Prestige M8
Prior to this past June, had you asked me for a roster of yet-unseen Italian spots I’d like to take my wife on vacation, Pompeii, Pisa, the Amalfi Coast and Sicily would have surely made the list. Trieste on the other hand, was not on my radar. Prior to being invited by Prestige to take the helm of a couple of beautiful new releases and dive deep into their Italian factory, I knew next to nothing about northwest Italy’s grand old port city, nor the nearby coastal shipbuilding town of Monfalcone. But Trieste, set amidst and atop forested limestone outcroppings on a gin-clear sea, is really something. I want to go back—soon. And the next time it won’t be a solo mission.
Trieste has existed in some form or another, for 2,000-plus years. It’s the centerpiece of the Gulf of Trieste, a gale-protected stretch of the subtropical Adriatic. A few miles from Slovenia, 15 miles from northern Croatia and 50 miles from southern Austria, it’s a true cultural crossroads. The ancient Romans built a wondrous walled city here and a still-standing amphitheater for over 3,000 spectators. The Austro-Hungarian Hapsburgs ruled Trieste from the 1300’s to World War I, building a magnificent, canal-served marketplace and port city with a classic seafront promenade. In 1856, archduke Ferdinand Maximilian commissioned a jaw-dropping palace called Miramare—complete with a bedroom designed to resemble a captain’s quarters. Walking the delightful waterfront, you hear a mishmash of tongues: Slavic, Germanic, and of course, every branch of Latin. Street signs are written in both Italian and what I came to learn was Slovenian. Stopping in at Pizzeria Calo for one of the best margherita pies I’ve ever torched the roof of my mouth on, I asked the manager where everyone strolling the waterfront or sipping tart Aperol spritz’s came from. “Everywhere,” he said. “Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Albania, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Switzerland.” He then mentioned the offshore silhouette of sailing yacht A, the 460-foot, half-billion-dollar vessel seized from Russian tycoon Andrey Melnichenko. “Russia too,” he said with a laugh. “We don’t see so many Americans though. You can help us with that?”
It was in this polyglot corner of Italy that Prestige and its parent company, Group Beneteau chose to unveil their brand-new flagship M8 power catamaran—along with another “top secret” boat that you’ll be seeing here soon enough. The company recruited a scrum of marine journos at a stunning spot called Portopiccolo, a former rock quarry that was converted into a resort and marina. Taking the center stage mooring, M8 hull number one glistened. Her handlers, including Prestige’s gregarious Brand Director Erwin Bamps, North American Director Sam Dubois and Product Manager Rosalie Le Gall walked and talked us through what is, in terms of displacement and square feet of living space, the biggest and most expensive ($5.5 million) boat in the Prestige fleet. The name M8 is actually a wordplay on her size. According to the builder, to get the 3,000-plus square feet of living space found aboard the 65-foot M8, you’d need an 80-foot monohull.
And lordy, what a living space it is. Angular lines and gracefully curved hull windows, blinding white surfaces and signature four triangle imprint clearly mark this as a Prestige. But Le Gall and Bamps said that while engineers and designers took some cues from Prestige’s smaller, and also newly released M48 catamaran, the M8 was built new from the stringers up. Some power catamarans are modified versions of sailing cats. The necessity of a reinforced center structure to accommodate the stresses of a mast, tends to make them taller and wider than is actually optimal for maneuverability—particularly in following seas or when taking on a beam wind. The beam on the M8 is 29 feet. That’s surely substantial, but it would necessarily be far wider were she based on a sailing cat.
I was able to tour the M8’s birthplace at the half a million square foot Group Beneteau factory and Italian headquarters in Monfalcone. There, the generational expertise of her 250 employees extends back to the city’s emergence as a shipbuilding hub in the late 1800’s. It’s a highly advanced operation that yields a Janneau 65 sailboat every 23 days, and an M8 every 27. At the M8 hull infusion site, a mammoth crane can rotate the entire hull mold. Further up the line, the wood joinery factory is staffed by serious craftspeople. The M8 is so customizable, Prestige decided it was more efficient—and affordable—for her woodwork to be done in house. Because it’s situated right on the water, all manner of Beneteau boats, like a huge Monte Carlo yacht currently suspended above the floor, are brought in for refurbs too.
Starting at a stern wide enough to host a Greek wedding, the M8’s rear deck and main cabin present an entirely flat living level of 1,180-plus square feet, surfaced with a resilient faux teak. It’s far lighter than actual wood, and according to Le Gall, much easier to repair. There’s also a 14-foot-wide stair-step-equipped swim beach platform created by Opacmare. Le Gall called it The Transformer. “It was first engineered 15 years ago—so it’s very reliable—and is used on lots of superyachts,” she said. “I think it’s the first time one has been used on a boat of this size.” Raised, it’s an extension of the main deck. Midway down, it’s level with a stern garage where you can load and unload paddleboards and gear. When fully lowered, the platform drops down into the sea—and guests can swim right off, or your tender can nose into the garage. It’s brilliant.
The main cabin is accessed by five sturdy glass doors—two to port, one to starboard and two astern. When they’re all opened up and coupled with a broad, rear-raked windshield and a full perimeter of floor-to ceiling windows, the demarcations between indoor and outdoor blur. While a handsome bar ostensibly separates the salon from the cockpit, those borders are blurred too. This is a space for socializing—with a lot of people.
The M8 was designed by Camillo Garoni, with interior design overseen by Valentina Militerno de Romedis. Interior spaces are eye-poppingly luxurious and practically considered. Hull number one featured a full (if relatively small) Meile appliance-equipped galley at salon level, but the boat can be configured with the galley belowdecks as well. The lower joystick-controlled, three-screened control center (I’m hesitant to call it a helm since there’s no steering wheel), features Garmin’s Surround View. It creates a faux aerial view—as if from a drone—and makes docking a breeze. There’s also a docking joystick on the back deck, and you’ll find individual climate zones throughout the interior spaces, along with copious USB charge ports. Lighting is soothing and recessed. Railings and grabs leave few places you couldn’t gain a handhold.
Garoni and de Romedis designed the M8 with what Prestige calls a “Miami Aesthetic.” Furniture, featuring pieces by legendary Italian design studio Pininfarina, is set in a loose configuration, with rounded shapes and throw pillows. It’s modern but classic—I’d liken it to the luxe, jet-aged vibe portrayed in 1964’s James Bond epic Goldfinger. Sturdy glass tables feature 3D-printed sandwich layered surfaces resembling marble on the dining table and carbon fiber on side tables. You’d have to secure everything running in a storm, but big storms and vast crossings are not really the intended scenarios with this boat.
Belowdecks, a full beam, single-level master suite, with IMAX quality windows to starboard and port and soothing grayish-blonde wood paneling, takes up the entire forward space. Finding myself down there with Le Gall and a fellow British journalist, we both fairly gawked at the 322 square feet. “It’s no longer a suite,” La Gall said. “It’s an apartment. You’d have to go over 100 feet on a monohull to have this amount of space.” Was she speaking Marketingese? Sure. But she’s not wrong.
M8 guests aren’t short-changed either. Opting for a salon-level galley, you can choose a four-or five cabin configuration (with the VIP suite taking the space hit in the five-stateroom setup). On our four-cabin yacht, the VIP cabin felt like a master suite. It occupied much of the portside nacelle’s length and offered a walk-in closet and even a small lounge—which could be a guest office or sanctuary from a blazing party.
The M8’s giant foredeck sunpads and lounge are accessed by comfortably wide, railing-supported walkways. My favorite spot aboard was the genius sunken lower foredeck lounge. Flying above the water on the bow settee, you have the best seat in the house.
The M8 is big enough to feature a stainless-railed indoor spiral staircase to the flybridge and upper helm—a nice touch. With 500 flybridge square feet that include a grill, fridge, an eight-person dining area and lounging settees for at least another eight, it’s an excellent space for entertaining and an entertaining space to drive the boat. This hull’s flybridge roof held a retractable canvas sunroof, but a solid, solar paneled setup can be had with a lithium bank that should power the boat’s house systems overnight without the generator. Taking one of the helm’s two supportive and comfortable flybridge helm seats before a pair of 22-inch Garmin MFD’s (a small, separate screen monitors the engines too), I throttled the twin shaft-drive Volvo Penta D8 600’s. I initially wondered if 1,200 hp was modest for a boat that weighs 116,000 pounds fully loaded. But those twin nacelles give nearly twice the hydrodynamic—and fuel—efficiency of a similar displacement monohull. The center portion of the M8’s bow hull is also sculpted into a vee for cushioning amidst heavy chop and swell, giving an almost hybrid trimaran appearance from the front.
I didn’t have much opportunity to test those chop-defeating chops. The best you could do on this dead-still morning was to turn the boat sharply at speed and confront her three-foot wake. Not surprisingly, she plowed through with comfortable authority. Like every power cat I’ve had the pleasure of driving, she remained remarkably flat while turning and accelerating and incredibly stable for just well, walking around. Offshore, I joysticked her progressive dual bow thrusters and was impressed with her fine maneuverability. Sam Dubois credits joysticks with owner captains buying bigger boats. “They say, ‘Without the joystick, I’d have gotten ten feet less of boat at least,” he said. “’With my family on board, I feel safer. And there’s also less pressure and shouting from my wife.’”
With twin 489-gallon fuel tanks, the M8 is neither a long-range cruiser at speed nor a speed demon. On plane at her 20.8 knot top end, she slurped diesel at 64 gallons per hour. A 49.5 gallons per hour burn at nominal 15-knot cruise gives a mere 350 NM range, but ease back to 8 knots and you’re suddenly sipping fuel at a mere 5.3 gph, with range rocketing to 1,400 NM.
After the sea trial, I crested a high limestone escarpment on the way back to Trieste and pulled over to photograph the spectacular arc of coastline for my wife. From the scenery to the history to the food to the mightily impressive factory and yachts, it was four days of sensory overload—and I was still only granted time to literally skim the surface of this magical part of the world.
I’ll be back.
Prestige M8 Specifications:
LOA: 65’
Beam: 29’
Draft: 5’5”
Fuel: 978 gal.
Water: 224 gal.
Power: 2/600hp Volvo D8-600
Cruise Speed: 15 knots
Top Speed: 20.8 knots
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This article originally appeared in the October 2023 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/boats/prestige-m8-yacht-review
