Performance cruiser

Here is a cruising boat designed by Reichel/Pugh and built by Marten Yachts of Australia that falls into the "ultimate" category. This boat is one in a series of very high-performance yachts offered by Marten Yachts. So it's basically the same "hearty soup" once again but this time the recipe is more exotic in its ingredients and the pot is much, much bigger.

I have nothing to indicate the hull form of the 67. So what do profile and plan view alone tell us? Looking at the plan view we can measure the half angle of the deck at the sheer. This is 14 degrees. We can assume the half angle of entry at the DWL will be finer than that-say, 12 degrees-so we know we have a boat with a very fine entry. Will it be a wet boat? Yes, it will. Fast boats are usually wet. If you look again at the plan view or the deck plan, you can see that the transom shows a gentle curvature to its edge and does go flat at centerline. From this we can deduce that the boat has a soft turn to the bilge and a flat run. The L/B is 3.98 and the D/L is 102.51. This is a light boat even though the sailing weight is 51,353 pounds. I would not consider this boat "ultralight." I think an ultralight boat has to have a D/L at least under 100. That's about all we can tell without some additional hull lines that would show us sectional shapes. The keel is a lifting type with a keel-down draft of 13 feet, 6 inches, and a keel-up draft of 8 feet, 6 inches.

I'd call this a "monster" rig for a cruising boat. The SA/D is 27.71, and "I" is 83.8 feet. Can Mom and Pop sail this boat alone? Sure they can, with the help of some electric halyard and sheet winches, well honed sailing skills and a pinch of good luck thrown in. In-boom furling would sure help. As long as everything is working correctly Mom and Pop should be fine. The quadruple spreaders are swept 22 degrees to integral carbon chainplates. A retractable sprit pokes up from the stem for the tack of the asymmetrical chute. "When you finish getting the chute out of the water could you come aft, sheet the jib in and give me some runner? Thanks, Hon."

I like this layout. Three couples are going to be very comfortable, each with their own double berth and adjoining head with shower stall. The forward head will be the owner's head, but this head will also serve the two stacked bunks to port and work as a day head. This way guests won't have to go through a stateroom to get to the head. I presume those stacked berths to port are for kids or crew. That forward head is really big. Note how the keel trunk is integrated into the saloon layout on the inboard end of the transverse dinette leg. I'm not wild about the look of having the dinette to one side and the galley on the other, but it sure gives you a great galley. See the island counter? It's perfect for serving. The nav station grows out of the galley counter aft and has a swing-out chair. The mirror-image aft staterooms are spacious. Note the huge fo'c'sle and the anchor stowage detail.

The cockpit is huge. There are long seats with tall seat backs forward. Powered winches are located at seat level on the aft end of the seats. I suspect the sheets lead out of recesses in the cockpit coaming. The helmsman will sit on the rail just like they do on a J/105. There are big, flush hatches in the cockpit sole to access stowage aft and I would assume one of these hatches accesses the life raft. I have no idea where the halyard winches are. They could be captive type reel winches located in the bilge of the boat. "Hon? When you are done stowing the chute will you come aft and push this button for me?"

This is an all-carbon, baked-in-an-oven boat. Pre-preg carbon fiber is used for the hull, decks and many of the interior components. The engineering is by SP Systems, a world leader in high-tech yacht construction techniques.

What a nice boat. Now, if we could only do something about the silly angle of that spinnaker prod.

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LOA 67'; LWL 60'8"; Beam 16'10"; Draft 13'6" (keel down), 8'6" (keel up); Displacement 51,353 lbs.; Ballast 18,739 lbs.; Sail area 2,394 sq. ft.; SA/D 27.71; D/L 102.51; L/B 3.98; Auxiliary Yanmar 125-hp
Marten Yachts, Suite 111, Jones Bay Wharf, 26 Pirrama Rd. Pyrmont, NSW 2009, Australia, (61) 2-8586-1497, www.martenyachts.com.

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OBE: $2.5 million
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