OnBoard Magazine - Issue XIII - 2021 Season

To their own admission, some of the unique customizations were keeping the Viking engineers up at night. But through the collaboration with Nichols, Captain Mark Rogers, Earle Hall and the Bluewater Yacht Yard staff, there were a lot of bright, experienced minds involved. In fact, some of the solutions were already “pre-programmed” by the ingenuity of the Hampton team who had already tackled these challenges before. While all the customizations for the 72 were carried out at the Viking factory, they had Bluewater’s extensive experience back in Virginia to draw from—having customized both the 64’ for Nichols and 55’ Cuttin’ Up for Jones, before that. For the Bluewater team, it was old hat to solve wheelchair access from the dock to the cockpit, and then to the flybridge. You basically need a mounted davit system, and some modifications to the belly band to create a swing gate for access, and voila! Perry’s sitting up in the breeze with the captain. This is a huge oversimplification of course—because to accommodate these types of load bearing additions, you need to plan far ahead and add plenty of structural reinforcement, which Viking saw to. Not only is the davit a special arrangement from a vendor confident enough to take on the liability of lifting a person in the air, but it also needs a full post system under the bridge apron to bear the load and provide the necessary range of movements. There were other aspects from the 64 that they really wanted to take to the next level in the 72, such as installing lifts instead of ramps wherever possible. “To me, that’s the coolest part, is that Perry gets inside the boat via an elevator instead of a ramp,” says Hall. A scissor lift does the job of getting his wheelchair between cockpit and salon, and an elevator safely services the master stateroom. Inside the salon, grooved rails are inlayed into the floor in the places Perry prefers to hang out, so his chair can be fastened down for safety when conditions warrant. This new Viking may have more rub rails than any other boat, just not where one would usually expect them—chair guards were applied along the bed and interior facade of the master stateroom to avoid undue wear on the woodwork and to make access to the head and shower easier. “Whenever you do a custom boat like this, you learn each person needs something different because of their specific case. There is no cookie-cutter situation from customer to customer,” says Earle. That’s where Bluewater, Viking and the customer’s close collaboration produce a better product and quality of experience for the boat owner. ENJOYING THE MOMENT Nichols had been adamant he receive the 72 in time to fish the 2020 Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament in early June. Everyone knew it would be a tight window, but when the COVID restrictions hit, and Viking was forced to shutdown their factory for a stint, Perry says he was left wondering if he’d have the boat at all that summer. But sure enough, Viking came through as promised, and Earle and Connor Hall delivered the new 72’ Knot Done Yet to Morehead City several weeks prior to the “There is nothing we wouldn’t have done to help him.” 8 BLUEWATER