When it comes to designing and building a new model, there are people who pay attention to detail, and then there’s the team at Sabre, who argue over fractions of an inch in the spring of the sheer.

“When we’re developing a model like this, it’s years in the making,” Kevin Burns, vice president of design and product development, says of the Sabre 51 Salon Express. “A lot of thought goes into these things.”

The 51 is an evolution of the Sabre 48. More than 200 of those hulls have been built, sold and resold in the past dozen years, giving the Sabre team plenty of feedback to chew on. Burns figures they heard from more than 300 owners and dealers about the 48, and about the next-biggest model in the line, a 58. From all those conversations, the Sabre team gleaned two primary reasons for developing the 51. First was being able to deliver more features, which meant going bigger than 48 feet. Second was that jumping from a 48 up to a 58 was too intimidating. Boaters wanted something in between.

“We’re deliberately building these boats for lifelong boaters,” Burns says. “They’re doing this for fun, and we want that to outweigh any nervousness around boat handling.”

So began the in-house debates about how, precisely, to give customers everything they wanted. For starters, the windshield’s position relative to the bow is farther forward, creating more volume in the salon. Achieving that change was tough because the salon and belowdecks spaces don’t stack on top of each other neatly without dramatically changing the boat’s profile —which Sabre didn’t want to do. But moving the windshield was made possible by advancements in composite structure design to eliminate what would traditionally have been the port dashboard. Thus, light could flow down from the windshield into the boat’s lower deck. They used frameless glazing with smaller mullions, as well as advancements in helm technology.

“We’ve wanted to increase the volume of these salons over the years, and it’s been a very important design point. It required a significant amount of structural engineering and thoughtfulness with the composite tooling,” says Burns.

Similar thought went into lengthening the hardtop, which has been happening over time with Sabre models, but is more pronounced on the 51. The visor section over the windshield had to balance things like thermal loads on the air conditioning with natural light inside. Along the side decks, Sabre wanted a drip edge to protect the port and starboard windows, “but not coming far enough that you feel like you’re going to knock your head on it when you’re walking on the side deck,” Burns says.

And then aft, over the cockpit, they wanted the hardtop to elongate the boat’s profile—but again, with attention to countless details. For instance, it had to protect the aft-facing seats that Sabre owners love without making the space feel enclosed,

That cockpit is one of the spaces that most impressed Jeff Harris and Joyce Pratt, who own a Sabre 52. They’re in their 70s and have cruised on It’s A Blast from their Chesapeake Bay home up to Maine, and then down to South Carolina, for the past 14 years. Until the new 51 came along, they had never seen a model that they liked better.

Harris says it only took about 30 seconds for them to decide to buy Hull No. 2. One of the things they noticed immediately was the cockpit design, because on their 52, the overhang doesn’t go into the cockpit appreciably at all.“We had fabricated a shade that we put up when we’re at anchor. It has met our needs, but everybody wants to spend their time in the sun judiciously,” Harris says. “By extending it, they have met the need for a good-looking boat with this feature.”

Another space that many owners felt strongly about keeping, Burns says, was the customizable area just abaft amidships belowdecks. It can be a crew cabin with reduced headroom, stowage or anything else. On the 51, it’s redesigned as a walk-in space for owners carrying a laundry basket. “When you look at this layout next to the 48, the strategy of the interior is similar,” Burns says. “You have the amidships master stateroom with the ensuite head forward, and then the guest stateroom up in the forepeak. But the practical improvements to these spaces are pretty significant. When you walk into the head, on paper it’s more or less in the same location, but the volume inside the head is different.The same with the guest head and the galley.”

That galley, which is belowdecks to port, gets natural light from the windshield above and from five rectangular ports. It also has an additional countertop and more stowage compared to the 48.“Espresso makers, blenders, air fryers, toasters, people want all that, but they’re constantly struggling to find space,” Burns says. “

Pratt was the first person outside the Sabre team to see early plans for the galley. She weighed in with thoughts that became part of the final design. One idea was that she needed more countertop space to place items while reorganizing the refrigerator or unloading groceries. Another was adding not just more stowage, but smartly sized stowage.“If you entertain a lot and your galley is down, you need a way to get things up to your guests,” Pratt says. “I suggested they make a small cabinet to store serving trays on their side, not flat, so it takes up a lot less room.”

The Sabre team also satisfied requests for an easy way to enjoy a glass of wine on the foredeck. A sunpad and a double seat—a first for any Sabre model—both have fold-up backrests that go flat when they’re not in use. “We did not want to develop a boat that did not look like a Sabre in profile, so this came from a lot of time spent figuring out how to make these things more or less disappear,” Burns says.

The first 51 is expected to be completed in the fall of 2025. Harris and Pratt are expecting to take delivery on Hull No. 2 in about a year. They haven’t yet decided what to christen their new ride, but they’re looking forward to arriving at their favorite places with those exterior lines that Burns worked so hard to maintain. “As we get down into the southern bay, we anchor alongside and walk up to the clubhouse for cocktails. People will stop and say ours is the prettiest boat in the marina,” Jeff says. “A lot of it is the dark blue hull. Two-thirds of the boats are white. You come in with the Sabre lines and that color, and people want to see the boat. Then we’ve made friends.” 

Specifications:

LOA: 57’5”

Beam: 15’11”

Draft: 4’1”

Fuel: 600 gals.

Water: 160 gals.

Power: (2) 600-hp Volvo Penta D6-IPS800