Artemisia - new build thread for a Prestige 680

[MAFWeiss]

‘A man and his new hull – November 2015’

I have to admit that I have found the prospect of starting this post has rather daunting since I have been unsure as to how to structure it and deal with the multitude of minutiae – technical and otherwise – that make up the construction and fitting out of a large boat such as this. Also given that I am still a relative ‘newbie’ to sailing and mobos, and I have little expertise or knowledge of boat manufacturing, electrics, or science matters in general, so I am a little intimidated by the prospect of responding to some of the formidable members of this forum!

Ok, that said…here we go – somewhat belatedly – with my attempt at a new build post for ‘Artemisia’, which is now well into production at the Prestige factory at Les Herbiers, as hull no 7, with delivery ex works the week beginning April 11^th.

Thereafter the timetable is as follows:
April 18^th – Boat arrives by road to Sete, with two weeks allocated to post build works and fitting out.
May 2^nd – One month allocated to hull painted in a metallic blue and hard top wrapped in matching colour.
May 30^th – A week allocated for Ancasta to undertake sea trials making sure that everything works.
June 6^th-8^th - Handover, and two days ‘’tuition’’ with Prestige’s professional skipper.

The boat comes with these main features standard.
4 cabins plus a twin ‘skipper’
Twin Volvo IPS 1200 engines (total 1,800 HP)
Twin fuel tanks (total 3,450 litres)
2,000W inverter (24-230v)
800 litre water tank (plus 120lts for hot water)
400 litre grey water tank
300 litre black water tank

240 kgf bow thruster
Main batteries: 10 x Optima 140 Ah/12v
Motor: 4 x Optima 120 Ah/12v
Bow thruster: 6 x Optima 50 Ah/12v
Generator: 1 x Optima 50 Ah/12v

Flybridge galley with electric grill, refrigerator and sink

We have chosen most of the available options and upgrades that Prestige offer above the standard spec. These are as follows:

Electronic package including:
Lower helm – Three ‘Glassbridge’ Raymarine E165 16in chartplotters, AIS650, depth sonar CP370, P70r autopilot, Volvo ‘virtual anchor’, Seakeeper NG9 gyro stabilizer control.
Upper helm – Two Raymarine E165 chartplotters, plus repeaters for the P70r, stabiliser, and anchor counter.
Hard top with electric fabric ‘sunroof’
Teak decking
Twin 2,300w mooring winches
Letterbox hydraulic gangway
Hydraulic platform – 450kg max load
3^rd IPS joystick and bow thruster control on cockpit
Volvo dynamic positioning system
Volvo Interceptor auto trim tabs
Seakeeper NG9 gyroscopic stabiliser
22.5kw generator
Tropical chilled water air-con (105,000 BTU)
5 Lumishore SMX51 underwater lights (blue)
Dual switchable oil filters with alarm
Dishwasher (9 place)
Combination washing machine/tumble dryer
Icemaker on cockpit
Oceanair electric aluminium blinds (silver) in salon
Twin dummy satellite domes
Additional removable bathing ladder
Stainless steel cradle for the tender on platform

'This a picture from an earlier hull'

Following our several inspections of hull 1, at our request Prestige have kindly instigated the following changes specifically for our boat, some of which will be offered as options in the future:

They are replacing the fixed large 48in TV and cabinet to the right side of the salon with a small chaise longue and adding an up/down 42in TV situated to the unit to the left of the lower helm. pics to follow
Removing the inset bottle holders from the cockpit and flybridge table and changing the size and shape of the flybridge table to accommodate more people.

Changing the layout of the flybridge galley, and upgrading to a larger and better Gaggenau grill

Changing the starboard twin bed cabin to a small 110cm double.

Adding a dimmer to the hardtop lighting.
Fitting an electric extending sunshade to rear to hard top which will also protect the rear seating from the dew at night.
Additional gyro stabilizer and anchor counter control on flybridge helm.
Upgrading the Raymarine radar from the 18’’ RD418HD to the 24" RD424HD.
Upgrading the VIP shower head to same as Master.
And most importantly for SWMBO (aka the crew), Glendinning cabling


Internal quarters:

The cabinet carpentry is in Grey Oak Moabi with a dark Wenge wood floor in the galley and salon, and a mink coloured carpet in the cabins and stair well.
For the seating upholstery, we moving away from Alcantara which I have invariable like to use domestically since 1988, and which have on our 550, to the very nice no-charge ‘’Platine’’ fabric option from Casamance (57%viscose, 28% linen and 15% cotton). This has saved over €10k!
We are still deciding whether or not to bother with a carpet or rug in the salon, or to have just the plain dark wood floor. The space does look even larger without a carpet, but the mink carpet adds perhaps a little warmth.

Galley:
I have upgraded the Miele combination oven and Bosch induction hob to the top of the range models and added more power power outlets for kettle, toaster and the Nepresso machine.

'Concept of paint finish'

'I think this metallic colour blue looks very cool!'

Post build non factory items
Hull painting with Awlgrip and hard top wrapped -See above images
60kg Ultra stainless steel anchor with swivel
PTZ camera fixed to front of hard top (ideally this to be controllable remotely via wifi so we can pan round the marina and see what’s going on in our absence)
One/two fixed rearview cameras.
For the RIB, I really liked the look of new Zar tenders but we are going to chose admittedly not very sexy, but very practical Geniuss tender (either 320 or 385) with the retracting outboard. Images to follow.


For further discussion

Final spec of TVs, DVDs, sound systems, wifi etc TBC after discussions with Landau at LIBS
Stainless steel chain – whether or not this is a worthwhile extravagance
Water maker – given the cost, we will likely try a season without one before deciding.

The above is not complete… but will at least get my boat blog ''afloat'' just in time for LIBS tomorrow where hull no 3 will be unveiled for the first time in the UK. See you there! Plus shortly more pictures from my second visit to the factory on Wednesday.

 

[benjenbav]

Wow! Looks great.

Minor point but can't think of anything else immediately: the tender chocks look as though they can be slid out of the runners. If you do that, can you fit a cover to the runners to make the tops of the runners level to help people not stub their toes?

 

[rafiki_]

Wow, sounds a fantastic spec, and looking forward to further updates as the build progresses. You didn't mention the caulking? White or black? White being the new black apparently......

 

[Whitelighter]

Wow, thanks for the report - I know how hard these sort if I depth reports are to write.

Boat looks excellent, I like the hull colour - it breaks up the mass of GRP without being over whelming.
With the starboard cabin, could they not have put the port berth in sliding track to give you the option of a double or two twins? Thus would increase flexibility and should be an easy mod?

I'm new to big boats (ok big ish boats) but for four cabins and I'm guessing 3/4 heads is 800l of fresh water enough?

 

[lionelz]

Well done in remember your first post about it. Hope all goes well with the build and that it does everything that you want it to

 

[Nick_H]

Congratulations. That's a very full spec, and I like the hull/hardtop colour scheme

I don't think you'll regret speccing the gyro.

A very minor point, why not have multi-colour Lumishore's? I know it sounds posey, but it wont cost much to upgrade, and it adds a bit of fun to nightime swimming.

 

[NGM]

Fantastic - congrats. And look forward to following the thread.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

Congrats, looks like a v comprehensive spec indeed. Lots of fun ahead!

I agree w Nick_h - for the sake of the modest marginal cost, I'd upgrade the lumishores to colour-change - the cyan is loads nicer than the blue imho.

On the subject of anchors, chain and electronics etc - have you considered an ancam? Surprisingly useful bit of bit. And have you seen today's announcement from Raymarine about the Quantum radar?

But regardless - awesome spec, congrats again.

 

[sarabande]

it is great fun to look a beautiful new builds, especially big ones. Best of luck with theproject.


One quick question. It looks as if you have specified a 60kg Ultra anchor. That looks a bit on the small side to me, or is it an additional one to a larger one?

 

[kashurst]

lovely boat, especially the blue hull - look forward to more pics when you get time. Just a question, why wrap the hardtop when the hull is being painted anyway?

 

[OS7]

A fantastic specification for a fantastic boat. Congratulations...

Oli
Ancasta International Boat Sales

 

[jfm]

Wow! Many many congratulations M (and C). It is going to be stunning.

Some great ideas there: the blue, the HT, colour to HT, top spec nav gear, wood floor (I got a rug, fwiw!). Top marks to Prestige for agreeing your customisation requests too

Well done deleting the bottle holders form the tables I did the same; they're so tacky and give a cheap motorhome feel. A table should be a slab of teak. Marquetry is fine; any other embellishment is tacky. Fairline and Princess don't get this either.

Glendinning = brilliant, and v reliable. You have nearly 100amps form genset and with 105btu/hr airco and induction hob you will be glad of >60 amps in port when you can, so if it can be fitted ask P for a CM8 rather than CM7

What LED lighting are you having inside?

Here are a few things that I'd tweak, though I appreciate will be too late for a few. In no order:

1. You really must have a 60cm dishwasher not 45cm. This is an 8 guests boat sometimes. The cost different is peanuts
2. White caulking would look great with the blue hull
3. you sure the platform is only 450kg lift? Feels bit too little. Maybe ok I guess
4. With 8 pax beds to change and swim towels + bath towels a combi washer drier just won't cut it. The cycle is 2 hours+ and they're tiny. You need meile separate washing machine and drier with the 30min cycle. Stewie can turn around all the swim towels from morning swim so they're ready for afternoon swim, while folks are having even a short lunch. You need this on a mini superyacht that you're about to be hosting parties on! You need it way more than a third nav screen downstairs, for example
5. You won't love the blue lumishores. Multicolour is better but if you're having single colour in the med get white. The red wavelengths get taken out by the water anyway so once the white light beam is more them a metre from the boat it is cyan (=green + blue), which is way nicer than dark blue. Remember your choice here might be called blue/white on the box but it is dark blue/cyan in the real world (I posted some lumishore videos recently - tell me if you want me to re-post the links or just look at channel "jfmjfm2008" on youtube)
6. For rear view camera get ONE, high up, imho. You want to look at ONE screen and get all the data you need. It is not as good if the data you want is spread across 2 screens and you have to look at both and then compile it in your head, while trying to park. I've tried it and it's crummy. On this boat I have one camera high up for docking and love it
7. Get an anchor cam though
8. If you intend 8 guests sometimes you will want a watermaker if the tanks are 800litres. Might as well get it installed in build. In the salty med the true output is 75% of the rated output, so get a big one rated at least 200 litres/hour. I have a 280 rating and in practice I get 220, and having had 50% of that on last boat (as recommended by builder, who dodnt actually know of course...) I'm glad I doubled it for this boat. They're noisy on a 68 foot boat and you do not want it on all day making a little dribble
9. Twin cabin - I agree with Jez - have the narrower beds and then slide convert to make double. I did this in one twin cabin on my last boat, loved it, so did it in both twins on this boat. Make sure no ridge/lump down middle in double bed mode. Obviously you need to carry both double and twin mode linens
10. Each to their own but I'd question those chocks. At anchor with dinghy off you want a smooth teak platform, not a load of toe stubbing metalwork - just imho though

Anyway many congratulations on such a fine ship. I must look at the one at LIBS this week (are they fussy about letting people on?)

Keep up the thread!

 

[CLOUD9]

Congratulations. A great spec. I watched the MBY video of the 680 only a few days ago and was taken with the layout. https://youtu.be/chm4KTjRzzc
No immediate plans for a change just yet, but keeping an eye on the future possibilities,.....I now have an appointment to have a look at the 680 on Monday at the show!...
I do agree with the comments about the tender chocks.
Exciting times. I'm looking forward to further updates.

 

[MAFWeiss]

It is very important to stress that this is a boat built by a company part of whose great success and profitability is based on a highly efficient and strictly regimented production line. It is only because of the relationship that I now have with them, that they have countenanced some of these changes to the spec. With the boat already well into its fixed timetable, at this stage any substantive additions/changes have to be post-build.

Wow! Looks great.

Minor point but can't think of anything else immediately: the tender chocks look as though they can be slid out of the runners. If you do that, can you fit a cover to the runners to make the tops of the runners level to help people not stub their toes?

Actually they lift off completely, so when the tender is off the platform, we can store them in the ''skippers cabin'' which will be used 99% of the time just for storage.

Wow, sounds a fantastic spec, and looking forward to further updates as the build progresses. You didn't mention the caulking? White or black? White being the new black apparently......

Caulking is black. Don’t know if its something I can be bothered to change, but will think about it.

Wow, thanks for the report - I know how hard these sort if I depth reports are to write.

Boat looks excellent, I like the hull colour - it breaks up the mass of GRP without being over whelming.
With the starboard cabin, could they not have put the port berth in sliding track to give you the option of a double or two twins? Thus would increase flexibility and should be an easy mod?

I'm new to big boats (ok big ish boats) but for four cabins and I'm guessing 3/4 heads is 800l of fresh water enough?

No because the space under the right hand bed of the port berth is used (I think) by the aircon unit. I have questioned whether 800 litres is enough, and have seriously considered fitting a water-maker. My inclination was to have had one installed at build, but the wife was insistent that we waited to see if we actually needed it. It was her only successful attempt at getting me to save some money!

Congratulations. That's a very full spec, and I like the hull/hardtop colour scheme

I don't think you'll regret speccing the gyro.

A very minor point, why not have multi-colour Lumishore's? I know it sounds posey, but it wont cost much to upgrade, and it adds a bit of fun to nightime swimming.

After three seasons on our 550 without a stabilizer, having one on the 680 was the first box we ticked! Re the Lumishores, which was a late upgrade by Prestige from their original specced Aqualuma, I was told too late to change as already fitted. As may already be noticed, I do like blue a lot, and I have watched JFMs videos with his multi-coloured lights and not sure that having that option really excites me that much. Again maybe something I might upgrade to in a year or so.

Congrats, looks like a v comprehensive spec indeed. Lots of fun ahead!

I agree w Nick_h - for the sake of the modest marginal cost, I'd upgrade the lumishores to colour-change - the cyan is loads nicer than the blue imho.

On the subject of anchors, chain and electronics etc - have you considered an ancam? Surprisingly useful bit of bit. And have you seen today's announcement from Raymarine about the Quantum radar?

But regardless - awesome spec, congrats again.

Jimmy see previous response re the lights.

Re the ancam, yes this is something I gave a lot of though too, but I wanted to do something different… have a forward facing underwater camera on bow so one could see the anchor actually set on the seabed. However the factory did not think this was a good idea for safety reasons as it could compromise the integrity of the hull if it was struck by a hard object whilst doing 24 knots. Regarding the tried and tested ancam, in discussion with my crew/wife, as she is responsible for supervising its use, she did not think it was a necessary adjunct.

As for the new Quantum radar, I was told by a rep of Raymarine that it was not as powerful as the radar that I have ordered. I will query this again when I go to the show.

lovely boat, especially the blue hull - look forward to more pics when you get time. Just a question, why wrap the hardtop when the hull is being painted anyway?

I think the reason given to me was that it will be easier (and cost effective?) to wrap when the hard top was already in place than paint. But I will check.

 

[MAFWeiss]

Thank you JFM, as well as everyone else, for your input it is much appreciated!

Glendinning = brilliant, and v reliable. You have nearly 100amps form genset and with 105btu/hr airco and induction hob you will be glad of >60 amps in port when you can, so if it can be fitted ask P for a CM8 rather than CM7

Errr forgive my ignorance but what is a CM8 /CM7?

What LED lighting are you having inside?

Dont know… will check

Here are a few things that I'd tweak, though I appreciate will be too late for a few. In no order:

1. You really must have a 60cm dishwasher not 45cm. This is an 8 guests boat sometimes. The cost different is peanuts
2. White caulking would look great with the blue hull
3. you sure the platform is only 450kg lift? Feels bit too little. Maybe ok I guess
4. With 8 pax beds to change and swim towels + bath towels a combi washer drier just won't cut it. The cycle is 2 hours+ and they're tiny. You need meile separate washing machine and drier with the 30min cycle. Stewie can turn around all the swim towels from morning swim so they're ready for afternoon swim, while folks are having even a short lunch. You need this on a mini superyacht that you're about to be hosting parties on! You need it way more than a third nav screen downstairs, for example
5. You won't love the blue lumishores. Multicolour is better but if you're having single colour in the med get white. The red wavelengths get taken out by the water anyway so once the white light beam is more them a metre from the boat it is cyan (=green + blue), which is way nicer than dark blue. Remember your choice here might be called blue/white on the box but it is dark blue/cyan in the real world (I posted some lumishore videos recently - tell me if you want me to re-post the links or just look at channel "jfmjfm20082 on youtube)
6. For rear view camera get ONE, high up, imho. You want to look at ONE screen and get all the data you need. It is not as good if the data you want is spread across 2 screens and you have to look at both and then compile it in your head, while trying to park. I've tried it and it's crummy. On this boat I have one camera high up for docking and love it
7. Get an anchor cam though
8. If you intend 8 guests sometimes you will want a watermaker if the tanks are 800litres. Might as well get it installed in build. In the salty med the true output is 75% of the rated output, so get a big one rated at least 200 litres/hour. I have a 280 rating and in practice I get 220, and having had 50% of that on last boat (as recommended by builder, who dodnt actually know of course...) I'm glad I doubled it for this boat. They're noisy on a 68 foot boat and you do not want it on all day making a little dribble
9. Twin cabin - I agree with Jez - have the narrower beds and then slide convert to make double. I did this in one twin cabin on my last boat, loved it, so did it in both twins on this boat. Make sure no ridge/lump down middle in double bed mode. Obviously you need to carry both double and twin mode linens
10. Each to their own but I'd question those chocks. At anchor with dinghy off you want a smooth teak platform, not a load of toe stubbing metalwork - just imho though[/QUOTE]

1. ‘’Too late he cried, as he waved his wooden leg’’… it is already fitted! To be honest, it is only very rarely that we will have eight people on board. Often there will only be two of us, other times four maybe five. The main reason we have gone for the 680 is the size of fabulous VIP cabin amidships. Also many of our guests are singles, and prefer not to share cabins. So the size of the dishwasher is not a problem… anyway I prefer to handwash!
2. Previously commented on black v. white caulk
3. I think it may well be more than 450 kg lift. I will check.
4. Its all about space… and this is a 68ft not a 78ft boat! And again, we will rarely have a full house.
5. See previous comment on earlier post. I have blue lights on my 550… and I like them!
6. OK will do. One high rear view cam it is.
7. See my previous reponse to the ancam
8. Ditto and I have printed out the water-maker thread, so thank you, aware of what needs to be done when the time comes.
9. Ditto re beds
10. Ditto re chocks!

Anyway many congratulations on such a fine ship. I must look at the one at LIBS this week (are they fussy about letting people on?)

No… not if you ask for Nick from Ancasta and just mention my name!

Keep up the thread!

Don’t worry… lot more to come!

 

[jfm]

One quick question. It looks as if you have specified a 60kg Ultra anchor. That looks a bit on the small side to me, or is it an additional one to a larger one?

Just IMHO, a 60kg Ultra will be excellent on this boat as main anchor

 

[MAFWeiss]

These are the very latest pics taken at the factory just this Wednesday.

 

[jfm]

Errr forgive my ignorance but what is a CM8 /CM7?
No… not if you ask for Nick from Ancasta and just mention my name!

CM7 takes 63 amp cable; CM8 takes 100amp cable, roughly. I just noted that your genset will deliver close to 100amps, so if you have CM7 you'll only have 63 amps when on shore power. I may be over egging this point: 63 amps will be fine in port so long as you run only 2 of the three airco chiller when you want to run the cooking equipment hard, but that's not much of a hardship. Obviously if you turn on all that boat's gear when on shore power when you will for sure trip the breaker, but you'll be perfectly well able to manage things so that doesn't happen. So what I should have said is that CM8 is nice but don't worry at all if you have CM7

In any case, in the med you rarely get a 90 or 120 amp supply in a 20-24m berth anyway, so it's all very well having CM8 and 100 am cable but if the dock will only give you 60amps you haven't achieved anything (in truth, that is my circumstances most of the time)

One of the nice things about your 680 is it has 3x 35k BTU/hr air co chillers. At full tilt the three of them could take almost 60 amps total, but as mentioned above you nicely have the ability to switch one off when you are on weak shore power. That is your main tool to manage weak shorepower locations. I have 2 x 60k chillers, and I often run on just one (when on weak shorepower) and 60k btu/hr is plenty of cooling.

I'm only scratching the technical surface here: would be great to know whether the chillers are 3 phase via VFDs so you can turn the AC frequency down from say 60Hz to 40 to run the chillers on partial load, and what (electrically) happens if you start the genset while on shorepower? Can you use both power sources to run the boat, or does the genset disable the shore power? The tech point here is you can never connect genset to same circuit as shorepower because the phases are not matched, but you can have an auto relay that splits the boat into two separate 230v circuits automatically so shorepower runs some things and genset runs others, on the rare-ish occasions that is useful.

Thanks re LIBS - I'll ask Nick to let me aboard!

 

[Hurricane]

Congratulations
I believe they have one at LIBS this year.
I was going to check it out

 

[jfm]

Actually they lift off completely, so when the tender is off the platform, we can store them in the ''skippers cabin'' which will be used 99% of the time just for storage.

Mark I'm not getting these chocks. They look heavy and big. What's the reason for not having something simple and fairly light, and only 600mm long, and cheap, like this and a million other chocks? Just the one knob on the right spins undone to remove them as the other end is locked down by a keyhole slot