Nothing under the sun lasts forever. As things age, they tend to cry out for repair, replacement, reimagine or refresh, whether they’re mechanical, theoretical, cultural or biological.
Dana Point, Calif.-based builder Nordhavn has made a habit of refreshing its designs, sometimes adapting tooling for one successful model to accommodate manufacturing needs of another. In 2003, the company started production on a 55. After delivering 42 of them, Nordhavn extended the tooling to 60 feet. The yard has since delivered around 43 of the N60 hulls. The N63 comes off the same mold as well, and so far, 20 have been delivered.
Now, the Nordhavn N625 also rides on that same, time-tested hull. The N625 is a refresh, if you will, with some styling modernizations and a new approach to options. It incorporates as standard many features often ordered as options on the 60.
“I had drawn the boat a couple of years before we decided to start building it,” says Nordhavn co-owner and Chief of Design Jeff Leishman. “And when the taxes in China—the tariffs—came into effect, it became evident that we needed to maybe do something in Taiwan, so we opened a new factory. It was a perfect boat for them to build because it was fairly simple. And what we’re trying to do with the 625 is keep it more of a standard boat without offering the changes or customizations that we can do in China. We were able to keep the price under control and buy equipment at better rates. We can buy batches of things because we know what’s going to go into the boat.
“My design ideas in the thing were, I wanted to get a little bit more modern look in the boat, a little bit more contemporary,” Leishman continues. “The lines are more in line with what we’re doing on our 80 and our 71. We took all the nice ideas that have come up over the years from customers—mostly interior design ideas and little details—and threw all those into the boat as standard. We packaged it with Humphree electric-fin stabilizers and air conditioning, things that were typically optional on a 60, and just lumped them all in because we could buy them in batches of five or six.”
While the new model retains the hull form of the 60, Leishman incorporated some updates and modernizations. Those include a slightly bigger flybridge, bigger windows in the cabin and some added seating on the foredeck.
“It’s a different look,” Leishman says. “It’s a more modern look: cleaner lines, more updated. Customers are getting a broader list of standard equipment. Their decision-making is not so complicated. And we will accommodate certain things, like we can do a hydraulic package if somebody wants that.”
Like the N60 and N63, the new model will have three staterooms: two below and one abaft the wheelhouse. Additional equipment in the standard package includes Hypro Marine electric/hydraulic steering, a 20-kW Northern Lights generator set, a 1,500-pound capacity Steelhead Esprit davit and a galley with Fisher & Paykel appliances. Customers can choose among teak, cherry or moabi for interior joinery.
The N625 uses a single 325-hp John Deere 6090AFM85 engine run through a 4:1 reduction transmission. A 100-hp “get home” wing engine from Deere is matched to a V-drive transmission. Since the hulls are the same as the N60, and the engines are equivalent, performance will be essentially the same, Leishman says. For comparison’s sake, the N625 should be able to match her sistership’s range of 3,000 nautical miles at 8½ knots and 1,500 nm at 9 knots.
The company has existing orders for several 60s and will continue to build that model for customers who prefer ordering options a la carte.
Hull No. 1 of the N625 series arrived in California last year, and spent significant time cruising in the Pacific Northwest. At the time of this writing, another hull was in the belly of a transport ship, crossing the Pacific on its way to Dana Point for final commissioning.
N625
LOA: 64ft. 8in.
Beam: 18ft.
Draft: 6ft. 8in.
Construction: FRP
Displacement: 138,000 lbs.
Fuel: 2,250 gal.
Water: 600 gal.
Engine: 1x 325-hp John Deere 6090AFM85 w/M2 rating
Info: nordhavn.com
This article was originally published in the January/February 2024 issue.
