Last month I put up a post “Newest Member of this Family of Passage Makers” about the newest members of Dennis’ Artnautica LRC58 line of boats, the LRC58-3 “Britt” and LRC58-4 “Raw” which have both been launched and are now at sea as will be joined by LRC58-5 being built in the Netherlands. My larger comment and purpose for that post, and for this one, is to highlight the rapid growth of a whole new style and type of long, skinny ocean crossing passage makers which are most often designed to be owned and operated by a couple with no crew.
An overall name for this new family of passage makers has not emerged as of yet and they aren’t trawlers, they aren’t pilot boats, they aren’t military boats though they have characteristics from all of these types and many others.
I will write a future post that will go into more details of this new style of ocean crossing beauties but wanted to introduce you to the newest family member which my crack researcher Christine uncovered yesterday in this recent article Simon Murray wrote for Power and Motoryacht magazine entitled “Meet the Special Forces-Inspired Tactical 77”.
The “Tactical 77” as it is being called is a recent design from Bill Prince of Bill Prince Yacht Designs of a 24 meter all aluminium ocean crossing passage maker for an ex Special Forces gentleman to take his family out cruising the world.
She will be built by the Canadian builder Tactical Custom Boats located near Vancouver British Columbia and near where I lived while going to the British Columbia Institute of Technology BCIT and University of British Columbia back in the early 70’s and then taught High School for many years in nearby Ladner.
Located in Richmond B.C., Tactical’ s web site says they build;
High performance aluminum boats designed for speed, comfort, and safety in all operating conditions – without compromising dependability, luxury or design.
Sound familiar?
“Prince was tasked with designing a cohesion of extremes. The client wanted a high-performance vessel with pseudo-military exterior styling and interiors that emphasized luxurious, superyacht-like accommodations.”
Sound familiar?
It will if you’ve read over my earlier post “Project Goldilocks: Mission Impossible” where I outlined the overall mission and all the key characteristics Christine and I have for designing and building Möbius.
Prince went on to say about the client;
“He wants a really comfortable yacht that will scare the Coast Guard from a quarter mile away.”
Christine and I are not interested in scaring our friends in the world’s Cost Guards but are very keen on similarly deterring any “bad guys” with mal intent towards us.
“We have designed go-anywhere capability and luxurious accommodations inside aggressive, pseudo-military exterior styling,” says Prince.
Sound familiar?
There are a few differences mind you when it comes to weight, costs and power. For example “the boat will be propelled by twin MAN 1,900hp inboard diesels giving the Tactical 77 combined 3,800HP and top speeds over 35 knots.” Yikes! Mobius for comparison will have about 150HP and a top speed of 11-12 knots. But I’ll be much happier paying our construction costs and our fuel bills!
However at their core all these new kinds of boats share very similar purposes and owners and I was most intrigued by a story the designer Bill Prince shared when interviewed for this article:
With the owner’s highly specialized background, you would think clients like him are exceedingly rare. Yet Prince had three people come to him separately a few years ago, asking for essentially the same thing:
a low-maintenance, go-anywhere-in-any-kind-of-weather, aluminum cruising boat that doesn’t require a full-time crew.
“In the space of six to eight weeks I listened to three gentlemen who were all experienced yachtsmen describe almost the same spec,” said Prince. “So, I’ve seen this coming for a couple of years.”
Almost like reading my own writing!
In the Mission Impossible posting I shared that the mission statement Christine and I brought to Dennis, Dincer and Baris is:
“The just right boat for exploring extreme locations in equally extreme safety and comfort.”
and some of our key characteristics for Möbius included:
- all aluminium, no paint, no stainless
- Go far, Go everywhere, Go nowhere (@ anchor), Go alone
- couples boat
- lowest possible maintenance
- Strong Industrial/commercial quasi-military “vibe”
- Interior with extremely high craftsman level fit and finish
You get the idea.
On the one hand the owners of these new style of boats have their own unique use cases and criteria, so each of their boats will be similarly unique. However when viewed by others they will tend to look similar because at their core these boats are designed and built for those who share a passion for long, low, lean & mean low maintenance boats which inspire them to cross oceans in eXtreme safety, comfort and style. We can’t wait to add Möbius to this growing family of ocean crossing passage makers and more so to join them out exploring this awemazing watery world of ours.
A nice looking boat for sure. Will need a tanker though to cross oceans, that fuel burn will be massive from those monster engines! Much prefer your single Gardner.
I could only find data for 1800 HP MAN, it is beefy 24L V12 with “only” 6000 nm of torque. It uses 350 lph at “rated power”, so if we assume this is what it takes to go 35 kts, it will be around 20 l/nm. If tanks are say 15000 liters, we get a respectable range of 750 nm.
This boat would really cry for a separate displacement speed engine, those two monsters push it around 100 – 200 hp each to propeller on idle (while burning 30-45 lph each), hard to drive very slowly with those….
Absolutely insane machine. Reminds me of FPB 61 (http://carmenfpb.eu/) which I have seen flying past few times at around 60 kts.
Both the Tactical 77 and Carmen are definitely eXtraordinary and FAST Power Boats Andy with the fuel bills to match but I’m always happy to see innovation and creativity at work in whatever form. All these boats I’ve been talking also share the characteristic of being reflections of their unique owners, designers and builders which I applaud and love so I’m hoping this family continues to multiply and grow as more people respond to the call with their own unique versions.
Another cousin, from Circa: http://circamarine.co.nz/uploads/images/Gallery/newstop/24m-4.jpg
Great timing Andy and thanks! See my new post for more on these new Circa 24m Expedition Yachts
http://circamarine.co.nz/uploads/images/Gallery/newstop/1720-Circa-Accom-Deck-coloured-GA.jpg
http://circamarine.co.nz/uploads/images/Gallery/newstop/1720-Circa-Main-Deck-coloured-GA.jpg
http://circamarine.co.nz/uploads/images/Gallery/newstop/1720-Circa-Flybridge-Deck-coloured-GA.jpg
The Dashew influence continues to spread ….
For sure, influence is clear to see.
I personally much prefer these new breed of utilitarian looking boats to his latest 78, which while having a nice and beautiful lines on her body, has just way too big a house on top, with excessive height both inside and out. Lets see how FPB 70 comes out, looking forward to seeing her (or two of those, last of their kind) finished.
My all time favorites from man himself are Beowolf, Wind Horse and Iceberg. All very elegant.
Wait is over:
https://www.setsail.com/fpb-70-1-splashed-trialing/
https://buffalonickelblog.com/2018/08/13/introducing-buffalo-nickel-the-younger/
Thanks Andy. We got an early sneak peek in real time of the launch of Buffalo Nickel/FPB70-1 through a fellow sailor friend who happened to be up on the hard in the spot right beside where they brought Buffalo Nickel to launch. He was kind enough to take a whole bunch of photos and send them to us so as I say we got this real time sneek peek which was great. We have followed Stan & Val via their Buffalo Nickel blog for several years now and getting their perspectives and insights on their new baby has been great. Looking forward to seeing more from them and some of their real world data as they start to put her to use now so we’ll be following along with you and many others I’m sure.
Would be really interesting to see/hear a real life comparison between Mobius and FPB701 once both are out there. Fuel burn, cruising speed, range etc.
That makes two of us Andy! Hoping that Stan & Val will be updating their blog with the data as they cruise. It does take time and effort but here’s hoping. Now that SetSail is shut down it doesn’t sound like we are going to get much more data and posts from there unfortunately but hopefully the individual owners of the FPB70’s and 78’s will pick up with posts on their adventures and the real world data they create in doing so. We will certainly be doing our best to do so once we get in the water and so we will just keep this Mobius.World blog going after launch and keep providing updates on our progress as we make the transition from building to boating! 🙂
Spreading indeed JMO! See my recent post “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” for more of the giant influencers of this new genre of eXtreme Passage Makers.