Tenacity is the largest-ever full-displacement powercat from Roger Hill Yacht Design (RHYD) and with a 4-year gestation period, the name couldn’t be more appropriate.
What started with a visit to a boat show in 2007 took over five years to come to fruition, after a series of
interuptions to the building programme. While Pachoud Yachts New Zealand continued to work on the boat, albeit at a minimal pace during that time, it wasn’t until earlier this year that the building got back into full swing.
Launched only days prior to the Auckland On-The-Water Boat Show, Tenacity was certainly worth the wait and is a superb example of the talented workmanship from the Tauranga-based builders. Roger Hill’s brief was for a comfortable family cruiser with open, practical spaces and he has certainly achieved that. It is also a credit to the owner and to the builder Dave Pachoud that they kept the project together over those years and the end result has certainly been well worth the wait.
Wood Is Good
Interestingly Tenacity is around 80-85% timber and has hulls of timber composite construction with a structural timber core, plywood bulkheads and decks, and a combination of plywood/foam/plywood sandwich and glass/foam/glass panels used for the decks, cabin tops and other superstructure areas.
RHYD employs this style of building for owners who are looking for a good boat at a good price, that is light, rigid and stiff. Dave Pachoud points out that it is also a great combination of materials to build boats out of and allows for a lot of customisation flexibility throughout the build process.
The hull is purely displacement and is designed to go through the water as efficiently as possible, with large waterline length to beam ratio and it does it beautifully. Top speed is 23 knots from a pair of Cummins 6CTA @ 500hp each, through conventional shafts. On the delivery trip from Tauranga to Auckland, Tenacity was pushed hard through 20 knot easterly winds and confused seas and from all accounts performed better than expectations.
At the time of drawing up Tenacity it was the largest displacement powercat RHYD had done, although the firm had previously designed and built a number of smaller displacement powercats with outboard power.
“The principles of the design are much the same no matter what size of boat, so stepping up to a 20m version, but this time with inboard power, wasn’t a problem, design-wise”, says Roger Hill.
“This was a quadruple leap in size from anything we had done before and while we have done a lot of large inboard diesel powered powercats since, Tenacity is still our largest displacement powercat to be built”, says Hill.
Hill points out that since Tenacity was designed, they have made some changes to the pickle-fork bow sections to help reduce the amount of water being blown up onto the forward screens. “We have wound the coamings in further and added a secondary chine, which makes the gap between the bows narrower and gives another spray rail,” he said.
Custom Layout
I would describe the layout as being enormously generous for the length of the boat. The concept was for a family cruising boat with a restriction to three cabins, although the space available makes it easily capable of having from four to six cabins. The layout, says Hill, is really whatever the owner wants and with such a huge footrpint to work with in a powercat, the opportunites are almost limitless. The owners chose light toned leather and fabrics to compliment the semi gloss American white hard maple timber throughout the boat, which accentuates the feeling of space.
Interior Designer Kim Forkert of Parkhurst Design brief from the clients was simple – no strong contrasting colours. To comply with the brief she chose a light colour pallet with subtle contrast for interest. White, caramel and pewter were the main colours. Carmel and white coloured leather was chosen for the seating for practicality while areas where there was less wear such as the headboards and cushions featured luxurious textured velvets and silver pearlised fabrics to add opulence.
The custom made bed covers appear to be silk but are in fact a 100% trevira fabric and therefore able to be put in the on board washing machine and dryer. The specially designed and custom made rug in the sky lounge is hand tufted 100% NZ wool and the floral design was carved into the rug to accentuate the pattern. Kin says she is especially pleased with the delicate Italian mother of pearl mosaic tiles which feature on all three bathroom floors and look exceptionally beautiful when lit by the bathroom lighting.
Forward is the full-beam master which is accessed via a stairway off the raised saloon. This very private area is the owners’ personal retreat, with a large king-size berth in the centre, surrounded by a vanity/office space, TV, lounger and one of the largest ensuites I have seen in a boat this size. The accent is on space, not only plenty of it, but also the usability of areas for hanging lockers, drawers and shelf storage.
I liked the forward facing full-width top window that gives the owners a nice view of what’s happening ahead of the boat. The anchoring gear has purposely been kept below decks so as not to impede the view.
Drop down into the ensuite and you have over 2.5m of headroom in the separate shower and head areas, as well as alongside the Corian vanity top with its twin ceramic bowls and full bulkhead mirror. The sole is finished in pearl shell mosaics.
There are two guest cabins – a twin cabin to starboard and a VIP to port. The twin cabin has two single berths on one platform running athwathships, with easy access between, large hanging lockers and drawers plus access aft to the internal day head and shower. The rear of the shower is fitted with a watertight door, with the main access to the starboard side engine room. This is repeated in the port hull plus there is extra access either side from the cockpit sole.
I did like the neat and tidy layout of both engine rooms and the ability to move around the engines and gensets with easy access to everything. There’s also a separate watertight bulhead door leading into the steering areas.
The VIP cabin in the port hull has a queen-size double island berth with access each side, with six-drawer storage under, hanging lockers and another hugely spacious ensuite. This is designed to be kept totally for the use of the guest in this cabin. Aft is a dedicated laundry with Meile washer and dryer plus one of the many fridge/freezers to be found throughout the boat. Every cabin has its own TV, complete with X-Box all are individually air conditioned so the owner and guests can set the temperature to what best suits them.
Elegance & Style
Tenacity features a practical saloon layout that smacks of experience by both the designer Hill and interior consultant, Kim Forkert of Parkhurst Design. While first impressions may be one of blandness, the geometry of the saloon really works. There is an understated elgance about the interior that is enhanced with subtle amounts of ‘bling’.
Coming in off the cockpit to port side is a very generous galley that tells me the owners are certainly going to be doing a fair amount of entertaining. This traditional arrangement for an aft galley has under the Corian top a trash compactor, dish washer, under bench oven, microwave and to one side a four-burner ceramic hob. A very neat feature is the concealed coffee machine that can be raised up from below the bench top when required and just as easily slips back out of sight when the coffee break’s over. Dedicated drawers and lockers are plentiful and Tenacity is equipped with a household-size Mitsubishi fridge/freezer.
There is an eight-seater dining table to starboard, with wrap-around leather lounge and going forward, it’s a few steps up onto the raised mid-lounge. If this was a traditional pilothouse design, then the area forward of the saloon would have a helm station. However, in Tenacity the owners chose to have just the one helm in the flybridge and have utilised the space as a raised mid-lounge, which blends in seamlessly to the overall décor of the layout.
High Tech Bridge
The electronics systems in the enclosed flybridge area are to an exceptionally high standard. The carbon fibre helm is a complete glass bridge, set up with four 17” LED hibright displays, one for the Flir thermal imaging camera, two Simrad NSO set-ups that have the C-Zone interface on both. These offer complete redundancy on most systems such as GPS, sounders and plotters. The fourth screen is used to display the cameras throughout the vessel, plus it has a PC input and separate Nobeltec plotting and office applications.
Twin Recaro helm chairs provide comfortable seating for the skipper and first mate, and there is a large lounge settee to port, complete with a fixed table. Wide doors open to a large aft deck area complete with full-width teak slatted seat and plenty of space for loose chairs and a table. It’s a great spot to sit and watch the sun go down in the evening, with a wet bar and fridge handily placed.
The cockpit features a comfortable built-in central sofa flanked by a barbeque with storage units either side and access to each aft boarding area. A day head/shower and a wet bar with another fridge/freezer unit are just a few of the features found in the cockpit. The tender in Tenacity is stowed between the hulls and raised on a custom davit; however, a dinghy garage is also an option.
Tenacity is the result of a builder wanting to produce a world class boat with the highest quality finish, a designer seeking to achieve an amazingly efficient design with a superbly practical layout for an owner to enjoy every day in interesting locations. It all seems to have finally come together.
