Several years ago I took a cruise from Connecticut, down east to Nova Scotia on my 1986 55-foot Hatteras convertible, spending two of the most pleasant months I have ever experienced on the water. As I motored along, I got to thinking that it would be fun to do a long "exploring" cruise every year and travel to the best cruising grounds in the world, places like the Turkish Coast, the Dalmatian Coast, the Inside Passage to Alaska and up to the tip of Labrador, Canada. Those are the dreams motor yachts are made of. If only I had one.

Motor Yacht with a Mission
After 38 years in the marine publishing business, I have crawled around enough boats and cruised enough to have some pretty firm ideas about what I wanted in a motor yacht. My list of "must-haves" numbered 150 items, and not a production builder in his right mind would even consider any serious modifications to a stock boat. Essentially, I wanted all of the important amenities, equipment and elegance found on a 150 footer (costing $25 to $35 million), the seakeeping abilities and safety of an expedition-type yacht, and a cruising office and financial trading station like that found on a cruise ship, all rolled up in a boat small enough that two people could handle it in a pinch. A tall order, needless to say.

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There are not many options for such an enterprise if price is a main objective, and it was. I chose Hargrave Custom Yachts. Hargrave is affiliated with a yard in Taiwan, which has been in business for 30 years, that will build customized boats inside their basic hulls and superstructure molds. This saves lots of money. So while I couldn’t customize the hull or superstructure, other than the length and beam, I could have the interior built to suit, and specify all equipment. Taiwanese labor and low general and administrative costs would save still more money, meaning that a higher percentage of my cash would be going into materials and equipment (such as the twin Cat C30 diesels), and this would be the key to getting everything I wanted into my world-cruising motor yacht.

Top: The salon’s furniture, evokes another age. Bottom: The adjacent formal dining area, accommodates eight. Photography by Dana Jinkins. (Click images to enlarge)

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The master features a love seat and his-and-hers vanities. The heads have marble floors and gold fixtures. Photography by Dana Jinkins. (Click images to enlarge)

Nefertari’s skylounge has the helm forward, with twin bench seats facing forward, so the owner and guests can help the captain with keeping watch and navigation, or just enjoy the view as in a pilothouse. To give the boat an open-air feel, the center window in front of the helm lowers at the turn of a switch, three hatches in the overhead open, and the side windows port and starboard slide back—all of which make the helm seem like a plush, open-air flying bridge with a hardtop.
Abaft the helm area, which is separated by two columns and built-in bookcases, is the lounge part of the skylounge, complete with a six-foot sofa, chair, coffee table, refrigerator/icemaker and 42-inch hideaway TV. It is a great place to entertain, and it opens up onto the teak boat deck with a settee and a propane grill—all under a sunshade, if you wish.

The bright country kitchen–style galley, centers on an island. Photograph by Dana Jinkins. (Click image to enlarge)

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A Yacht for All Seasons
Because the boat was intended for serious cruising from the Arctic to the equator, lots of specialized equipment was installed, such as special "chill chasers" fitted on the air handlers for northern climes, extra cooling capacity for the Caribbean, "oversize" 12-square-foot Naiad stabilizers to make the boat as comfortable as possible in lumpy conditions, an ASEA Power Systems 45-kVA transformer that converts European 50-cycle shore power to the 60 cycles used in North America, a Besenzoni passerelle for Mediterranean mooring, a Simrad transponder—signaling Nefertari’s particulars—and a Type II sewage treatment system, also a must for the Mediterranean.

Taking into consideration that fuel is notoriously contaminated in some of the most desirable—and remote—cruising spots in the world, Nefertari is equipped with a commercial-grade Alfa Laval centrifugal-force fuel filter, exactly the same as is used on small cruise ships.

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The skylounge has a forward helm with twin bench seats. Photography by Dana Jinkins. (Click images to enlarge)

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Concord Marine Electronics of Fort Lauderdale installed all the electronics on the boat, claiming that Nefertari has the most complete navigational and electronics package it has ever installed on a 91-footer.The yacht is designed to travel safely in thick fog and at night, and to that end it has commercial-grade, 25-kW Furuno primary radar, and a 12-kW secondary unit with high-definition screen readout.

Redundancy is the watchword aboard Nefertari. For example, she boasts three GPS/chartplotter systems—Furuno NavNet, Northstar 6000i and Nobletec Admiral—because only the finest navigation equipment would do.

Businessmen, financial traders, busy CEOs or anyone else who likes to keep plugged in while traveling will appreciate the fact that Nefertari is equipped with a Sea Tel Wavecall satellite communications system that brings in high-speed broadband and satellite phone and fax connections 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Internet connections are placed strategically all over the boat, in addition to Wi-Fi access.

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The teak boat deck is equipped for entertaining with a settee and a propane grill. Photography by Dana Jinkins. (Click images to enlarge)

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To stern, port and starboard, Nefertari has two huge "pods" to stow all of the gear necessary for extended cruising. A Yamaha scooter fits in the port pod, along with bicycles, large fenders and other gear. The other pod serves double duty as a compartment for a scuba compressor, tanks and gear, plus a Fortress stern anchor and electric anchor windlass. With hydraulic bow and stern thrusters and a Glendinning remote, not to mention two electric warping winches, Nefertari is designed for easy docking by two.

While measuring just 91 feet, in virtually all ways, Nefertari truly is a motor yacht fit for a queen. And Ramses II probably would have liked it, too, to say nothing of his 100 sons.