Escaping the crowds on the shoal draught Discovery 48S 

In case you guys don't know, Toby is one of the oldest RU-vidrs. And he still pays so much attention to the channel.👍

Toby is the main reason I keep following Yachting World. Great review!

So great to see a new video with Tobey. Welcome back! I love that boat and would love to sail her in the Bahamas and BVI'S. I watched all the Distant Shores videos and learned so much from Paul. Well done Tobey!

Excellent review, making me realise that I don't want a Discovery 48 for so many reasons.

7:48 Thanks so much for giving us an eye level perspective. 99% of all boat reviews are done with the camera at chest height max. This makes it so hard to get a proper impression of a boats architechture and feel. Especially so with a deck saloon or raised saloon variant. Please keep that up! Thanks for a great video mate! Also, mighty nice ship this one. Probably a bit of a pain to maintain, but owning such a vessel without the funds to let other people do the maintenance is no fun anyways :)

Great review! This is a very nice boat indeed for shorthand cruising and accessing the shallows without much concern. May be too cramped for a liveaboard but that's my opinion. It's full of light and airy for sure

What a great review Toby, thank you so much. I can't help feeling there are better designed deck saloon boats out there, I am thinking particularly of the Sirius range which use the space under the saloon to great effect with a mid cabin or work room. This one feels old fashioned with very difficult mechanical access and dozens of steps everywhere.

If there is one thing I’ve learned in life in general: the least moving parts that work perfectly, the more chances of things working perfectly without issues!!!

what a nice interior - miss that on many newly presented yachts

I wonder how much better the systems layout is on a fixed keel version? Love Discovery's but this seems like a pain to maintain. Those cabins are ridiculous though, great review Toby! Love the honesty and attention to detail like the door frame width.

Great review. It does look like a manageable solution to short-handing a large boat. As others have said though, my stress levels were rising seeing how maintenance is performed on it. Probably best the Distant Shores crew don't have to sail them long-term.

If I had the choice I would opt for a centreboard over a swing keel. You don't alter the centre of gravity when you raise a board unlike a swing keel. Much less rolling about at anchor. At nearly a million £ the point is somewhat academic, good review as always.

I'll probably never have such boat, but anyway. What I don't like about Discovery interiors is that the whole floor is in steps. Perfect way to break a leg.

Brilliant honesty review, solid job

Really nice layout, the centerboard is accentual for New England and Virgin Island cruising. This is a top pick.I love the Amel 50 but the only keel offering kills the deal. 7 foot draft is much too deep for my home town and hurricane hole in the Virgin Unfortunately this boat would require Houdini too manage it. It's too difficult too manage.

Maintenance looks like a nightmare.

Nice Vid, but the technology is scattered all over the boat, difficult to access and at 48 feet there is not even an engine room. And at € 950,748.30 I would visit Ellös. ;)

Superb review Mr. Hodges. I can tell how much you love a boat just from your body language! Sitting at that chart table it was ‘this is my spot all day long!’. Great to be able to keep watch all snug and warm below right there. Both cabins are fantastic. Galley perfect. Cabin dining with a view and able to lift the keel and go anywhere? It seems like the perfect monohull. Great review thanks!

I wish you had an equally detailed review of Azuree 46!

Great to have a proper walk round again.

Beautiful yacht but a nightmare to service yikes👍👍

Thank you for this fine review!

Excellent review! Thanks for that! Would be great if you also had a detailed review of Euphoria 54...

Ideal boat to shine on a yacht show or marina. However, couldn't imagine repairing it in the middle of the ocean. Not so practical for remote cruising.

One thing I did wonder - do discovery still apply the (I think - I'm remembering this from reading it somewhere ages ago) 10-15 rule to their designs - that you can access everything in 10 seconds and remove it in 15 minutes? I remember being impressed that the designers of the Discovery 55 had incoproated that thinking.

As a mechanic.....I would not want to work on this .... Systems are to spread out and access is terrible. This could be the reason Distant shores has moved on after only 3yrs of owning one

The vertical hull windows are incorrect.

Love the set up but hell id hate to serves gear on this

Is Toby trying not to cry?

Wow, very good build quality. Amazing how they made it work. In case of a breakdown you really have to now where what is - but that should be the case on any yacht. ;)

This is a boat that only "check writers" could appreciate. Anyone who has to maintain this scattered mess of systems would run screaming into the night!

what a boat. only thing: the toilets look wedged in in a way that would make them hard to clean behind them. I don't think even a hand and a sponge would fit...but a truly spectacular boat.

Fantastic video. Great review Toby !

Good grief!😱 What an absolute nightmare to service and maintain. Explain the wisdom of putting that particular equipment in the bilge?

Best yacht reviews on RU-vid. Well done.

Great review as usual!

A fabulous boat but dreadful machinery access - not really for long term cruisers as maintenance will be a nightmare. I owned a manual lift keel Feeling 39 for many years and the sight of the hydraulics and spectra on this boat fills me with dread. Resolving a keel position issue in a seaway will not be easy. I wonder if they have protection from the keel driving through the coach roof in the event of 180 degree inversion? Still a cracking boat for coastal waters though.

I was wondering if there's an option to put the VHF radio behind a panel.. under the seat... to make it even less usable.

Yeah, that's precisely it. To be eye level to the sea.

If I had my life to live over again, I'd learn to sail and buy my own ocean-going yacht.

I wonder how many times you would need to hook your belt on that door handle going into the aft cabin, before you changed it.

And how much would it cost? Did I miss the price mentioned? Price is always a parameter in comparisons... value received for money.

I was about to point out that Southerly have been making swing keels for a long while before I remembered Discovery merged with them a bit bac

Good looking boat

Electrics in the bilge!!!!!! The only electrics below the sole should be the bilge pump.

Man I don't know... For a 48' boat it looks cramped

Tasarım çok güzel içinde yaşamalık teknelerden...⛵👏🙂

Beautiful

Waay to many steps inside even for a deck saloon

...It is beautiful, but I can see why those two opted for a Garcia....with respect for a beautiful seaworthy craft, but in a blue water breakdown sense, I would want a very small athletic mechanic and very small athletic electrician on board with me...am I being unfair?

Im Toby...I have to open lockers, I Love to opening lockers

The lines are referring strongly to Oyster Design 😃

Truely enjoy your reviews. Any chance of you reviewing the Garcia 52 and then the new 60? Thanks

Disovery and Southerly is the same thing?

OK boat, they need a better website designer... Still think the Sirius DS is a better choice.

Beautiful sailboat, very cozy.

Is it a 48s because it is 48' feet long? Seems like they fit a lot in 48'.

안녕하세요 수고하셨습니다 감사합니다

Nice walk though!

Hey Toby. Nice review, as always. Horses for courses. So not surprisingly, alot of people dont get it, or only want a 'traditional' layout. Thats OK. Southerly (now Discovery) have an almost unique design point. So thats not for everyone. Most people here didnt realis or appreciate the benefits of a) aft cockpit not centre, BUT with a full aft cabin b) raised saloon (personally I dont like the feeling of being buried in the bottom of an Oyster or Contest), c) raised nav with full viz for indoor/weather/night nav, and d) hey - its only 48ft, less than a million, and stuffed with options - GenSet, Air, Water etc. I think people here are comparing with an Oyster 56 or a Discovery 55 or similar. Yes, if you want to go right round the globe, and be a full time liveaboard, this yacht i NOT aimed at you!. Yes, the access is limited, but with that budget an owner is going to get someone else to do the major service and engine work. The fuel filter(s) and bleeding would be my only concern, one will be bound to pick up some rubbish fuel somewhere. I would have preferred more on the performance. Same or worse than other cruising under50fters? Southerly claimed significant stiffness with the low and heavy keelbox, but I would like to have known wether you were seeing or expecting a better average than 8 or 9kts or more. PS. I did see this when it came out, but off to have a proper look at the (rare) Southerly 47 down at Berthon on Saturday!!

Anybody knows the top speed of this boat ? :)

Did they mean to make it look like an oyster?

A boat for roughly a million - and what kind of maintenance would one have to do? For 2 million you can have a helicopter from any coastguard flying in the specialist from discovery / southerly (what now) who knows where to find the fault in all this dreadful hidden technic potholes ... well at least there is a proper chart tyable - and a square table with sharp edges and no holding trim around it ... thank you Toby always for ALL of your reports which indeed allows all of us to have an idea, which boat NOT to buy ... for this price ...

At first I thought it was kind of strange to review a boat anyone who's seen Distant Shores would already know very well. But really, what were you going to say when they asked if you wanted to spend a day and an evening on this boat--no?

The best monohaul I ever seen. 😳👍🏽

this format is fucking bonkers, we need more. Sound levels are a tad bit off tho

Go anywhere!? Too bad you can't leave the planet!

Wauquiez Pilot Saloon 48 , Amel 50 , .....

Shoal draft yacht that we could put up to the beach ?? Would have been nice to see this. The interior cabin saloon layout should have never left the designers desk. Truly a child’s puzzle re-created inside a boats hull. A thousand piece puzzle. Why do you people try so many times to recreate a perfectly good wheel. I can’t imagine there’s more than a half dozen fools in the world who would buy this thing !!!!!!

I absolutely hate the interior, so compartmentalized. No real room to actually live. The should have just raised all of the salon to open it up, and used the space under the floorboards as extra storage..

Try removing the engine…

Why to buy monohull at this price when you can have catamaran.

Shut down the horrible music/noise, and the draft is only 18 feet ?

£825,000.00 = $1,154,117.25. Cool…all I need the the remain $1,150,000.00 and it’s all mine. Wonder if they’ll accept Monopoly money?

British product, wonky

Another lot of advertising bullshit, starting with "escaping the crowd" nonsense. The advertising is followed by more advertising comment" that "every square inch of space has been used". Technically we are not told anything of value for assessing the boat. And by the way beaching a boat that size is more risk than it is worth. Maurice Griffiths' twin keel hulls are the most practical for grounding, but like everything to do with sailing boats you need to know your seamanship ( if I am allowed to use the the word sensored by the LGBTQ etc). The advertising bloke is talking nonsense.

get a cat, half the price, twice the comfort, twice the speed.... :-)

What an error.

And what a lot of senseless comments.