Yacht owners traditionally have winter refits performed in warm-weather areas, to pursue cruising or charter itineraries straight after delivery. Not the owners of Dutchess. This Mulder 76 Flybridge is back where she first took shape in The Netherlands, gaining a few feet plus a few creature comforts.
Over the course of the next several months, Dutchess will grow to 80 feet. She’ll also gain Seakeeper stabilizers for improved enjoyment at anchor. For enjoyment whether at anchor or underway, a fixed flying-bridge bimini is coming aboard, too. Mulder Shipyard is crafting it from aluminum, similar to what it’s done with previous deliveries.
Speaking of delivery, Dutchess greeted her first owners 12 years ago. Design came from Guido de Groot Design. Hailing from New Zealand, they were seasoned cruisers and stayed hands-on during the two-year build. Following an inaugural season in the Med, Dutchess caught a ride, aboard a transport ship, for the 12,000-mile journey to her owners’ home waters.
She put a significant amount of mileage under her own hull, however. The owners covered nearly 1,200 miles venturing from New Zealand to Australia, for example. They continued actively cruising aboard, in fact, through to last year. That’s when, in the summertime, they listed Dutchess for sale, following thorough maintenance works at Mulder.
Dutchess should be in good company this winter. Mulder has two dozen other yachts under its roof at the moment. Eight of the yachts are new-construction projects, as small as 49 feet and as large as 118 feet. That 118-footer, by the way, is the Mulder ThirtySix, with the model name signifying her LOA in meters. She is the shipyard’s largest yacht thus far. The maximum LOA to which Mulder builds is 148 feet.
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