Galeon 420 Fly review
Motorboat & Yachting: The Galeon 420 Fly offers a huge amount of customisation – including the choice between shafts, sterndrives and IPS pods – solid build quality and a keen price, we put it to the test in Southampton.
With the 500 Fly scooping up all of the admiring glances at the Cannes Boat Show, this seemed a perfect time to test one of the more “bread and butter” boats in the range, the Galeon 420 Fly.
Galeon has an incredibly liberal approach to the amount of personalisation available to the customer even on a boat of this size.
To give you an idea you can have two or three cabins, eight different types of interior wood, a dizzying array of upholstery and fabrics, four different engine options and the choice between shafts, sterndrives or IPS pod drives.
Our test boat had quite a traditional set up with a pair of Volvo Penta’s D6 435hp motors on shafts, delivering a top speed of just over 30 knots.
Though not the most exciting drivetrain on offer, the shafts offer a good balance between sweet handling and that familiar solidity that so many people like about this method of propulsion.
I did find that from the lower helm the boat responded well to half tab to get the bow cutting nicely through the waves and lower the bow to improve the helmsman’s view out.
And though the one-piece windscreen is great, the large mullions either side needed to provide support obstruct the view either side quite badly.
