A real listing, worked the way a buyer should work it — against the published record, from the desk, before deposit or travel money moves. First in a series.
The Loop case for this boat lives or dies on one hinge — literally. The published air draft is 23'0" with the mast up and 13'1" with it lowered: raised she cannot clear the Loop's one unavoidable 19'6" bridge, lowered she clears it by more than six feet. Everything else on this page is ordinary homework. That folding mast, on this specific hull, with whatever is mounted on it today, is the trip.
Two different boats wear this name. The original ran from the early 2000s (this boat); Beneteau later relaunched a new-generation Swift Trawler 42 that its website sells today. Reviews, specs and forum talk for the two mix freely in search results. Everything below is about the 2004 original, and both sources cited tested exactly that boat, the year it was new — with the same twin 370-hp Yanmar 6LYA-STPs this listing carries.
The listing is genuinely detailed, and credit where due: it names the engines and hours (~2,400), the fuel (395 gal), water (169), holding (24), a two-cabin layout with two heads, bow thruster, solar, and a dark blue hull you could pick out of any anchorage. It also claims a cruise of 18–20 knots, a top end of 24, and "a range of over 300 miles." Hold that range figure — it's the best lesson on the page.
Air draft: Motor Boat & Yachting's September 2004 test publishes both numbers — 23'0" mast raised, 13'1" lowered. That's rare and valuable: most models never get a published basis at all. But a 2004 magazine figure is not this hull in 2026: confirm the mast still folds freely, what radar and antennas ride on it now, and measure before planning any fixed-bridge leg. Water draft: 3'5" — and here the record is strong, because both tests publish it independently. Well inside the Loop's comfort zone. Beam: the listing says 13.9 ft; Power & Motoryacht's spec box says 13'1". Two different beams circulate for this model — ask which one a slip or a haul-out will be quoted on. Length: the listing's headline says 42 ft; P&MY publishes 44'4" overall. Slips and yards price the bigger number.
"Over 300 miles" sitting next to "cruising speed approximately 18 knots" reads like 300 miles at 18 knots. The published test table says otherwise: MBY recorded 300 miles of range at 13.4 knots, 217 miles at 23.1 knots, and 178 flat out. At the listing's own 18-knot cruise, the published curve puts range near 250 miles. Nothing here is deceptive — both numbers are real. They just belong to different throttles, and a range figure without a speed attached tells you nothing. This is the single most common trap in fast-trawler listings, and this listing walks you right up to it.
Normal listing entropy — and exactly what a buyer resolves by asking, not assuming:
Thrusters: the description says "bow and stern thrusters"; the equipment list says bow thruster only; and the 2004 factory options list offered a bow thruster but no stern unit. If a stern thruster is aboard, whose installation was it, and is there paperwork? Generator: the electrical list includes a dedicated generator battery, but no generator appears in the equipment list. An 11-kW genset was a factory option — which one is aboard, and what are its hours? The second head: the listing says this vessel was upgraded from the standard single-head layout. Who did the conversion, and how is a 24-gallon holding tank plumbed to serve two heads? On the Loop, that tank size sets your pumpout calendar. Trim tabs: the listing advertises new Lenco trim tab controls — and both 2004 tests found the original tabs too small to do much (P&MY suggested larger ones outright). New controls or new tabs? Different answers, different money.
Two threads worth pulling 22 years later. The helm-visibility pattern: both tests, independently, found the boat bow-high at speed with a lower helm seat too low — P&MY's 5'11" tester could barely see over the bow above 2000 rpm, and MBY called the seat out too (the builder promised replacements). On the sea trial, sit in that seat at cruise rpm and decide for yourself. The engine-room details: P&MY noted flexible fuel lines secured with hose clamps at the filters (the tester wanted compression fittings) and a wiring bundle he described as spaghetti in the aft starboard corner. On a 2004 boat those are no longer build critiques — they are the first two places to point a surveyor's flashlight, and if a rewire or re-plumb happened since, there's a receipt.
Twin Yanmar 6LYA-STPs at roughly 2,400 hours — about 109 hours a year across 22 years, which reads as regular, unremarkable use. The asks our engine layer generates for this family: which 6LY variant exactly, on paper; when the exhaust mixing elbows were last inspected or replaced, and with what — the factory casting or a stainless aftermarket elbow; and a measured blowby number from whoever does the engine survey, against spec, because a number beats an impression.
The consolidated list, in order of money at stake: measure the mast-down height and confirm what's mounted aloft. Which beam and which length get quoted at the slip. Which figure is the real cruise plan — 13 knots and 300 miles, or 18 knots and 250. The stern thruster's paperwork. The generator's identity and hours. The second head's installer and the holding-tank plumbing. Tabs or controls. The fuel-line fittings and that wiring corner, by flashlight. The elbows, the variant, the blowby number.
It's not a verdict, and it's not a knock on anyone. We have never seen this vessel; she may be exactly the strong, well-kept boat her listing describes, and the listing itself is more complete than most. Every question above is answerable in an afternoon by a seller who knows the boat — and that's the point. This is what desk homework looks like when it's done before the deposit, the travel, and the haul-out, instead of after.
All opened and verified 2026-09-13: the Boat Trader listing (the boat's own advertisement — every "the listing says" above is its words), Power & Motoryacht's January 2004 boat test (Capt. Bill Pike — the spec box, the sea trial, the engine-room notes), and Motor Boat & Yachting's September 2004 review (the air-draft figures and the speed-and-range table). Where the sources and the listing disagree, we've shown both numbers rather than picking a winner.
If we've got something wrong, tell us and we'll fix it — support@caniloop.net. A correction from someone who has actually run it is worth more than anything we can write.