Riviera 6800 Sport Yacht Platinum Edition | Yacht Review
Riviera Yachts won praise with its Sport Yacht series. The boats are epic poems to the Aussie boating life, offering the ideal combination of indoor-outdoor living atop lithe, stout hulls built to take on the notoriously heavy seas off Australia.
The model line, which ranges in size from 46 to 60 feet, was further enhanced several years back with the Platinum Series. The in-house customization graces the boats with modified exterior and interior styling cues that include striking gunmetal hulls and dark electronics arrays with matching soft goods and other luxe touches throughout.
With this winning combination, it was no surprise that the flagship 6800 Platinum Edition, which made her U.S. premiere at the Ft. Lauderdale boat show, was already a smashing success. The builder said it had sold an astonishing 30 hulls following her world debut at Australia’s Sanctuary Cove boat show. My tour all but confirmed that the 6800 is primed to earn the same accolades stateside.
Boarding from the swim platform, I was faced with the open transom door to the tender garage and was happy to see the dinghy (the garage can accommodate a tender up to 12 feet) sat in a cradle that is launched with an electric winch onto the hydraulic platform. Keep it simple, I thought. Another nice touch was a built-in rain showerhead within the transom door.
The door is split, with its smaller port side granting access to the engine room. That well-organized space has well over 6 feet of headroom throughout but limited space above the big, 12.8-liter engines due to the tender garage. Access points, however, are within easy reach, with the outboard areas of the engine room dedicated to AC chillers, a pair of gensets and a bank of LiFePO4 batteries. A watertight door leads to a utility room/crew quarters and into the master stateroom. With the vast majority of Riviera buyers being owner-operators, easy access to the mechanicals is a must.
Flanking stairs led from the swim platform to the 150-square-foot cockpit, which is my favorite space on the 6800. There’s room for up to 10 guests on two settees, a galley with grill, refrigerator drawers and a folding dining table. The area is protected from the sun by the hardtop, tinted glass quarter panels and an electrically retractable blind that shields its aft section. For all-day sun worshipers, the foredeck lounge beckons.
Like previous Sport Yachts, the indoor-outdoor boundaries are blurred from the cockpit to the salon thanks to its large, electric window to port and a glass-and-steel sliding door.
Close the door, and the salon shines. The glossy walnut strikes a cool counterpoint to the light soft goods and the starboard helm, which gets the full Platinum treatment that includes a pair of infinitely adjustable, Recaro-style helm seats with handsome diamond stitching and carbon-fiber accents around the MFDs. Views for the captain are excellent thanks to the large, double-pane windshield and large windows to port and starboard. For close-quarters maneuvers, the cockpit has a wing station with joystick and thruster controls on each side.
Six steps down a centerline companionway lead to her accommodations that include an amidship, full-beam master, VIP forward and a pair of staterooms with single berths (three of the four are en suite.) I prefer the optional three-stateroom layout that subs out the cross-berth stateroom for a lower lounge, the only caveat being that one of the stateroom’s en suites will be pressed into service as a dayhead.
Performance-wise, the 6800 fits right in with her brethren. The only engine option is a pair of 1,000-horsepower Volvo Penta D13s mated to IPS drives, which look to be ideally matched to her hull. When tested off the builder’s Gold Coast facility, she saw a top speed of over 32 knots and a fast cruise just shy of 26 knots. The sweet spot looks to be 1800 rpm and 20.5 knots, which returns a range of 451 nautical miles with a 10-percent reserve. At 8 knots, the 6800 is good for 1,350 NM.
Other notable standards on this impressive yacht include Humphree trim and stabilization package, CZone digital switching and Volvo Penta’s Assisted Docking system.
Riviera 6800 Specifications:
LOA: 72’ 9”
Beam: 18’ 3”
Draft: 5’ 5”
Displ.: 81,791 lb.
Fuel: 1,189 gal.
Water: 211 gal.
Power: 2/1,000-hp Volvo Penta D13-IPS1350
This article originally appeared in the March 2025 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
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Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/cruisers/riviera-6800-sport-yacht-platinum-edition-yacht-review
