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I had
to do it again. Then twice more to finally convince myself that a 92,000-pound,
80-foot yacht with a fair amount of gear aboard, powered by a pair of
1,350-hp MTU 12V2000 diesels, could get up to a WOT of almost 35 mph in
about 32 seconds. “Come on, Cap,” I said to the company’s
captain as we settled the big boat down after the third run and idled
her along in the calm waters of the Intracoastal Waterway off Riviera
Beach, Florida. “Let’s do that again, this time just for the
fun of it.”
Not
that the first three times weren’t a hoot. I mean, getting a vessel
like the Millennium 80 Superyacht up and going during my sea trial while
collecting her performance data was indeed a rush. But I was genuinely
hooked on the kind of force I was able to unleash by the mere motion of
my right hand effortlessly sliding forward those MTU Elektronik control
levers.
But
when you consider that business partners and lifelong boaters John Staluppi
and John Rosatti are the forces behind Millennium Yachts, things become
a lot clearer. Let me give you some background information so that you
can get a handle on this boat’s development from vision to reality.
Staluppi
and Rosatti made their nautical presences known in the 1980’s with
the likes of Octopussy (143 feet), Moonraker (116 feet),
and Thunderball (116 feet), sleek, fast, and some of the few yachts
of the time that combined impressive styling with sportboat-class performance.
“I guess it all started in the days we used to race Cigarettes,”
said Staluppi as he, Rosatti, and I sat in the main deck saloon of the
80. The pair went on to purchase several sportfishing boats, always going
bigger and faster, then started to discuss what they thought was missing
in the boat business. “We decided to create something that we felt
would be more suitable not only for our type of use, but for others who
were also looking for something different,” added Staluppi.
Armed
with a vision of luxurious, very fast yachts, they hired Dutch designer
Frank Mulder to draw Moonraker and Octopussy and had them
built in Norway and the Netherlands, respectively. Thunderball was designed
and built by Denison in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Their vision was rewarded
when Octopussy was clocked at a top speed of more than 53 knots
and a cruise speed of 50 knots, while Moonraker’s top speed
of 66.7 knots and cruise of 58 knots made her the world’s fastest
megayacht in 1992.
Not
content to sit on their success, the partners looked to take the next
step in their nautical development. “We decided we would build a
series of boats from 80 up to 150 feet, and given that we liked the results
we achieved from the Mulder drawings of the past, we had him draw all
the boats,” Staluppi says. “We built the first Millennium,
a 75, for ourselves and used it as a prototype for about a year before
deciding to go into production on the 80,” adds Rosatti. After tank-testing
models of the larger boat, they felt the longer hull would help them get
the 30-plus-mph speeds they were looking for.
Therefore,
of particular interest was how that Mulder hull gets up and goes so effortlessly.
So I went to the source. “We just do our best to get a very efficient,
meaning low drag, hull,” says Mulder. “In many designs, the
middle speed area—say 25 knots—is forgotten. That area is
important to us, since it gives you the margin between thrust and drag
which creates acceleration.”
Next page >
Millennium 80 continued > Page 1, 2,
3, 4, 5,
6
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