Infiniti Yachts, a Gibraltar company with a history of building racing sailboats, just unveiled its first powerboat, a sleek, fast and lightweight 60-foot catamaran powered by two 600-hp Mercury V8 outboards.
Equipped with retractable foils, the Infiniti 60 cruises at 28 knots and tops out at 40 knots, according to the company. Electric propulsion is an option.
With its large, raked windshield, a flybridge set far aft and covered by a carbon-fiber hardtop with an opening sunroof, reverse bows for extra waterline length, an enormous sun pad covering most of the foredeck, and an open aft deck with terraces folding out from the bulwarks for a beach-club effect, the new Infiniti seems to check all the boxes in current yacht design. The standard layout calls for your staterooms, but the semi-custom yacht can be built with just two supersized ones if that’s what an owner wants.
The new cat is built with epoxy-infused carbon fiber, with engineering by Pure Design in New Zealand, which also designed the America’s Cup winner Emirates Team New Zealand. Hugh Welbourn, who has worked on America’s Cup and ocean-racing campaigns for 30 years, was the naval architect. For the new design, Infiniti also worked with Design Unlimited and Concept Yachts, both in the UK.
The outboard power is unusual in this large a yacht, and the fact that the 60-foot cat needs only two of them attests to its super-efficient hull design and foiling technology. Infiniti offers the 60 in three versions: Hard Top (pictured), GT, and Coupe.
The price starts at about $4 million. The Infiniti 60 power cat is sold by Northrop & Johnson in the U.S.
Specs.: LOA: 60’; Beam: 19’; Draft: 3’; Disp.: 13,300 lbs.; Fuel: 264 gals.; Water: 106 gals.; Power: 2×600-hp Mercury V8 outboards.
Read more at http://infinitiyachts.com
