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I crossed the equator the first time onboard the oceangoing tug Betty Wood, and, barring a few initiation pranks by guys who were already card-carrying members of the "Royal Order of Shellbacks," the event consisted mostly of a party, or what passes for a party on a merchant vessel in the midst of the Pacific. And it was fun, partly because revelry, when practiced miles from nowhere, is more intense, and to some extent because the Betty Wood, one of the largest, most thoughtfully designed but also resplendently outfitted long-rangers of her time, was by virtue of these attributes a party animal of the first order.
Let me expand upon this sentiment by referencing at length a vessel I recently sea trialed off the coast of California: Ocean Alexander's 98 Cockpit Motoryacht. Vastly different from the Betty Wood in most respects, the 98 was spacious enough, comfortable enough, and well appointed enough to qualify as a top-shelf party animal herself. Within minutes of my stepping onboard, it was obvious: Here was a big, long-legged greyhound of the seas, capable of serving up pure enjoyment to gangs of folks, even in miles-from-nowhere venues. No electricity? No fresh meat available locally? No fuel in the area? No movies? No problem for the 98.
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Electrical firepower's a major source of all this independence. Reportedly, the owner of our test vessel is as seriously taken with coastal Mexico as he is with offshore fishing, and in either case, he likes traveling with close to a dozen crewmembers and guests onboard at any given time. And while the bottom deck of the 98 can easily accommodate such numbers in four staterooms (with four en suite heads, each with a separate stall shower) and crew's quarters aft (with stall-shower-equipped en suite head and berths for three), what makes the boat such an excellent and affable host is her full-time, full-load electrical oomph.
Just consider: The 98 comes standard with a 120,000-Btu Aqua-Air chilled-water air-conditioning plant, a 1,500-gpd FCI watermaker, a matched set of 30-gallon Torrid water heaters, a Whirlpool Duet home-size washer and dryer, Key Power backup electro-hydraulics for deck machinery, a Marantz AV entertainment package, and a raft of pumps, motors, and other components that gracefully support the sybaritic lifestyle. Flipping switches for all this stuff, especially if done simultaneously, creates an immense demand for 12-, 24-, 120-, and 240-volt electricity.
But the 98's got the goods. Her clean, well-lit engine room is home to two hulking 32-kW Northern Lights gensets, a house battery bank containing 20 (that's right, 20) deep-cycle, golfcart-type Trojan L16s, an engine battery bank containing eight Lifeline AGM 8Ds (four starters and four MTU computer energizers), a backup battery bank containing two Lifeline AGM 8Ds (for emergency nav-equipment operation on the bridge), four (!) 3.5-kW OutBack Power Systems inverters, and a hydraulically actuated, 400-amp alternator to generate power in the highly unlikely event of a shortage.
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