortable, economical, and easy to maintain. And it needed to have great outdoor space, with a big back deck for lounging. With the help of acclaimed Sarasota marine architect Michael Peters and John Olson, president of West Coast–based Offshore Yachts, Cilla 42
designed and built his dream yacht, named it the Outback 50, and launched the first example— for himself—at the end of 2019. What did he do once he’d obtained the keys? He cleared his desk at Luke Brown, packed a bag, threw the lines from his slip at the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, and set off on a sixmonth “escape” cruise, all the way up to Northeast Harbor in Maine. Since Cilla’s cruise north, the highly respected Kha Shing Shipyard in Taiwan has built another three Outbacks, each with a base price of around $1,380,000. But what’s with that Outback name? It comes from the yacht’s 16-foot-long shaded rear deck and Cilla’s passion for heading “out back” to the deck for a little R&R. And this is arguably the
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