Pendana – Superyachts and trip to Nordhavn

by Pendana on 5 Oct 2017 One thing that has bothered me for some time is the term Superyacht. What does it actually mean?

Well, after some research it would appear that the definition of Superyacht is “A superyacht is a commercially operated luxury yacht (motor or sail powered), which is professionally crewed and has a length of 24 metres / 78.74 foot and above”. Ridiculous! My opinion, for what it is worth is, a superyacht should be defined as a vessel greater than 40 metres /131 foot in length which by virtue of its size would mean it would carry professional crew. To call an 80ft /24.38mtr boat a superyacht is simply ridiculous. This then begs the question of what a Megayacht is and it would appear that the definition remains identical as that for the superyacht. Why? I have no idea. Surely a Megayacht should be a vessel greater than 200ft / 61mtrs? As for all vessels under 131ft /40mtrs in my view they should just simply be called boats. Sure, at 120ft they are a big boat but a boat nonetheless. Superyachts and Megayachts surely should remain the domain exclusively for the very large boats with professional crew in excess of 131ft and 200ft respectively. Time for the definition to change I be thinking! Thoughts anyone?

Personally, I think the marine industry should get its act together and sort this out as the current definitions are inadequate and simply do not reflect the real differences between categories. Comment below and let me know what you think?

Nordhavn, as most would know are serious offshore boats not only capable of traversing just about any ocean and survive, but thrive being subjected to some pretty insane conditions. Recently Nordhavn released some pretty impressive statistics where even Pendana got a mention. For more information click here

Speaking of Nordhavn/PAE, Claire and I visited their head office recently in Dana Point and met with Dan Streech Co-Founder and as it turned out all round nice guy. In fact, Claire commented on the way home what a truly nice man Dan was and I agree 110%. We spent three enjoyable hours at Nordhavn HQ and met with a number of folks least of all their sales guru and I suspect, a pretty decent guy, Larry Gieselman. I spoke with Larry seven years ago when we were on our search for a N62 and have kept in touch with him over the years so it was great to put a face to the name. Even one likes Larrys!

Our primary reason for dropping into Nordhavn HQ was to collect our 20,000nm pennant which Becky Peters (Nordhavns’ Distance Pennant Program and Special Projects Manager) had kindly informed us of our milestone. As we hadn’t met Dan or ever been so close to their HQ Claire and I decided we would drive down from LA and say hello to the crew. Nordhavn were kind enough to put on a lunch for us and showed us around their office. I must say, it would be no hardship working at Nordhavn HQ as the view across Dana Point Marina were to die for.

Both Claire and I mentioned to Dan on our visit that we are truly forever grateful to Nordhavn and their employees for producing such a first rate vessel. Our lives are literally in their products hands, and their product, in this case Pendana, a mighty Nordhavn 62 has carried our family safely across the high seas and continues to do so. She has faced some very nasty seas and has performed flawlessly and for that, Claire and I will be forever grateful and forever in debt to the staff and the organisation which is Nordhavn/Pacific Asian Enterprises. Thank you.

Shortly, we will depart the USA for Mexico. The short run of around 160nms to Ensenada should be pretty straight forward and other than re calibrating our Airmar WX220 (wind instrument) we should be in for a smooth ride.

Our plan is to return to California next year, US Customs & Boarder Protection willing, as we really want another six months to further explore Los Angeles and San Diego. Post that, we leave the west coast of America and head south, past Mexico, through the Panama Canal and onto Cuba, Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas.

Read full blog here.

This article has been provided courtesy of the PendanaBlog.