Four hulls, 7,000 nautical miles: Jason Dickey on the design and development Pacific 62

When Jason Dickey and the team set out to design the Pacific 62, they weren't drawing a boat for a client. They were designing one for Jason's own family: a vessel efficient enough to run for a year or two around the Pacific, with kids aboard and homeschooling underway, without the fuel bill and berthage making the whole idea unachievable.

That brief drove some unconventional decisions. The tender went on the roof rather than the cockpit, keeping the run from wheelhouse to transom to water completely clear for fishing and diving. A possible wing engine got binned in favour of twin 150hp Yanmars on variable-pitch props, which lets the boat shut one driveline down, feather the prop and cruise at seven or eight knots on a single engine.

Four hulls later, with 7,000 nautical miles of New Zealand coastal cruising and a 1,200 mile passage to Fiji behind the prototype, the numbers back the thinking. In the video below, Jason walks through how the Pacific 62 came together and what the boat is actually returning at sea.