Yachting August 2018

OUR FIVE-MAN CREW GRABBED an opportunity for a few precious hours of early morning fishing before hitting the to-do lists in our lives. Even though it was cool and overcast, the sea was slick calm. Relaxing. At least until we heard the VHF radio crackle: “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” A 52-foot cruiser to our east had struck a submerged object and was taking on water in rapid fashion. The captain calmly told the U.S. Coast Guard: “We hit something. Broke the shaft. There’s about 10 inches of water in the engine room and rising fast.” He was about 15 minutes away. I looked at our boat’s owner, Tom. We nodded, pulled in our lines and beelined it to the sinking vessel. Tom communicated to the captain that we were en route.…

“IT HAS A BOW SIMILAR TO THE ALASKANS, BUT THE CHINES DEVELOP AROUND THE MIDDLE OF THE BOAT AND RUN BACK TO THE STERN, TO GIVE IT A BETTER PLANING SURFACE.”—Yacht designer Steve Seaton, on the Alaskan 66 Mark II ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON in the late 1980s, yacht designer Steve Seaton climbed over a fence to break into a San Diego boatyard. A 66-foot wooden trawler was out of the water there, a boat that his icon, Art DeFever, had designed. Seaton walked beneath the port side, admiring the hull, failing to realize that somebody else was to starboard. ¶ “We came around the corner, at the tail end of the keel, at the same moment,” Seaton recalls. “We looked at each other and he said, ‘What are you…

WHEN MARINEMAX approached the Sino Eagle Group, a Chinese boatbuilder, to create the Aquila series of power cats, the yacht sales firm had two goals: The first was to flesh out its MarineMax Vacations bareboat charter fleet in the British Virgin Islands, and the second was to create yachts suitable for private ownership. ¶ Those are, in several ways, seemingly contradictory needs. Charter yachts need to be bulletproof: easy to maintain, easy to repair, easy to use. Private yachts, on the other hand, must be whatever their owners want them to be, even if using them takes a little extra maintenance now and then. ¶ To satisfy both types of boaters, the Aquila line was created, first with a 48-footer and then with a 44-footer. The Aquila 36 is a…

GUY HOWARD-WILLIS didn’t have a “lightbulb” moment. His experience was more like basking in the sunshine for so long that he couldn’t help but to see the world through different-colored sunglasses. ¶ He’d been selling sports equipment online in New Zealand and Australia, immersing himself not only in the water toys that existed, but also in what consumers wanted. At the same time, he was a cycling junkie, riding everything from mountain bikes to racing bikes. For years, the two streams of thought were banging around, and into, each other in his mind. ¶ “The idea has been floating around in my head for a while,” he says. “Having a bike to ride on water was pretty obvious, but I’ve always been fascinated by how foils work on boats, how…

GRADY-WHITE has officially entered the monster-center-console game with its 45-foot-long, 14-foot-wide Canyon 456. With 50 rod holders, four 350 hp Yamaha four-stroke outboards and a top speed of about 47 knots, this boat was born to fish. And with a king-size berth belowdecks, as well as a galley with a refrigerator, cooktop and six-bottle wine chiller, a comfortable night on the hook after a day of fighting fish awaits. • Whom It’s For: Mega-yacht owners with a heavy interest in wetting a line can use the 456 for fair-weather fishing, as a major tender for a charter yacht or as a tournament vessel, depending on her owner’s druthers. • Picture This: You and all eight guests on board your 150-footer are hankering for some sashimi, and the bite is on.…

PRINCESS YACHTS’ S78 leads the builder’s three-yacht S Class series, which also includes a 60- and a 65-footer. The S78 adds a new transom and cockpit layout. While the S60 and S65 have steps off the swim platform flanking a tender garage and leading to the cockpit with U-shaped dining aft, the S78 has teak steps on centerline with two sun pads set over a transom garage that accommodates a 14-foot-6-inch tender. With this sun-pad arrangement, dining space is forward, and the modular furniture allows owners to personalize the space. ¶ Some things that remain the same are the S78’s relatively low profile, accented by a raked forward windshield, sunroof and razor-straight sheer line. Hullside glass and a sweeping superstructure enhance the visual effect. Like her sisterships, the S78’s hull…