Luxury Yacht & Speed Boat

Australia-based Riviera Yachts is known state­side for its line of convertibles, but the builder made a big splash at last year’s Fort Lauderdale Internation­al Boat Show with a two-stateroom, 36 foot express. Now, to appeal to those with bigger families—or more friends— Riviera has upped the ante with the three-stateroom 4700 SportYacht.

The 47-footer takes her kin’s concept of one-level living and expands it. The resulting flexibility of the saloon-helm area is outstanding: Aft, a glass and stainless steel door folds away, and the bulkhead’s expanse of glass flips up and latches firmly into place to the hardtop. Read the rest of this entry »

When introduc­ing the 57 Su­per Sport five years ago, the big news at Oc­ean Yachts was her innovative hull con­figuration. In the pursuit of better effi­ciency and course tracking and a gen­tler ride in rough seas, naval architect David Martin configured her running bottom with some innovative twists.

Most notable, she has just a single pair of longitudinal strakes (not the usual two pairs), and the strakes aren’t paral­lel to the center line. Instead the sharp­ly down-angled strakes are farther a­part at the bow than at the stern, a fea­ture Martin introduced in order to im­prove lift and to straighten the flow of water into the props. Combined with an exceptionally deep forefoot to soft­en the ride in heavy seas, the strakes help keep her dry while stabilizing the hull in slop and chop. Read the rest of this entry »

Similar to ACR’s ResQFix PLB, McMurdo has introduced a GEPIRB (GPS-equipped Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) that’s smaller yet supposedly performs better.

The 1.5-pound SmartFind Plus ac­complishes this largely by using LEDs for its strobe, which along with automatic seawater activation, built-in flotation, and longer trans­mission life are what distinguish EPIRBs from PLBs (plus the fact that some models come with an automatic float-free mount).

Note that Simrad has also introduced a compact GEPIRB in the same price range and that both companies also offer GPS-less models, but those will typically take longer to de­liver less-accurate position information to the SAR authorities.

Sunseeker’s latest 37M Trideck Yacht, all 121 feet and 180 tons of her. This is a yacht with  four big en suite guest cabins, an improbably large, full-beam owner’s suite, and an upper lounge/bar that seems almost as generously proportioned as the main saloon below. The sheer quantity of internal volume available for the accommodation seems to be the result of some cunning sleight of hand, as if it has been borrowed from a bigger boat.

Although there has been some clever lateral thinking, the idea has come not from bigger boats, but from the smaller sport cruisers that have been Sunseeker’s stock in trade for decades. At a stroke, simply raising the foredeck has given the owner’s suite the best of both worlds: the width of the yacht’s full beam, combined with the light and window area of the main deck. In spite of first impressions from outside, the fore­deck slopes upward from the bow to the wheelhouse windows and is reached from each side deck via a set of steps just for­ward of midships. Read the rest of this entry »

ACR’s ResQFix Personal Locator Beacon is 35 percent smaller and 25 percent lighter than its previous AquaFix model and yet purportedly performs better.

This is not so trivial when you consider that this six-inch-high unit is meant to acquire a fast GPS fix in tough conditions (like from its float bag next to you in a rough sea), transmit that position and your ID via 406 MHz to the search-and-res­cue satellite system, and also send out a 121.5-MHz signal that rescuers can home in on (note that your own yacht could use that homing signal too).

My confidence in this complicated technology was bolstered when I visited ACR’s factory last year and saw both its elaborate GPS simulation facility, used to fine-tune the Pill’s receiver, and its extensive testing routines. The $750 ResQFix, which uses a five-year lithium battery and is waterproof to 33 feet, also has its two circuitry, battery pow­er/voltage, and GPS acquisition testing built in. Note that PLBs like this are also carried by small aircraft pilots and others who venture into wilderness, watery or otherwise.