Prestige Yachts, the luxury cat brand in Group Beneteau‘s boat-building powerhouse, reckons that its new 65-foot flagship M8 has the space of an 85-foot monohull motoryacht.
We reckon it has way more.
Take the owner’s suite. Spanning the M8’s entire 29-foot beam, it features an oversize bedroom, an adjoining den, a walk-in closet, and a bathroom worthy of a luxury hotel. And there are four other cabins aboard that are almost as spacious.
The stern platform drops into the water for launching the tender or going for a swim.
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In total, there’s 3,000 square feet of living space, with huge outdoor decks front and rear, a salon that wouldn’t look out of place in a hip Miami penthouse, and a beach club with a cantilevering dive platform.
“The aim was to create a true villa on the sea. We tried everything possible to make it not feel like a traditional boat,” Erwin Bamps, Prestige VP told Robb Report during our sea trial before the M8’s U.S. premiere at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show (FLIBS).
This M8 follows in the wake of Prestige’s M48, launched a year ago, in what will eventually be a full range of M-Line power cats penned by long-time Prestige designer Camillo Garonni. For now, this 65-footer, being built at Groupe Beneteau Italia’s Montfalcone yard, is the new flagship.
Unlike many power cats with a net mesh between the hulls, the M8 has a solid foredeck and a lounge on the bow.
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It looks truly massive tied to a Bahia Mar marina dock in Fort Lauderdale. Typical power cats often have the boxy appearance of a sailing catamaran, minus the mast. But Garonni has delivered a sleekness to the lines, with tall hull sides and an ax-bow design, balanced by a glass-filled superstructure with a raked, wraparound front screen.
Steps on each side of the aft platform lead into the expansive rear cockpit. Stroll around the wide, and reassuringly tall, side decks up to the bow, and you’ll find one of the M8’s coolest features: a two-level foredeck. The upper section features a giant sunpad, while up at the bow, you step down into a “conversation pit” with facing sofas and seating for 10.
The oversized salon is the centerpiece of the power catamaran with the bedrooms along the sides.
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Back in the rear cockpit, sliding doors lead into the unusually large salon—thanks to the cat’s 29-foot beam. The beauty here is that everything is on one level, adding to the feeling of space.
The “villa on the sea” concept is heightened by all the ultra-modern, free-standing, modular furniture by Italy’s Pininfarina. In this first hull, there’s a Miami Beach vibe with cool shades of ice blue, cream and soft gray.
On the flybridge, the helm and companion seats are positioned side by side, with unobstructed, 360-degree visibility. We settle into the helm seat, throw off the lines, head from the marina into the busy Intracoastal Waterway and out into the Atlantic to see how the M8 performs.
The aerial view gives sense of the available deck space.
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The vessel is powered by a pair of 600 hp Volvo D8 turbodiesels—one in each hull—made quieter by sound-deadening materials. The thinking here is comfort, not so much speed, though its top speed of 20 knots is hardly lethargic.
These twin pontoons are not planing hulls, nor are the Volvos especially powerful for this size yacht. But the slender, vertical bows slice easily through the waves, with the cat’s broad beam providing good stability.
At 17 knots, the engines are barely audible and burning less than 45 gallons per hour—impressive for a 54-ton cruiser. Throttle back to a more sedate eight knots, and the burn rate is just five gallons an hour. With twin 490-gallon tanks, the M8 at cruise speed will run over 350 nautical miles between fill-ups.
Our intrepid writer puts the power cat through its paces.
Howard Walker
Thanks to the catamaran design, the M8 made tight turns without a hint of roll, and any waves or wakes from other boats felt minimal with its high-running sponsons. The M8 has a Category A certification for seaworthiness, and it shows.
The new Prestige will retail for around $5.2 million as a base boat, or $6.2 million nicely loaded. If you love the idea of all that space, Prestige will happily sell hull number one. Just ask for the boat show “Special.”