Bigger boats weigh more. That is the rule, it holds almost everywhere, and it is why the Galeon 700 SKY is worth a closer look than its badge suggests.
The 700 SKY is ten inches longer than the 680 FLY it evolved from - 72' 10" against 72' 0" - and it comes in about 3,200 lbs lighter in light craft condition. 81,791 lbs against 85,010.
That is not a rounding difference, and there is a straightforward reason for it.
Carbon, and what it buys back
Galeon replaced the 680's flybridge with a compact top deck under a three-part carbon hardtop, and used carbon for the supports as well. Carbon construction reduces weight and allows slimmer structure, which is also why the glass panels wrapping the main deck living area have less getting in the way of them.
The payoff is not really the number on the scale. It is what the number on the scale gives back: maximum load on the 700 SKY is 15,454 lbs, against 13,669 lbs on the 650 SKY beneath it.
On a boat that will carry a tender, toys, four cabins' worth of people and everything a family brings for a fortnight, that figure is worth more day to day than a knot of top speed. It is the difference between loading the boat and thinking about loading the boat.
The decision behind the transom
Before anything else on this boat, decide what goes aft.
There is one volume behind the transom, and it can be a large tender and toy garage, or it can be a cabin for two crew.
That is not a preference. It is a declaration about how the boat gets run. Garage means you are launching the dinghy yourself and you want it out of the weather and out of sight. Crew cabin means someone else handles the lines, the fuel and the early departure, and you step aboard as a guest.
Both are good answers. Neither is convertible afterwards. Watercraft can also live on the hydraulic bathing platform, which is adjustable and doubles as the swimming and boarding space, so the garage is not the only way to carry toys - but it is the only way to carry them out of the weather.
The guest cabins are the clever part
Accommodation is four cabins and three heads.
The full-beam master runs across the boat below deck, with large windows, a vanity station and real wardrobe space. The VIP is forward with its own en-suite shower room. Between them sit two further guest cabins, and this is where the boat is more flexible than most of its size class.
Those two cabins can be built as doubles. Or as twins. Or as a single with a Pullman berth that folds out of the hull side - and when the Pullman is folded away, it conceals a drop-down desk or vanity table.
That last option is the one worth thinking about. It gives you a cabin that sleeps two when the family is aboard and works as an office or a dressing room for the rest of the year, which is much closer to how boats this size actually get used than a fourth cabin that stays empty ten months out of twelve.
Privacy on the main deck
The main deck is organised around keeping people out of each other's way, which is the kind of thing you notice after a season rather than on a first walkthrough.
Guest and master cabins have separate entrances from the main deck. A foldable door separates the galley from the cockpit and lets the galley serve both bars. Opposite it you can have a second bar or a rest area, working through slide-down windows. The helm carries twin sport seats, and a one-piece glass door gets you to the bow without going round the side decks.
Up top the Skydeck carries a central helm station, passenger seats and a wet bar, all under the carbon hardtop that closes the deck off for weather or for a sportier profile. In the cockpit you choose between an oversized C-shaped sofa and a smaller L-shaped seat with a sun pad behind it. Forward, the sundeck converts into four separate seating areas with twin pop-up dining tables - a bow that is a room rather than a sunpad.
The fuel number runs against the grain
Here is the figure that should slow you down.
The 700 SKY carries 885 gallons of fuel, in two unequal tanks. The 650 SKY below it carries 991 gallons in a matched pair.
The larger boat carries 106 gallons less. And it is rated for more power on top of that: up to 2 x 1,300 hp against the 650's 2 x 1,200 hp.
If long legs between fuel docks are part of your plan, do not assume the bigger boat goes further. Ask for observed burn at your normal cruising rpm in writing on the day of the sea trial, and do the arithmetic against 885 gallons yourself.
The rest of the numbers
Length overall is 72' 10" on a 66' 2" hull, with 17' 3" of beam and 4' 10" of draft measured without propellers. Fresh water is 211 gallons, with 87 gallons of grey and 79 of black. Bridge clearance is 25' 8" from the waterline at minimum draft, and transport height is 29' 11". The hull is CE Category B and rated for sixteen aboard.
Power runs from 2 x 1,000 hp to 2 x 1,300 hp - a 600 hp spread across the pair, wide enough that a demo boat at the top of the range tells you very little about a boat at the bottom.
One question to raise early: ask what Beach Mode does on this hull, and get the open beam in writing. The 650 SKY opens to a published 24' 3" from a 16' 5" base; if the fold-down balconies are half the reason you are looking at a Galeon at all, settle the 700's figure before the order rather than after it.
Where it sits
Galeon calls the 700 an evolution of the 680 FLY, and evolution is the right word rather than variant. The interior thinking and the finish carry over; the top and the structure change. Both boats are four cabins plus crew across three heads. The 700 is longer and lighter. If you are cross-shopping them, you are choosing between an open flybridge and a carbon top deck that closes - and paying attention to weight, not to length.
Within the Skydeck line, the 700 sits above the 650 SKY, but not in every dimension. It is longer, has more power available and carries a bigger load allowance; the 650 carries more fuel. Weigh the two against how you will actually use the boat rather than against the model numbers.
Against the wider 70-to-75-foot market, the 700's case rests on the weight saving and the flexible guest deck. The Azimut Fly 72 at 74' 5" and Ferretti 720 at 73' 10" are the closest comparisons if you want to see how other builders answer the same brief.
But settle the stern first. Garage or crew is the decision the rest of the boat arranges itself around.