When Frank Sinatra sang “Come Fly with Me,” he could have been asking you to come aboard Galeon‘s new 800 FLY. Powered by a pair of 1,925 horsepower MTU V12 turbo diesels, this 83-foot, 75-ton motoryacht can “fly” up to an impressive top speed of 36 mph.
Making its global debut at last week’s Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, the builder’s new $8 million-plus flagship is joining a crowded market dominated by challengers from Britain’s Sunseeker and Princess, along with offerings from Italy’s Azimut and Ferretti.
We’ve come to expect oversized windows on modern cruisers, but the Galeon takes fenestration to a new level. Half the hull seems to be filled with one continuous, dark-tinted window. For the amidships main suite, the glass dips to almost water level to flood the interior with light.
A huge swath of heavy-tint glass is also found across the superstructure, spanning floor-to-ceiling in the salon, while also sweeping in an elegant curve that follows the lines of the flybridge.
Designer Tony Castro has been the mastermind behind the unusual look of the Galeon line for more than a decade. He doesn’t hold back on the 800. One of its most notable features is the engineering that goes into the flybridge hardtop. Built of strong, lightweight carbon fiber, its only supports are towards the rear, doing away with the typical, and visually-distracting, forward pillars.
Castro also focused on outdoor fun by adding a full-beam, hydraulic swim platform at the stern with 1,550-lb. weight capacity. Looking big enough to park a small Buick, it dips into the water to launch a tender or water toys, or simply serves as a fun diving board.
Add to that an oversized cockpit, with U-shaped seating/dining for eight and, key for sunny climes, plenty of shade from a lengthy flybridge overhang. You also gain an authentic indoor/outdoor feel in the cockpit by folding back the large, three-glass panel door, while also lifting another glass panel above the port-side cockpit bar.
The flybridge is another well-designed, functional and flexible space. At the rear is a large lounge and dining area with twin tables and sofas. Forward, under the floating hardtop, is more seating alongside the twin-seat upper helm. In the center is an outdoor kitchen with barbecue, sink, fridge and ice-maker.
Less successful, in our opinion, is the interior design, especially on the FLIBS boat we toured. While the main salon has plenty of lounging space, along with an open-plan galley and separate dining area, it was decorated in fifty shades of “greige.” Add to that the vast swaths of back-lit greige marble that made the space look like something out of the ’80s. But as the Galeon rep told us, all that is customizable.
Down below is a quartet of cabins—a full-beam master amidships, port and starboard twin-berth guest cabins, and a VIP double in the bow. But reserve that forward VIP only for the agile as it’s tucked so far forward you need to clamber up from the end. And the space at the forepeak is so narrow couples will be sleeping cheek to cheek. Strange for an 80-footer.
More successful is the master, with those hull windows stretching over seven feet long, a queen bed with the option of a king, a walk-in closet, a settee for watching the world go by at water level, and six-foot-six headroom.
For an aspiring cruiser owner who doesn’t want to compromise on speed and wants to move up into a crewed yacht—a crew cabin has private access from the stern—this is certainly one swashbuckling Galeon that could be worth a sea trial. Galeon’s exclusive US dealer is MarineMax.
