Prestige X60

The X60 is Prestige's 62-foot X-Line flybridge, built around a design idea rather than a length: open the boat up and let people move through it the way they move through a house. Garroni Design and Prestige Engineering gave it an Infinity Cockpit glassed on three sides, a central galley that opens onto it, and a flybridge reached by stairs from the cockpit rather than a ladder.

Overall length is 62 feet on a 15' 11" hull beam, and the 4' 4" draft keeps shallow banks and shoal home slips in play. Three staterooms sleep six, with a skipper cabin available as an option.

Twin Cummins QSC 8.3 diesels on Zeus pod drives are the standard fit at 600 hp each, and the pods are why a 62-footer with this much volume stays an owner-operator boat: joystick docking, no separate thruster panel to learn, and steering authority at walking speed.

Prestige publishes 23 knots top and 18 knots cruise, the top figure quoted at mid-load. Light displacement is 55,138 lbs against 65,477 lbs full load, so the boat puts on better than 10,000 lbs between empty and loaded — set your speed expectations off the loaded figure. Fuel is 581 gallons. Get observed burn at your intended cruise rpm in writing at the sea trial and work your own numbers off that tank.

The galley sits amidships and central, so whoever is cooking faces the saloon and the cockpit instead of a bulkhead. Prestige sizes the glass Infinity Cockpit 40 percent above a classic 60-foot cockpit, and the flybridge 30 percent above a traditional one on this size of hull; the flybridge can be specified as a sundeck, a second seating area, or a bar and galley with a table for six.

Below, three staterooms sleep six. The beach club aft carries its own sundeck, shower, lighting and audio system. Fit-out runs to natural oak floorboards, pleated curtains, integrated appliances and a built-in audio system.

At 62 feet with 1,200 horsepower on pods, the X60 sits against the Azimut Fly 62, the Galeon 620 FLY and the Princess F65 — flybridge boats in the low sixties that a competent owner can run without permanent crew.

What separates the X60 is where the volume went. Prestige spent it on the cockpit, the flybridge and the beach club rather than on a fourth cabin, so the boat reads as more social than a same-length yacht built to sleep eight. Buyers who need a fourth stateroom are better served by the X70 or a rival's 65; buyers who entertain more than they overnight will find this the sharper package.

This is a boat for the owner who runs his own yacht on weekends and hires help for the long legs. Three staterooms, an optional skipper cabin and joystick pod control make a party of six workable without permanent crew, and the 4' 4" draft opens up the shallow anchorages a deeper 62-footer has to admire from outside.

It suits South Florida and Bahamas cruising particularly well: run across to Bimini on Friday, live on the beach club and the flybridge, come home Sunday. If your pattern is longer offshore passages with eight aboard, look higher up the range.