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For some people the end of the rainbow leads to gold, but for the owner of the custom-built, Sparkman & Stephens-designed, 65-foot cruiser I recently tested, the end of the rainbow leads to the next horizon, and the next, and perhaps even one or two more. And if you’re a serious cruiser like this vessel’s owner, that kind of gold is priceless.
This stately, semidisplacement, two-years-in-the-making craft displayed a go-anywhere, do-anything presence as I gazed at her traditional Downeast-inspired profile behind the house in South Florida where she was moored. Her name, Predacious, is equally fitting, for while she won’t be trolling the deep for big game, her owner says she’ll certainly be wintering in the Bahamas, searching for that perfect place for his family and him to drop the hook and do some snorkeling. And that kind of voyaging will be a lot easier thanks to the 65’s relatively low draft (5'0" at full load), compliments of efficient prop pockets.
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That hull design is supported by a relatively light but sturdy build by New England Boatworks (NEB), a highly touted yard with experience in building everything from America’s Cup contenders to luxurious yachts out of lightweight materials. The 65’s hull is made of vacuum-bagged CoreCell linear foam core, quadraxial E-glass, and epoxy resin. In addition, NEB added three cored-fiberglass watertight bulkheads and a watertight door leading into the engine room. While not built to class, Predacious is said to exceed American Bureau of Shipping standards. Suffice to say this boat is ready for any type of cruising.
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Billy Black |
And while she came in with an 86,000-pound displacement (light ship), this vessel can get up and go. Powered by twin 1,550-hp C30 Caterpillar diesels, she simply rose on plane—with no notable bow rise, taking off for the deep with the speed and agility of a cheetah.
Now, I grew up on my Dad’s semidisplacement Downeaster—yes he still has her, and I’m 36—and if that boat made a 15-knot cruise, it was high-fives all around the cockpit. So I looked in disbelief as my radar gun eventually displayed an average top speed of 41 mph at the engines’ rated rpm of 2300. Backing the Cats down to 2000 rpm produced an average cruise speed of 35.6 mph. Taking into account the heavy-duty ZF transmission with a deep 2.46:1 gear reduction and water-chomping, 41x48, five-blade ZF wheels, I concluded this is one formidable and fast piece of nautical technology. Even at WOT the engines weren’t at 100-percent load, and I suspect the owner will be able to increase those speed figures by adding a little more pitch.
Regardless, those Cats do eat some diesel at WOT, about 160 gph according to the Marine Power Display (MPD) readouts at the helm. But Predacious is equipped with 2,000 gallons of fuel, so if her owner feels like shooting across the ‘Stream, up the ICW to the family’s summer home in New York, or perhaps even work his way around to the Gulf to Mexico, it’s doable. At cruise speed, we’re talking 559 nautical miles before a fill up. Dial the diesels back to about 20 knots, or 23.6 mph, and range is nearly 700 nautical miles.
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