NEW
FROM NORDHAVN
Flagship!
I
s it a fool’s errand to travel a thousand miles to Southern California to “see” a boat that hasn’t yet been built? Most definitely not. The all-new Nordhavn 72 springs vividly to life in conversations with her designer and the management team at Pacific Asian Enterprises. The excitement in Dana Point is infectious. “The 72 is our finest work to date,” Dan Streech asserts. “We’ll do many more boats in the future, but this is the current culmination of everything we’ve learned in the past quarter of a century. Systems, elegance, noise control, fit and finish, safety–-you name it, we’ve built it all into the 72.” Streech is president of PAE, the firm that builds 16 · CIRCUMNAVIGATOR 2003
and sells the Nordhavn line, and acting project leader on the N72 during the run-up to production. “You have to start with a good-looking boat. If it doesn’t look good, it’s hopeless. Simply being technically correct isn’t enough,” says Jeff Leishman, PAE’s naval architect, noting that yacht design is 70 percent art and 30 percent science. He starts with an existing hull form he knows and that feels good, and then begins tank testing, tweaking the design to conclusion against the test results. To appreciate the marvels of the N72, you have to understand the nature of the people who will