Megayacht News Onboard: Kuipers' Beothuk

One of the yachts I looked forward to touring at the Fort Lauderdale boat show was Beothuk, a 102-footer built by Kuipers Woudsend. She’s part of the intrepid Doggersbank Offshore series created by Vripack a few years ago. Among the reasons why I was so interested in her: Her owner, an experienced Canadian yachtsman, intended to maintain the steel-hulled yacht himself. (For a few other facts about her, see my preview story here.)

What I didn’t know until I toured the yacht, with her captain, Joe Berger, is that the owner–as well as Berger–was also intimately involved in most design and engineering elements. And not only is this megayacht well appointed for long stretches at sea, but she’s engineered within an inch of her life with energy-saving ideas and smart extras.

Take the lighting system: It’s an all-LED arrangement, from OceanLED. Even the running lights employ LEDs. Berger says that because LEDs are cooler, the yacht requires less air-conditioning, and therefore less of a power draw. In fact, he says that the head of OceanLED explained that this type of light draws 75 percent less amperage than halogens. All 500 (yes, 500) lights can be dimmed via remotes as well.

One of the smart extras Beothuk features is something unusual for a yacht her size: a pump room. It’s more of a crawlspace, with what I’d estimate at about four feet of headroom, but there’s no need for more, given that there aren’t any floor panels. This makes for more space underfoot and eases working, allowing Berger or the owner to sit on a cross section and better access a particular mechanism for the air-conditioning, the sewage-treatment system, or other component. And in a case of thinking of everything, closed-circuit cameras are down here, pointed at gauges and dials, so that if Beothuk is en route, Berger and the owner can still keep an eye on things.

Speaking of being en route, Beothuk averaged 10.5 knots while on her Atlantic crossing from Holland to Florida for the boat show, with her 600-hp Caterpillars sipping a miserly 29 gph, according to Berger. The trip took nine days, mostly uneventful except for two, where they encountered seas as high as 15 feet.

That makes it pretty understandable why the owner and Berger chose not to dine in the dining room (above), fully forward on the main deck, those two evenings. But the nights they did, the views must have been terrific, given the bank of windows and the fact that the room is up two steps from the rest of the main deck. There’s a pass-through window between the bar in the dining room (not visible here) and the galley, for ease and for a relaxed feel. The galley contains a dining nook of its own, too.

From the galley to the staterooms, including the large, two-berthed crew stateroom Berger uses (above), there’s an abundance of well-fashioned wood. Mixed among the creature comforts and decorative details are more examples of how the owner wanted to ensure easier running of his yacht. Inside his stateroom, the closet yields access to the engine room. And if you closely inspect the decorative clamshell details on the bulkheads in the queen guest stateroom, you’ll see that you can actually slip your fingers behind them and pull the panel off, revealing a safety access door into Berger’s cabin.

At this point, you might be wondering where the yacht’s unusual name comes from. It’s the same as that of an aboriginal tribe that lived in Newfoundland, where the owner and his family are from. Beothuk pays homage to these skilled hunter-gatherers, but not just in name. There’s an art niche on the main deck with the sculpture you see here. Although the Beothuk tribe ceased to exist with the death of the last member in 1829, their spirit certainly lives on in this intrepid cruiser.

Here are some more looks at the bold and beautiful Beothuk.