The city of Trieste has existed in some form or another for millennia. Perched atop forested limestone outcroppings in northeastern Italy, it is the centerpiece of the Gulf of Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. Just a few miles from the Slovenian border, 15 miles from Croatia and 50 miles from southern Austria, it’s a true cultural crossroads. The Romans built a wondrous walled city here, and an amphitheater for more than 3,000 spectators. The Austro-Hungarian Hapsburgs built a magnificent, canal-served marketplace and port city with a classic seafront promenade. The city became part of Italy in 1954, and, just a few months ago, served as the backdrop for Prestige Yachts to unveil the latest powercat in its M Series line, the M8.
Prestige’s parent company, Groupe Beneteau, had Hull No. 1 as the centerpiece at Portopiccolo, a former rock quarry that’s now a resort and marina. As for the boat’s name, M8 is wordplay on her size: According to the builder, to get the same 3,000-plus square feet of living space aboard the 65-foot catamaran, you’d need an 80-foot-long monohull.
Product Marketing Manager Rosalie Le Gall said that while many power catamarans are modified versions of sailing cats, the M8 is (like her predecessor, the M48) new from the stringers up. Prestige had no need to re-engineer the reinforced center structure that a sailing cat’s mast requires, a common practice that can make powercats taller and wider than is optimal for maneuverability—particularly in following seas or when taking on a beam wind.
The beam on the M8 is 29 feet, and the stern area is wide enough to host a Greek wedding. The aft deck and salon are one level with more than 1,180 square feet of 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 Opacmare swim platform that Le Gall calls “the transformer.”
“It was first engineered 15 years ago, so it’s very reliable and is used on lots of superyachts,” she says. “I think it’s the first time one has been used on a boat of this size.” Raised, the swim platform is an extension of the main deck. Midway down, it’s level with the stern garage, where owners can load and unload paddleboards and gear. Fully lowered, the platform drops into the sea so guests can swim right off, or the tender can nose up to the garage.
The salon is accessed by four sturdy glass doors—two to port, one to starboard and two aft. When they’re all opened—coupled with the boat’s rear-raked windshield and sole-to-ceiling windows—the demarcations between indoor and outdoor blur. A handsome bar serves both the salon and the aft deck, creating a space for socializing with a lot of people.
The M8 was drawn by longtime Prestige collaborator Camillo Garroni with interior design by Valentina Militerno de Romedis. Prestige says the boat has a Miami aesthetic. Furniture, including pieces by the Italian studio Pininfarina, is set up in a loose configuration with rounded shapes and throw pillows. Sturdy glass tables have 3D-printed, sandwich-layered surfaces that resemble marble on the dining table and carbon fiber on side tables.
Within the salon is the joystick-controlled helm, which has no steering wheel. The trio of Garmin multifunction displays have Surround View, which grants an augmented reality, bird’s-eye view of the boat. There’s also a wing station with a joystick in the aft deck for docking.
Hull. No. 1 has a galley-up with Miele appliances, but the boat can be ordered with the galley down. Owners also can choose a four- or five-stateroom configuration. Hull No. 1’s four-stateroom layout felt like the right fit, with the VIP sized more like a master. It occupied much of the port hull with a walk-in closet and a lounge that could be used as a guest office or a sanctuary from a blazing party.
The full-beam master stateroom is forward with a private companionway on centerline from the salon. I gawked at its 322 square feet. “It’s no longer a suite,” La Gall says. “It’s an apartment. You’d have to go over 100 feet on a monohull to have this amount of space.”
An elegant, stainless-rail spiral staircase provides interior access to the flybridge and upper helm. At 500 square feet, the flybridge is home to a grill, a fridge, an eight-person dining area and lounging settees for at least another eight people. The hardtop on Hull No. 1 has a retractable canvas sunroof, but a solid, solar-panel setup can be ordered. That, plus a lithium battery bank, can power the boat’s house systems overnight without the generator.
Taking one of the flybridge helm’s two seats before a pair of 22-inch Garmin multifunction displays, I throttled the twin 600-hp Volvo Penta D8s. This boat weighs about 116,000 pounds fully loaded, but her tall pontoons give nearly twice the hydrodynamic and fuel efficiency of a similar-length displacement monohull. The center portion of the M8’s bow is sculpted into a vee for cushioning in heavy chop and swell, giving the boat an almost hybrid trimaran appearance from the front.
The best I could do on that dead-still morning in Italy was to turn the boat sharply at speed and confront her 3-foot wake. Not surprisingly, she plowed through with comfortable authority. She also remained flat while turning and accelerating, and was incredibly stable for walking around.
At a 15-knot cruise speed, the M8 burned just under 50 gallons of fuel per hour, good for a 350-nautical-mile range. Throttled back to 8 knots, fuel burn dropped to 5.3 gph, which calculates to a 1,400-nm range. Pin the throttles and she’ll top out just under 21 knots.
With the M8, Prestige Yachts once again shows that it is arguably the most exciting nameplate within the Groupe Beneteau constellation of brands.
PRESTIGE M8
LOA: 65ft.
Beam: 29ft.
Draft: 5ft. 5in.
Displacement: 116,117 lbs.
Fuel: 978 gal.
Water: 224 gal.
Engine: 2x 600-hp Volvo Penta D8
Info: prestige-yachts.com
This article originally appeared in the October 2023 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine and was published in the November/December 2023 issue of Passagemaker.
