Matuku

The client’s design brief was reasonably challenging as the boat had to fulfil three competing design objectives. First, be spacious and comfortable for family vacationing. Second, a stable and efficient high-speed planing monohull set up for offshore game fishing. Third, an efficient long-distance passage-maker, with a range of more than 1200 nautical miles– the distance from New Zealand to Fiji, without the need to carry reserve tanks.

To achieve this brief, the entire boat needed to be built in carbon fibre. Keeping weight to an absolute minimum was the overriding build requirement. Built more like a racing sail yacht than a sport fisher, every component was weighed after fabrication and before installation, as the twin Volvo IPS 800 engines specified are around half the horsepower you would normally see in a boat this size. ‘Lightweight Hull plus smaller engines’, says Dennis Harjamaa, ‘leads to a virtuous circle of less mass and less fuel consumption.’

However, keeping things light has not required sacrificing comfort; with a super king bed in the owner's cabin, heated floors in the owner and guest heads, a push button retractable plotter/sounder display in the cockpit, an actuator driven pop-up docking joystick built into the cockpit side decks and diesel powered water heater are but some of the bespoke and innovative features to be found aboard Matuku.

Matuku’s owner was intimately involved in her design and construction, enjoying the flexibility a full custom build allows. This aligned well with our passion for custom boat building; it meant we were able to include many of the small design changes and personal touches our client wanted as we went through the build process.