Innehållsförteckning för May 2017 från Yachting

LOA 37' MAX BEAM 11'10" C ruising miami’s Biscayne Bay in a navy-hulled Downeast yacht, surrounded by white center consoles and the occasional Miami Vice go-fast boat, might not sound like going native in South Florida. But the Back Cove 32 proved herself able to fit right in when she’s not battling fog and rain in the builder’s home waters off Maine. Her extended hardtop and side windows, along with the optional hardback enclosure, made the air-conditioned cruise a lot more pleasant than it might’ve been under a beautiful, albeit hot, tropical sun. The Back Cove 32 falls between the 30 and 34 in the builder’s lineup, designed as a day cruiser that combines outdoor living (thanks to open aft cockpit seats) with the protection of a hardtop. Throw in…

“Feel it. Sense it. Question it. Remain curious. Don’t accept the normal. All design is problem solving. Curiosity is the magic elixir.” — WARD SETZER Ward Setzer doesn’t drink coffee. He doesn’t need it. The thrill of creativity, discovery of the new and meeting design challenges are this yacht architect’s morning java jolt. To that point, he tells me with childlike enthusiasm, he is preparing for a multiday drawing marathon for a new 50-meter explorer series. Setzer has had countless such marathons during his threedecade career as one of the world’s premier designers of yachts, including superyachts. But you’d be misguided to pigeonhole his exploits to just large craft. There have been many semicustom vessels, surfb oards, kayaks and myriad industrial design projects. In fact, Setzer had his own surfboard…

T he year was 1987, and the 26th america’s cup was being contested off Perth, Western Australia. Dennis Conner — my childhood hero — and his Stars and Stripes team were unstoppable, but antipodean time zones and unreliable VCRs hobbled the American fans wanting to watch the battle. As a sailingobsessed 11-year-old, I swore I’d someday witness the racing firsthand. ¶ Fast forward to 2013, and I was invited aboard Emirates Team New Zealand’s hospitality boat for a day of racing spectatorship during the 34th America’s Cup. While the experience was plush, trying to see the entire racecourse from my low-slung vantage point was almost as vexing as programming the VCR. ¶ Fortunately, modern onboard electronics and broadcasting capabilities will make next month’s 35th America’s Cup a spectacular onscreen experience…

THE FIRST THING THAT caught my eye on Absolute’s 58 Fly was the expanded use of glass in her hull sides. Many of Absolute’s previous flybridge models had a pair of trapezoid-shaped hullside windows amidships and a second set of similar-size windows flanking the forepeak stateroom. The 58 Fly has what look to be wider, quartz-crystalshaped hullside windows, plus a second stretch of glass — looking like a knife blade with serrated edges — forward to within a few feet of the bow. I estimated it to be almost double the amount of glass I’d seen on those earlier models. LOA 56'6" MAX BEAM 15'7" FEELS LIKE HOME The 58 Fly’s interior has a warm feeling. Creating that vibe is a galley with contrasting dark- and light-oak cabinetry, and with…

ALL EYES MAY BE on Bermuda early this summer for the 35th contesting of the America’s Cup, but come August, they’ll be on Newport, Rhode Island, where the inaugural J-Class World Championship will be held in the waters that once welcomed some of the most famous America’s Cup battles of all time. For the better part of the 20th century, America’s Cup challengers and defenders took to the waters off Newport, seeking to muscle their way into history. From 1930 until 1983, spectators ashore looked out at yachts that would become legendary, with names including Vigilant, Defender, Enterprise and Ranger, all crafted from the drawing boards of iconic designers Nathanael Greene Herreshoff , William Starling Burgess and Olin Stephens. This year, J-Class yachts old and new — including titans from…

The 35th America’s Cup will be contested in Bermuda this June. It promises to offer some of the most competitive (and fastest) America’s Cup sailing ever witnessed. AMERICA’S CUP PRIMER Strike the Match welcome to the 35th America’s Cup, a competition to be held in Bermuda aboard wingsail- powered catamarans with sophisticated hydrofoil systems, letting them fly at speeds north of 50 knots. Unlike Cups of yore, AC35 (June 17-27) will be contested using nearly identical One Design 50-foot catamarans that use human-powered hydraulic controls for certain need-power-now applications, allowing a six-sailor crew to rip around the racecourse at a mind-bending pace. ¶ The America’s Cup is the oldest continually contested trophy in international sports, one that industry titans emptied their coffers for when challenging to win. Only four nations…

THE 23-YEARS-AND-GOING-STRONG production run for the Westport 112 puts her in a class all her own. Since 1994, Westport has built 59 hulls. And the yacht has a fervent following: Several owners have sold their 112s so they could build new ones. Notable features: This yacht has a 2,500-nautical-mile range at 12 knots. Cruise speed is 22 knots. Top-end: 25 knots. The boat has proven popular for cruising enthusiasts as well as for those who wish to put their vessels into charter. Belowdecks: A four-stateroom layout with en suite heads accommodates eight guests. Crew quarters are for four. Availability: At press time, 10 Westport 112s were on the market, from $5.4 million to $13.5 million. LOA 111'8" MAX BEAM 23'9"…

Ferretti yachts built an all-new hull for the 920, which is the Italian builder’s second new model for 2017 (following the introduction of the 780). Check out the raised bow in the rendering below. The styling not only is intended to give the 920 a dominant presence on the water, but also allowed designers to create a sizable master stateroom below. Ferretti says the lounge space on the bow is the biggest it has ever achieved on a yacht in this size range. Owners can choose layouts with three or four additional guest staterooms on the lower deck. The interior styling includes textured veneers. Note the backlighting built into the salon overhead, shown above. Three engine packages are available, all from MTU, offering cruising speeds from 23 to 26 knots…

It’s always struck me that perhaps as well as as any other builder, Horizon understands its owners’ wants and needs. Every Horizon I’ve ever been aboard — and that’s quite a few of them at this point — has been well-thought-out in the design phase and well-constructed in the build process. These yachts simply feel safe, solid and ready to take you far, far away, while never sacrificing that other tenet of yachting: This stuff is supposed to be fun. The E75, which made her debut at the Sydney International Boat Show, has all those traits in spades, plus a sleeker profile than you might be used to seeing out of Horizon. Longtime Horizon designer John Lindblom drew the E75 as an evolution of the builder’s E73, though stylistically she…

MOST YACHTSMEN WANT WHAT THE BRITISH rocker Frank Turner refers to as “plain-sailing weather.” Red skies at night, delighted sailors — that sort of thing. But when you test a new yacht, you tend to have quite the opposite desire. Calm seas can be a bit of a bummer. You need some slop to find out what a boat can really do. Enter the Galeon 660 Fly. Also enter a front that whipped the Atlantic off Fort Lauderdale into a bit of a frenzy. There were 6-foot seas off shore, and even larger swells sloshing about the exit of the Port Everglades Inlet. Given the conditions, the majority of boatbuilders would have opted to stay in the Intracoastal Waterway, but not Galeon. The sales rep turned to me as we…