2019 Fairline Targa 63 GTO

The first thing I noticed about the Targa 63 GTO—the O stands for Open—is how she performs double duty as an enclosed motoryacht and an open express boat. The salon door simply slides to starboard then drops, along with the salon window, down into the deck. This is a trick I’ve seen before, but considering the size of the door and window on the 63 it’s impressive.

The feeling of openness continues into the salon where deck-level windows and an expansive sunroof fill the space with light, even on a cloudy day. A smart touch that you won’t notice is that the windows are enhanced with a film that reduces harmful UV rays by as much as 50 percent. That’s forward thinking you really can’t put a price on.

It’s pretty rare that onboard furniture impresses me, but looking at the table in the salon prompted one of those why-didn’t-I-think-of-that moments. Built on an angular pedestal, when it’s lowered to coffee-table level there’s an appropriate amount of space to walk around it. When dinner’s ready the table raises up to the perfect forearm-resting height at which you don’t have to hunch forward. And that’s not its only trick. The center section of the table folds up and allows the guest, or antsy children, to escape from the center of the C-shaped settee without having to slide under it or ask the other four to five guests to get up and out of the way. Those are the kinds of details that make the 63 special.

The galley on Hull No. 1, which debuted in Cannes, was to port of the helm. I like its location there. It easily services the salon, and, thanks to a single-level layout, is only a few paces to the cockpit.

“We’re building a global boat so we need to design what the customer wants,” says Fairline’s Head of Design Andrew Pope, “not what we want for the customer.”

The three-stateroom layout (a four-staterom version is available) is conventional in its accommodations placement, but little else. As a marine journalist I try not to seem overly impressed by any one feature when walking through a boat for the first time. Then I learned that the mosaic details in the head were actually from thinly sliced seashells. Yes. Really.

The 1,150-horsepower Caterpillar C18s quickly brought the boat to about 28 knots. (The builder is hoping to gain a few extra knots from a different set of props.)

Comfort. That’s the high point of this boat’s ride. With naval architecture from Vripack, the 63 was stable and surefooted when running through its own wake. Part of that comfort equation is the hull design, of course—the 63 has a double-chine hull, with one chine under the water to provide lift and the second out of the water to eliminate chine slap.

But comfort is also courtesy of sound attenuation. Fairline gave this feature a lot of attention. Flexible couplings on the shafts and flexible engine mounts add up to one of the quietest rides I’ve encountered. I registered 71 decibels of sound at the helm at WOT; for comparison’s sake, 65 decibels is the standard noise level of a normal conversation.  —Daniel Harding Jr.

Fairline Yachts, +44 1832 273 661; fairlineyachts.com

LOA: 65’4”
Beam: 17’2”
Draft: 4’8”
Displ.: 74,940 lbs.
Fuel: 1,100 gal.

Water: 285 gal.
Standard Power: 2/1,150-hp Cat C18s
Optional Power: 2/1,200-hp MAN V8s
Top Speed: 28 knots
Base Price: $1,820,000