Top Gear creates the ugliest boat afloat

Ugly is subjective, much like beauty, but there’s no denying the SsangYong Rodius (sold as a Stavic in Australia) is a hideous car. To the naked eye, it makes the Leyland P76 lemon look sweet. Sure the SsangYong has a decent Merc engine, but the body is nasty. That behind? Odious.

So when those English auto clowns from Top Gear decided to make a horrible boat, they did what seemed logical. They added a SsangYong Rodius to an otherwise sweet Sunseeker Hawk 27 hull. The result, they hoped, would be the ugliest boat afloat.

Like you, we’ve seen plenty of interpretations of fugly on our waterways — repulsive refurbs, horrendous hulls, and downright crappy cabins and superstructures. But, sorry to say Top Gear, this ain’t in our Top 10 let alone 100 worst assaults on nautical taste.

The Sunseeker hull remains sleek, sporty and svelte, the stunning metallic-silver paintwork stretches from the waterline to the taga arch, and head-on it doesn't look that bad.

But in terms of practicality, they got it right or, is that, beautiful wrong.

The resulting hybrid is an abomination, made even more so by the fitting of a fish tank, a keyboard, a TV that rises by way of rope and pulley, and a centre of gravity akin to a London bus with a footy team up top.

Quite by design, this so-called Ssang Yacht is one the most disfunctional boats we've ever seen from a custom build process.

Appearing on the season finale of BBC’s Top Gear in late April, 2017, the Ssang Yacht was test driven by Eddie Jordon, a Sunseeker owner, ambassador and promoter who didn’t hold back.

The ex-F1 driver and Top Gear presenter actually owns a Sunseeker Hawk 27 as well as the 47m Sunseeker called Blush. So he is in the box seat to call this boat: "lethal and ponderous" and "the worst thing to happen to boating since that iceberg."

"It took three months of work to bond car to hull, but very little thought had gone into how a boat is used on the water.

"To exit the saloon requires you to duck through the raised bonnet, so movement out to the decks in a pitching sea is basically impossible.

"Not that you’d want to — the fake teak that has been slapped on the limited side decks adds a modicum of grip, but with few handholds and not even a toe-rail, anyone tasked with fendering this thing needs a great insurance policy.

"Staying inside is just as lethal — it’s a minefield of hard, pointy corners," Jordon unleashes in his full written review in Boat International magazine.

Mind you, the Sunseeker London Group and the BBC did create some beautiful footage off Monaco during the shooting of the Ep. And the Sunseeker 86 Yacht featured alongside is stunning.

But the hybrid Ssang Yacht is a monstrosity with all the comforts of a sardine can. Mission accomplished. It’s a heap.

"Take a book to read when you pin the throttles — I’ve seen people climb Everest quicker than it takes this thing to get over the hump," Jordon concludes.

Look for the cracking Top Gear final episode on the BBC Worldwide network in coming weeks.

More on Sunseeker, the real ones, which are renowned for being kind on the eye and sweet performing via the link.