Refreshed and refined - Oyster has breathed on two of their most popular boats, the 46 and 54 to create two new models, the 475 and 545. But are they better than original versions? Matthew Sheahan finds out

Oyster’s range spans 48-125 ft LOA and provides a wide variety of routes to achieve the same goal, long distance, luxury cruising. Yet among the nine current models, two of the latest, the Oyster 475 and 545, stand out as reincarnations of former popular models.

The Oyster 46 was first launched ten years ago and sold 29 boats, now the company has stretched and re-launched the model with the new 475, a boat that is 18” longer. At 49ft LOA she would be a large cruiser for many, but in this company she’s the baby of the Oyster fleet.

The second is the Oyster 545, a re-working of the popular 54 that was first built in New Zealand in 2008 before the tools were shipped back to the UK. Fourteen had been built down under under licence by McDell Marine and by the time the refresh had started a total of 21 Oyster 54s had been launched. Unlike the 475, the new, breathed on 54 footer remained the same length with changes that were much subtler. Even so, Oyster has already sold nine of the new versions.

So how are both boats different to their previous incarnations and what’s the fresh appeal?

To read the full test report see the Oct 15 issue of Yachting World – on sale 8 Sept.