Sea Axe Fast Support and other shadow/support vessels

Garçon was listed for sale. The asking price is 27 million euros.

Game Changer spent the last 10 months being refitted.

She was lengthened to 72 meters (she now has a suitable swimming platform) and she now sports a new paint scheme. They also improved her noise insulation, positioning/stabilization systems, new interior details, etc..

This looks very similar to Garçon about to be hit by a waterspout. Taken in the Bahamas yesterday.

Sorry members I could not resist!

No wonder it has been sold again. IMO, those boats are totally useless as shadows for a megayacht and a PITA for the crews. If I would force my crews to work on such a faulty construction, they would run away from me.


What does it say about the stability of such a pretty large vessel, if just lifting a little tender, will cause such an angle of list. Besides the typical quality of boats and ships from this yard, the internal layout caused by the narrow and shallow draft hull is also far less than practicable.


But the version with the elevated helicopter deck and hangar below is the absolute culmination of bad design. Dangerous and completely impractical. This design has caused deadly accidents on other yachts.




With the helo lowered into the hangar and the roof closed, the landing pad is unusable for anything.

Back to the boat and its principle. With 4 MTU 16V4000 and its large exhausts above the waterline, this boat is a real fuel to noise converter. Even those huge stabilizers cannot prevent that boat from rolling even on a wet lawn. The boat rides very wet and these expensive toys are sprayed all over and permanently exposed to the environment.

I was on board of this boat during the MYS twice and I had more than enough time to check this boat out. This design is the typical beating of a dead horse by Damen / Amels to make profit out of a useless and not selling commercial design. And please check, where those hulls are build now, it is even worse, as far as quality is concerned.

This is only the personal opinion of an old boater. But I believe, YF should not give so much coverage to bad boats.

Also I personally have a totally different approach towards a shadow for a larger yacht, I am not against the concept of a fast and agile yacht supporter. But to be used as a fast courier boat, as kind of greyhound protecting the yacht (against paparazzi and pirates with high ration anti fire water guns), as a standby tow for the yacht and as a fast transport ship for supply and even the temporary transport of toys.

The Sea Axe concept is just using a totally wrong hull. This very narrow hull with its very ineffective underwater body, although having almost 14 feet of draft, has only very little volume below the water line and most of the weight is located above the pivot point. Also the bow looks very dramatic, it is not very effective. And the forward hull is so narrow (have a look at the crew quarters), that the crew cabins are well below standards. In my country even a rabbit stable has to be bigger.

But using the above mentioned principle with a different hull might really work. For example a large PT boat hull (just the hull, no guns ) with a triple or quad engine configuration, extended to 60 or 65 meters could be usable as a yacht supporter.


Or the hull of one of those SAR ships like the Hermann Marwede with triple engine configuration, extending the hull to about 60 to 65 meters and addition of a full cargo deck would perfectly do the job.




This boats can withstand any weather and seastate and carry enough cargo and toys temporally. And would have sufficient space for crew comfort and even one guest cabin.


But in my personal opinion, the optimum yacht shadow is a long range displacement hull with a large volume for supply, cargo, fuel for the tender and the yacht and enough cargo space for below deck storage of tenders and toys. And by using a commercial cargo vessel, this approach is rather cheap.

That was a quick sale. Her diving facilities were greatly improved and her toys were upgraded during the last refits so that surely made her easier to sell.