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As soon as Marlow and I got the Explorer back to the fuel dock, where the dockmaster let us tie up temporarily, we embarked upon a tour of her interior that swiftly turned problematic—there were simply way too many noteworthy engineering and other details to mention in a single boat-test article. The best I can do here, then, is offer a much-abbreviated list of highlights:
Joinery: Marlow travels to Cambodia, Thailand, and other parts of the world to buy his own logs, then has them sawn to his own specifications for use in his boatbuilding facility in China. Thus he's able to offer a fine, attractively priced selection of woodworking raw materials, in addition to the craftsmanship Far Eastern artisans are justly famed for. Our test boat's saloon sole, for example, was comprised of solid, unbroken, 5?8-inch teak planks, each 21 feet long and perfectly fitted to adjoining strips of solid ebony.
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Accommodation spaces: Thanks to the strength of vacuum-bagged, composite-sandwich laminates, the Explorer's bulkheads, decks, and soles require no wooden framing for support. Marlow estimates he thereby eliminates enough structural wood from the Explorer to fill an entire 8'x8'x20' ocean container. The results were obvious. Our test boat's full-beam master was vast, the other three staterooms onboard (VIP forward, guest to port, and crew's quarters aft) were all sizeable, and the saloon/galley/dinette/dining area on the 0-1 (main) deck was darn near ample enough to produce echoes!
Drinking water: The Explorer's Racor-filtered water supply is segregated into three 304-grade stainless steel tanks; an interconnected pair with a 400-gallon capacity for sinks, washers, showers, etc.; and a third 100-gallon tank for drinking water and ice makers alone.
The latter tank is polished to a high gloss inside to nix potential taste problems.
Construction: Just three incredibly complex molds are used to manufacture the Explorer. Portlights, fuel fills, windows, doors, and most other openings and structures are incorporated into them. This increases strength and watertightness by reducing the number of seams. It also ultimately speeds and simplifies the manufacturing process and produces a high-quality finish.
Engineering: Every hose, pipe, and wire onboard bears a color-coded phenolic label. Northern Lights gensets are ensconced in sound boxes with water pumps viewable through special lexan portlights. There are mirrors outboard of the mains to keep tabs on leaks. A sea chest supplies clean water to all systems, thus eliminating numerous through-hulls and plumbing runs. Thick layers of insulation in the engine room—two inches of Corecell foam, under two inches of Soundown foam, under one inch of rockwool—keep sound levels low.
When Marlow and I finished our tour late in the afternoon, we were both physically exhausted—it had been a fun day, but a very long one. When he casually said, "Well, guess I'll be headin' back home, Bill" (meaning to his boatyard/dealership in Snead Island, a few miles from Sarasota), I was frankly amazed, given the lateness of the hour, the distance entailed, and the navigational niceties of rounding the tip of Florida in the dark.
I came to accept the idea, though. The Marlow Explorer 72's a stalwart, sure-footed passagemaker. And so, without a doubt, is the guy who built her.
Marlow Explorer Yachts
(800) 362-2657
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This article originally appeared in the July 2003
issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
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