I have a particular soft spot for this new Jeannea 455 since I owned and cruised a SO 45.2, circa 1998, and put more than 16,000 miles on her between New England, the Caribbean and the Bahamas. As our friends at Jeanneau told me, the 45.2 is the model that wouldn’t die as buyers kept stepping forward for new ones.
It begs the question, then, whether the all new 455 can prove as versatile and popular as her now nearly 30-year-old predecessor. Jeanneau has been modernizing the SO line in its ninth generation and the 455 embodies much of what has gone into the smaller boats.
The SO 415 that was introduced last fall is in reality a tweaked 410. The new 455 is an entirely new Marc Lombard design that stives to incorporate the living and cockpit spaces of the larger SO models, with an unusually voluminous interior.
Yachting World’s Toby Hodges recently took an new 455 for a spin off Cannes, France and filed a detailed report.
