why this boat exists
The SACS Rebel 47 — the maxi-RIB that changed the question.
For decades the Riviera day-boat question was a compromise: speed or comfort, seaworthiness or elegance, pick two. The Italian maxi-RIB — and SACS’s Rebel 47 at the breed’s head — is what happened when Italian yards refused the question. This is the story of the boat we chose, for readers who like knowing what they are standing on.
fourteen metres of refused compromise
From military hull to Milanese object
The RIB — rigid hull, buoyant collar — was born for rescue services and navies: unsinkable buoyancy, absurd stability, a deep-V that reads rough water like braille. SACS, building in Lombardy since the eighties, was among the yards that asked why a hull that good should look like a lifeboat — and spent three decades dressing the breed in teak, leather and increasingly serious horsepower. The Rebel line is that argument at full volume: America’s Cup chase boats have worn the badge, and the 47 is the flagship.
What the design buys a charter guest
Every trait that made rescue crews trust the hull converts directly into holiday: the collar’s stability means a deck that barely rolls at anchor — the hours a charter actually lives in; the deep-V means fifty knots is available and chop is drama rather than punishment; the beam means sunbeds, a real table and shade coexist on fourteen metres; and the unsinkable-by-design construction means the safety margin is structural, not procedural. Below, where working RIBs stow kit, the 47 hides two cabins and a shower room — the detail that makes first-time visitors laugh out loud.
shall we put a date in?
We reply within the day
Black and red on a white-boat coast
Walk any marina from Menton to Saint-Tropez and the fleet wears a uniform: white gelcoat, beige cushions, a thousand boats politely repeating each other. Queen of Hearts arrives in the other direction — a deep black hull, rich red upholstery, warm teak underfoot: a playing card’s palette, the black suit and the red heart, moving across blue water. You will not see another boat like her in all the south of France, and the coast has noticed: heads turn on quays that thought they had seen everything, and at anchor she is the boat the passing photographs are of. The styling is not decoration on the machine — it is the same refusal that shaped the hull: if every question has a usual answer, choose the captivating one.
Why we picked her over the usual fleet
The alternative charter fleet — flybridge cruisers, day-sailers, classic runabouts — trades either the speed that makes Saint-Tropez a day trip or the stability that makes lunch at anchor civilised. The Rebel 47 was the only hull we test-ran that refused both trades. The full specification lives on the boat page; the short version is that Queen of Hearts was chosen the way captains choose, then dressed the way the Riviera deserves.
The short answers
Configured as ours is, up to fifty knots — roughly 90 km/h over water. Charter days rarely need more than a fast cruise, but the reserve is the point: distance stops dictating the itinerary.
The architecture is more forgiving: the collar provides reserve buoyancy conventional hulls lack, adds fendering everywhere guests board, and steadies the boat at rest — and on a SACS Rebel 47 the collars are firm. It is why the breed started in rescue work, and why parents of small swimmers come to love them.
further down the chart
Your next summer story begins here.
One boat, one crew, up to 10 guests, and a coast that is entirely yours for the day. Tell us how you want to spend it and the rest is ours to arrange. The day is yours and it is our pleasure to be part of it.