 |
LOA |
52'0" |
| YEAR |
1990 |
| BEAM |
16'4" |
| DRAFT |
5'0" |
| WEIGHT |
56,000
lbs |
| ENGINES |
DD
8V92TA |
| HP |
750
(est) |
| FUEL CAP
|
1068
gals |
Rock solid, heavy and a great sea boat are the superlatives
I'll use for this one. When you say the name "Hatteras,"
it is everything you'd expect it to be. A product of the AMF era
of quality minded ownership, there is the obvious disregard for
weight as it exceeds the benchmark 1000:1 pounds per foot ratio.
The most obvious and first question that any knowledgeable
yachtsman is going to ask is, "How does she perform?"
Actually, not bad, not bad, all things considered.
Since there was not a professional engine survey done in this case,
I spend most of my time in the engine room and doing general testing,
so there was no opportunity for speed trials and, frankly, I don't
know what her top speed was. All I got was a GPS reading at 2000
RPM of 20.0 knots and a WOT engine speed of 2250 via the engine
tachs, the accuracy of which was not determined. Even so, 20 knots
at 2000 is not shabby for this tank of a yacht.
One of the earlier of the Hargrave redesign of
Hatteras hull forms, it performed beautifully, rising up out of
the water graceful from a dead start acceleration run without significant
squatting. Giving her a full go to WOT and then throttling back,
she'd remain on a comfortable 1600 RPM cruise, proving that she's
nicely balanced. It should be noted here that we don't know what
the original horse power is/was, or whether she's been over-tuned
with the likes of larger injectors, etc., so we can't say that this
is typical performance, although the lack of higher speeds suggests
that it is. It's a good bet that these engines are set up at their
original 750 hp as they had reportedly just been overhauled less
than 4 months prior. We were handed invoices in proof of same.
 |
| The original
1990 brochure. |
|
We had a bit of wave action -- about three feet,
and a bit more in a tide rip -- to get a feel for how she'd do in
the typical nastiness of the Gulf Stream at the Florida Straights,
proving that the combination of her great mass and hull form make
for a real wave smasher. She flattened out these three footer with
little more effort than stepping on a column of ants. No bucking,
no shuddering, just parting the seas like a master of the ocean.
Coming to a stop and letting the water move us around, she rolled
with a nice, easy motion without the tendency to throw you off your
feet, just about what we'd expect, and much the way most all Hatterases
perform, being a yacht with a substantial keel to dampen the motion
quite a bit. Note the 5 FOOT draft.
Sport fishing is what she's designed for, but she'd
make for a great cruising boat but for one thing: The two staterooms
are undersized for the length of the vessel. Stateroom space has
been sacrificed for salon and cockpit space here, basically giving
you two staterooms that are, at best, adequate, but no great shakes.
There are nice size heads with stall showers, but you get just enough
floor space to crawl into bed at night, so that moma isn't exactly
gonna love it.
This example had an altered salon layout with the
dinette having been removed and replaced with a L-shaped settee
and pedestal table. While it makes the salon spacier, it is less
practical. Also, this boat has no partition between the U-shaped
galley and salon other than the counter space. Some models have
an upright reefer and a bulkhead that divides the salon. Having
seen the models with the galley partition, personally, I like the
openness of this layout, for the partition makes the salon seem
quite small, which it actually is.
The cockpit is humongous. Bigger than it needs
to be it is, perhaps, one explanation for why this model was not
a bigger seller. It appeals very well to the serious tournament
man, but to the less avid who have other ideas in mind such as social
occasions, he's likely to turn elsewhere. Even so, for a combined
use boat, it still has a lot to offer, not the least of which is
the usual good bridge layout. In this case, a bench seat forward
of the helm, and another larger seat along the length of the starboard
side. Comfortable seating is for 7-8 without crowding. Pipe frame
tops are the usual, and in this case they fit very well, allowing
for easy install soft enclosures without a lot of contortions. Another
notable feature is the amount of unobstructed deck space available
for moving around easily. Typical of most social occasions, many
people choose to stand rather than sit, and there is plenty of room
for that here without putting your butt in the face of someone sitting.
The tubular stainless hand rail around the windshield is one of
the usual features of a better quality yacht that allows people
to hang on without grabbing onto the Plexiglas windscreen and breaking
it.
Did any water come over the bow? I was amazed to
find that hardly a drop did, despite heading out Port Everglades
inlet in a tide rip. She was very dry, even with the wind on the
forward quarter.
The engine room layout, in my view, is a real flop.
It is packed tight and cramped, making things a bit tough for doityourselfers.
At least the put the batteries along the centerline where you can
reach them, though they certainly impede movement here. Within the
engine room, they did the best they could with the space at hand.
But with the cockpit entrance way, the design fails badly since
it is very difficult to get in and out, requiring considerable body
contortions to pass through this peculiar hole. This, however, seems
to be more the norm for cockpit entrances in most boats this size.
Even so, they could have made it a few inches wider at the expense
of tackle center niceties. Speaking of which, this model still has
the wooden interior elements and doors that are subject to deterioration.
As stated in the opening, the balsa cored hull
(above W/L only) and superstructure are rock solid. No spongy decks
or stress cracks anywhere. Consider too, that we know this boat
was a survivor of hurricane Andrew plus, being a local boat, we
know that it has been fished hard for a decade, and still there
is not a trace of a structural problem. The struts, running gear
and engine bed stringers are massive, so that it has not had alignment
or transmission damage problems resulting from a weak drive system
or mounting platform. No problems with rapid bearing wear, vibration
or gear boxes crapping out because the engines and shafts can't
be kept in line.
This yacht is one of the finer examples of a dying
breed of well-engineered boats that place structural strength ahead
of palatial interiors. It was not designed to go places fast, but
retains the virtue of getting there when the guys with the fancier
looking boats remain bolted to the dock because four foot seas stop
them cold. And that's the truth. This one will go when the flat
bottomed Viking, Post and Ocean owners are hold up in a bar somewhere,
or have hopped the earliest flight home, leaving the captain to
wait it out. And this Old Hat will do it comfortably.
Her greatest appeal will be to customers exactly
like the one who purchased this yacht. He lives on a Caribbean island
where the seas are rarely calm, and where he'd get very little use
from a boat that can't handle five footers with ease.
Another question that would be purchasers will
ask is, "What about the engines?" Despite the relatively
low speed (assuming a 21 kt. cruise), we're still dealing with high
performance diesels. One engine was overhauled in 1/98 and the other
in 1/99. That should tell you something about trying to get away
with overhauling one engine at a time -- twice the mess and downtime
at a higher cost. The later engine was done at 1900 hours, with
the hours on the former unknown because the hour meter was malfunctioning.
Numerous people have questioned and argued with our statements that
the average time between overhauls is usually less than 2,000 hours.
This is one of the means by which we find out just how long most
engines really last between overhauls. When people talk of
three to four thousand hours from an engine, that is just blue sky
exaggeration. Cost per overhaul? About $26,000. When you're talking
hi performance diesels, you can forget about that "$1,000 per
hole" nonsense. Maybe for a sailboat auxiliary, but not for
a 25 ton yacht. Divide 8 into $26k and you get a bit over $3,000
per hole with all the coolers, turbos, blowers and other auxiliary
components thrown in.
How does she stack up price wise? With fresh engines
and a recent remodeling, she sold on the high end of her class at
around $450k, though we don't know the exact amount. The original
list price was $717,500 she holds up well in an era of steeply escalating
prices where new replacement cost is nearly double. Altogether,
it is a lot of high quality boat for the money.
| These are
"reviews", not surveys, and bear no resemblance to our
survey reports. We
do not publish the results of the surveys that we perform. Please
note that the purpose of these reviews is educational, to help you
discern the differences in quality among boats generally. They are
not offered as a means to help you evaluate any particular boat
builder. We have no other reviews than those posted. |
Posted August 25, 1999
|
