#54: PREDATOR—238’8″
Merijn de Waard / Yacht-Images.com
Predator
Karelian birch, macasar ebony, and zebrano woods adorn this exotic-looking lady’s interior. Her arguably aggressive profile, highlighted by a blue hull and a practically razor-thin bow, is unlike anything we’ve seen, which is exactly what the owner wished to achieve when he approached Feadship in late 2004.
Y: 2008; B: Feadship/Royal De Vries, Holland; N: De Voogt Naval Architects; H: steel; E: 4/5,793-hp MTUs
World’s 100 Largest Yachts 2008
FAST FACTS
Predator‘s most striking feature is certainly her dramatic reverse bow, which, according to Henk De Vries, head of Royal De Vries shipyard, wasn’t always a part of the plan. The team at De Voogt Naval Architects first imagined her bow with a conventional shape above the water and large bulb beneath the surface but soon scrapped that design in favor of her current “modified-X type bow.” Said revision wasn’t just aimed at giving her an interesting look: Predator‘s X-type bow lengthens her waterline and reduces wave resistance. The increased efficiency, coupled with Predator‘s four MTU Series 595 diesels, give her a trial-verified top speed of more than 28 knots and a continuous cruising speed of 26 knots. Those are some pretty impressive numbers given her, ahem, girth.
Predator is also seriously deep. So deep, in fact, that her loaded draft of 12.2 feet (3.7 meters) makes her the deepest megayacht ever built at Royal De Vries. She’s a full-foot deeper than Royal De Vries’ Anna (219’8″) and has almost a full foot on Royal Van Lent’s Archimedes, too (222’3″, no. 75 on our list). Consequently, during her January 5 unveiling ceremony, Predator had to be launched from a special floating dock.—Catherine Pearson
This article originally appeared in the August 2008 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
