The Protector Targa 30 is one heck of a boat. I can say that because as I write this, my hair is still wild from a ride I took aboard her this morning. Protector sales rep Andrew Carleton and I spun her around Manhattan, from the 79th Street Boat Basin on the Upper West Side all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge. We sat in comfort in her optional Stidd helm seats and enjoyed the extra foot of LOA she has over her predecessor, the Targa 28. The current was ripping up and down the island so we “only” got her up to about 46 knots, but Carleton claims that another Targa 30 out in California hit 59. I am not inclined to call his bluff, because today it felt like the twin 300-hp Mercury Verados hanging off the back of that puppy weren’t even trying.
The U.S.S. Intrepid, which is docked off Manhattan’s Pier 86, recently took up a new gig—host to a NASA space shuttle. Carleton decided that just off the Intrepid’s bow would make a great place to turn some corkscrews. And even with a billion-dollar flying machine sitting atop a multibillion-dollar floating fortress a mere hundred yards away, I have to say, my attention was fixed elsewhere. Namely on our wake, as the boat spun around just tighter than her 30-foot 6-inch LOA and up on its inflatable rail at such an angle that at one point I was essentially standing on the boat’s Hypalon tubes. My hat’s off to NASA and the U.S. Navy, but on June 14, 2012, Protector won the day.
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Specifications
- Builder: Protector
- Model: Protector Targa 30
- Year: 2012
- Base Price: $199,000
- LOA: 30’6″
- Draft: 2’1″
- Beam: 9’6″
- Standard Power: various diesel inboard and outboard configurations up to 600 hp
- Cruise speed: 27 knots
- Top speed: 60 knots
This article originally appeared in the August 2012 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
