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X-Power 33 sea trial review: Radical hull design delivers both speed and comfort

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Alex Smith gets behind the wheel of X-Yachts’ first ever outboard-powered sportsboat, the X-Power 33...

Nestling stern-to at a sun-drenched Palma pontoon sits a boat that appears to be flaunting its outboard engines at anyone who will look – and plenty of people are stopping to do so.

Although it’s flanked by slick new Marex cruisers on one side and elegantly finessed sailboats on the other, this handsome day cruiser certainly doesn’t look out of place, and when you delve into its heritage, that makes good sense.

After all, in spite of the fact this is the new outboard version of X-Yachts’ first ever powerboat, it has been constructed in the same Danish factory that has given rise to more than four decades of premium custom-built sailing boats.

And the X-Power 33 certainly has that look about it. Cool and restrained with a subtly understated fit-out, confident classical lines and endless ‘teak’-lined decks, you’re left in little doubt that this is a piece of equipment that very much deserves your respect.

Article continues below…

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Though it seems like an odd choice at first, the limousine tender layout of the cockpit works well in lots of ways. For a start, it enables a 33ft boat to contain all eight of its occupants in a safe and sheltered space aft of the helm.

With bench seats facing each other across a central companionway, the layout is naturally sociable, and the fact that you can spec two tables in here means that everyone can be seated in comfort for a relaxed lunch, with or without the shelter of the hardtop-mounted sunshade.

If you want to erect the canvases and close off the forward half of the cockpit for a warm winter drive, you can do that too and you still retain a trio of lovely helm seats plus an internal dining station for four alongside the neat little starboard wet bar.

Read Alex’s full review in the July 2023 issue of MBY, which is out now.

X-Power 33 specifications

LOA: 33ft 6in (10.20m) Beam: 10ft 2in (3.10m) Draft: 3ft 11in (1.2m) Displacement (light): 4,200 kg Fuel capacity: 600 litres Engine options: Single 350-400hp / twin 200-250hp outboards Test engines: Twin 250hp Mercury Verado 4.6-litre V8 outboards Top speed on test: 43 knots Fuel consumption: 48lph @ 20 knots Cruising range: 200nm @ 20 knots Noise: 85 d(B)A @ 20 knots RCD category : C8 Price as tested: €465,000 (ex. VAT)

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2022 X-Yachts X-Power 33C

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You already know X-Yachts for their world-renowned sailing yachts, and now, you can also look to the builder for their incredible powerboat offerings.

Launched in the beginning of 2021, the X-Power 33C is a true complement to X-Yachts’ offerings that is sure to delight both loyal X-Yacht sailors and powerboat enthusiasts alike.

Specifications

Draft 3’11”

Displacement 8818 Pounds

Propulsion Yanmar Inboard (320/350/370 hp available)

Fuel 100 Gallons

Water 26 Gallons

Holding 26 Gallons

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Enjoy the latest X-Yachts series of high-end, brand new, luxury performance boats and all the benefits that come along.

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A yacht which delivers  Superior Sailing Pleasure  is a yacht which sails well in a variety of wind conditions and sea states, offers luxurious comfort, is safe and reliable and provides pure enjoyment when at sea.

Every detail of an X-Yacht, from the hull lines through to the world-class craftsmanship, stem from this idea.

The difference between X-Yachts and other yacht builders comes from how the yachts are designed, built and specified technically. Production cost is not the main priority at X-Yachts, instead features and equipment are chosen, no matter the cost, to ensure all models excel in key areas.

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Vacuum infusion technology, rod rigging, quality by design.

The pleasure of ownership is unbeatable and X-Yachts exists to make your dream come true. Allow us to introduce to you the X-Yachts qualities and attention to details that make them so distinct in the premium and performance sailing yachts category. Building your own X-Yachts according to your exact wishes and specifications will be a smooth process when working with our experienced team. There is a wide range of models for all tastes and needs and we will help you discover which is the right one for you. Immerse in the new range of contemporary performance cruisers and live the dream.

Searching for the perfect pre-owned X-Yacht? We have hand-picked second-hand X-Yachts that tick all or most of the boxes. Our well experienced and brand specific X-Yachts Service Hub team will guarantee that you get all the support you need, in a level equivalent to the values of the brand.  F rom the initial market research, yacht viewing and survey, technical and financial appraisal, troubleshooting, maintenance works, refit projects, legal support and delivery. We will cater for all needs and budgets and help you enjoy the performance, qualities and safety that all X-Yachts offer. 

With more than 40 years of experience in high-performance sailing boats, X-Yachts has now introduced a new and extraordinary initiative, based on the deep experience accumulated over these years: a 33 foot open powerboat for quality-conscious boaters with the same well-proven X-Yacht Ethos. Fast and safe on the water, pride of ownership, innovative development and design.

The X-Power 33C is designed and built with one overall strategy – to comply with what is expected by X-Yachts – Ease of Use. The technical equipment provides an intuitive experience; you only need to push one button, and then you are ready to drive!

Available to the X-Yachts dealers network and to prospective buyers, our Floating Boat Show consists of the largest and most updated fleet of X-Yachts worldwide and is open to welcome you from March to November. You will be able to enjoy the latest X-Yachts series of high-end, brand new, luxury performance boats and take them for a sea trial.

Just 35 minutes away from the Athens International airport El. Venizelos and 45 minutes from downtown Athens, the location is of key importance. Olympic Marine is the home of our X-Yachts, from which you are able to venture to the hundreds of Greek islands and the Mediterranean when the season starts. 

Gain a true impression as to how your X-Yacht will perform by helming one of our X-Yachts in all wind directions and conditions, starting from our base. Accompanied by our X-Yachting team, you can expect an all around demonstration of the X-Yachts model that interests you. Our in-depth knowledge and experience around X-Yachts will provide you with all the information you need, ranging from technical aspects to sailing performance and how this will ultimately translate to your personal lifestyle and living on board. This service is dedicated to helping you make a responsible and informed decision while getting to know the X-Yachts Qualities first hand.

A different kind of worry-free ownership for your new yacht is available at our base in Olympic Marine, 35min from Athens International Airport. Our program portfolio includes the exclusive X-Yachts Care program and the X-Yachts Charter program. All these programs are embraced by our X-Yachts Service Hub, offering high end in-house after sales and  technical support, as well as emergency and concierge services. The final scope is to always remove any stress and allow you enhance your time on board by creating positive memories with your beloved ones in an uncompromised manner. 

Olympic Marine, Lavrio 77th km Athinon-Souniou, 19500 [email protected] +302292023916

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An attorney who helped acquit missing tech tycoon Mike Lynch among those feared dead in superyacht disaster

• A yacht belonging to British tech executive Mike Lynch sunk off the coast of Sicily.
• Christopher Morvillo, who helped Lynch win acquittal at a recent trial, and his wife are missing.
• Morvillo, a former federal prosecutor, worked on high-profile corruption cases.

Among those missing and feared dead in the aftermath of the sinking of "Bayesian," a sailing yacht linked to British technology magnate Mike Lynch , are Lynch's attorney Christopher Morvillo and Morvillo's wife, according to a colleague. Lynch was reportedly on a cruise with friends and coworkers, including Morvillo, to celebrate his acquittal after facing prosecution for financial fraud related to the sale of his company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, as well as two others, are still missing.

Gary Lincenberg, an attorney who represented Lynch's co-defendant Stephen Chamberlain in the high-profile fraud case that recently ended with the acquittal of both men, said Morvillo and his wife "are presumed to be passed away" after the yacht went down near Sicily.

He said the news came shortly after he learned that Lynch's codefendant Chamberlain was killed, struck by a car while jogging on Saturday.

"In the course of 48 hours, I can't process what has happened, but both of our clients, as well as Chris and his wife, are gone," Lincenberg told Business Insider.

Lincenberg said in a follow-up email that Chamberlain "was a courageous man with unparalleled integrity" and that his acquittal preserved his good name, which would live on through his family.

Morvillo's law firm, Clifford Chance, didn't immediately reply to a comment request on Monday. One of Morvillo's family members declined to comment.

Before going into private practice, Morvillo was a federal prosecutor in Manhattan until 2005. He worked on several high-profile corruption cases and comes from a family of well-known New York white-collar attorneys.

Another attorney at the firm, Ayla Ronald, is reportedly among those who survived the yacht's sinking.

Watch: One year after Titan tragedy, another billionaire wants to prove deep-sea exploration is safe

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Lynch Yacht Sinking Off Sicily Proves as Baffling as It Is Tragic

As bodies were recovered, the authorities and experts wondered how a $40 million, stable and secure vessel could have sunk so quickly.

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By Emma Bubola and Michael J. de la Merced

Emma Bubola reported from Porticello, Italy, and Michael J. de la Merced from London.

Two months after being cleared in a bruising legal battle over fraud charges, the British tech mogul Mike Lynch celebrated his freedom with a cruise. He invited his family, friends and part of his legal team on board his luxury sailing yacht, a majestic 180-foot vessel named Bayesian after the mathematical theorem around which he had built his empire.

On Sunday night, after a tour of the Gulf of Naples, including Capri, and volcanic islands in the Eolian archipelago, the boat anchored half a mile off the Sicilian coast in Porticello, Italy. It chose a stretch of water favored by the Phoenicians thousands of years ago for its protection from the mistral wind and, in more recent times, by the yachts of tech billionaires. The boat was lit “like a Christmas tree,” local residents said, standing out against the full moon.

But about 4 a.m., calamity unfolded. A violent and fast storm hit the area with some of the strongest winds locals said they had ever felt. Fabio Cefalù, a fisherman, said he saw a flare pierce the darkness shortly after 4.

Minutes later, the yacht was underwater. Only dozens of cushions from the boat’s deck and a gigantic radar from its mast floated on the surface of the sea, fishermen said.

In all, 22 people were on board, 15 of whom were rescued. Six bodies — five passengers and the ship’s cook — had been recovered by Thursday afternoon, including that of Mr. Lynch, an Italian government official said, adding that the search was continuing for his daughter.

It was a tragic and mystifying turn of events for Mr. Lynch, 59, who had spent years seeking to clear his name and was finally inaugurating a new chapter in his life. Experts wondered how a $40 million yacht, so robust and stable could have been sunk by a storm near a port within minutes.

“It drives me insane,” said Giovanni Costantino, the chief executive of the Italian Sea Group, which in 2022 bought the company, Perini, that made the Bayesian. “Following all the proper procedures, that boat is unsinkable.”

The aura of misfortune only deepened when it emerged that Stephen Chamberlain, 52, a former vice president of finance for Mr. Lynch’s former company and a co-defendant in the fraud case, was killed two days earlier, when he was hit by a car while jogging near his house in England.

Since June, the two men had been in a jubilant mood. A jury in San Francisco had acquitted both on fraud charges that could have sent them to prison for two decades. There were hugs and tears, and they and their legal teams went for a celebratory dinner party at a restaurant in the city, said Gary S. Lincenberg, a lawyer for Mr. Chamberlain.

The sea excursion was meant as a thank-you by Mr. Lynch to those who had helped him in his legal travails. Among the guests was Christopher J. Morvillo, 59, a scion of a prominent New York family of lawyers who had represented Mr. Lynch for 12 years. He and his wife, Neda, 57, were among the missing.

So, too, was Jonathan Bloomer, 70, a veteran British insurance executive who chaired Morgan Stanley International and the insurer Hiscox.

The body of the ship’s cook, Recaldo Thomas, was recovered. All the other crew members survived. Among them was Leo Eppel, 19, of South Africa, who was on his first yacht voyage working as a deck steward, said a friend, who asked not to be identified.

Since the sinking, the recovery effort and investigation have turned the tiny port town of Porticello, a quiet enclave where older men sit bare-chested on balconies, into what feels like the set of a movie.

Helicopters have flown overhead. Ambulances have sped by with the sirens blaring. The Coast Guard has patrolled the waters off shore, within sight of a cordoned-off dock that had been turned into an emergency headquarters.

On Wednesday afternoon, a church bell tolled after the first body bag was loaded into an ambulance, a crowd watching in silence.

The survivors were sheltering in a sprawling resort near Porticello, with a view of the shipwreck spot, and had so far declined to comment.

Attilio Di Diodato, director of the Italian Air Force’s Center for Aerospace Meteorology and Climatology, said that the yacht had most likely been hit by a fierce “down burst” — when air generated within a thunderstorm descends rapidly — or by a waterspout , similar to a tornado over water.

He added that his agency had put out rough-sea warnings the previous evening, alerting sailors about storms and strong winds. Locals said the winds “felt like an earthquake.”

Mr. Costantino, the boat executive, said the yacht had been specifically designed for having a tall mast — the second-tallest aluminum mast in the world. He said the Bayesian was an extremely safe and secure boat that could list even to 75 degrees without capsizing.

But he said that if some of the hatches on the side and in the stern, or some of the deck doors, had been open, the boat could have taken on water and sunk. Standard procedure in such storms, he said, is to switch on the engine, lift the anchor and turn the boat into the wind, lowering the keel for extra stability, closing doors and gathering the guests in the main hall inside the deck.

12 guests occupied the yacht’s six cabins. There were also 10 crew members.

Open hatches, doors and cabin windows could have let in water during a storm, according to the manufacturer.

Open hatches, doors and

cabin windows could

have let in water

during a storm,

according to the

manufacturer.

Source: Superyacht Times, YachtCharterFleet, MarineTraffic

By Veronica Penney

The New York Times attempted to reach the captain, James Cutfield, who had survived, for comment through social media, his brother and the management company of the yacht (which did not hire the crew), but did not make contact.

So far none of the surviving crew members have made a public statement about what happened that night.

Fabio Genco, the director of Palermo’s emergency services, who treated some of the survivors, said that the victims had recounted feeling as if the boat was being lifted, then suddenly dropped, with objects from the cabins falling on them.

The Italian Coast Guard said it had deployed a remotely operated vehicle that can prowl underwater for up to seven hours at a depth of more than 980 feet and record videos and images that they hoped would help them reconstruct the dynamics of the sinking. Such devices were used during the search and rescue operations of the Titan vessel that is believed to have imploded last summer near the wreckage of the Titanic.

After rescuers broke inside the yacht, they struggled to navigate the ropes and many pieces of furniture cluttering the vessel, said Luca Cari, a spokesman for Italy’s national firefighter corps.

Finally, as of Thursday morning, they had managed to retrieve all but one of the missing bodies, and hopes of finding the missing person alive were thin. “Can a human being be underwater for two days?” Mr. Cari asked.

What was certain was that Mr. Lynch’s death was yet another cruel twist of fate for a man who had spent years seeking to clear his name.

He earned a fortune in technology and was nicknamed Britain’s Bill Gates. But for more than a decade, he had been treated as anything but a respected tech leader.

He was accused by Hewlett-Packard, the American technological pioneer that had bought his software company, Autonomy, for $11 billion, of misleading it about his company’s worth. (Hewlett-Packard wrote down the value of the transaction by about $8.8 billion, and critics called it one of the worst deals of all time .) He had been increasingly shunned by the British establishment that he sought to break into after growing up working-class outside London.

He was extradited to San Francisco to face criminal charges, and confined to house arrest and 24-hour surveillance on his dime. In a townhouse in the Pacific Heights neighborhood — with security people he jokingly told associates were his “roommates” — he spent his mornings talking with researchers whom he funded personally on new applications for artificial intelligence. Afterward, he devoted hours to discussing legal strategy with his team.

Despite his persistent claims of innocence, even those close to Mr. Lynch had believed his odds of victory were slim. Autonomy’s chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, was convicted in 2018 of similar fraud charges and spent five years in prison.

During Mr. Lynch’s house arrest, his brother and mother died. His wife, Angela Bacares, frequently flew over from England, and she became a constant presence in the San Francisco courtroom during the trial.

After he was finally acquitted, Mr. Lynch had his eye on the future. “I am looking forward to returning to the U.K. and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field,” he said.

Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting from Pallanza, Italy.

Emma Bubola is a Times reporter based in Rome. More about Emma Bubola

Michael J. de la Merced has covered global business and finance news for The Times since 2006. More about Michael J. de la Merced

X-POWER 33C

A DESIGN WHICH NEVER BLENDS IN

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With more than 40 years of experience in high-performance sailing boats, X-Yachts has now introduced a new and extraordinary initiative, based on some of the deep experience we have accumulated over these years; A 33 foot open powerboat for quality-conscious boaters with the same well proven X-Yacht Ethos. Fast and safe on the water, pride of ownership, innovative development and design.

The X-Power 33C is designed and built with one overall strategy - to comply with what is expected by X-Yachts - Ease of Use. The technical equipment gives for an intuitive experience, as you only need to push one button and then you are ready to drive!

The cockpit

The control panel is carefully designed to be user-friendly and intuitive to allow the driver to focus on the right thing - enjoying the boat ride in comfort and safety.

The navigation and operation system are operated via two integrated 16" screens. With only a few operating items at the control console, the boat is easy to pilot for the driver in charge. The built-in control units fit seamlessly into the panel, and thanks to the illuminated display, intuitive guidance and large buttons, the panel is quick and easy to operate.

Spacious Comfort

The cockpit of X-Power 33C is spacious with three pilot seats and eight sofa seats.

The cockpit table is height-adjustable and in conjunction with its surrounding space it can be transformed into a sunbed near the bathing platform.

The X-Power 33C has an optional T-Top, creating the perfect protection from both sun and wind along with the standard windscreen. A bimini and cockpit tent are optional.

The pantry is easy accessible aft of the pilot seats, it is practically designed and houses as standard a gas cooker and a 30L drawer fridge, with an optional second drawer possible.

Creating the interior of the X-Power 33C, the designer selected only the very best quality materials giving a luxurious first impression.

The cabin cushions are produced in a durable upholstery, and will ensure a comfortable lying position and a good night's sleep. Furthermore, there are plenty of light sources in the cabin.

Below deck, there is a nicely appointed compartment with toilet and shower facilities, along with a mirror that doubles as a window when required.

Pure Driving Pleasure

Interior Luxury

Optional interior, tinted oak

Cockpit and electronic equipment

Introducing the X-Power 33C with twin outboard engines

We have decided to work closely together with two of the biggest brands in this market Yamaha & Mercury. The first boat will be equipped with 2 x 300 hp. Smaller engine sizes will also be available as well as single engines for customers with less requirement for speed and option

When introducing the X-Power 33C with twin outboard motors, it allows for more “Ease of use” features like joystick steering, active trim, adaptive speed control, improved engine data on the twin Simrad MFD & other special features. Not only will it add a different appeal to the boat but also improve performance and maneuverability.

Specifications - Inboard

Specifications - Outboard

Facts about petestep

In the production of X-Power 33C, we are using the patented Petestep ®  technology that results in a more comfortable and fuel efficient boat ride.

No more clatter in waves! Because Petestep® hulls don’t have any horizontal flat surfaces that smash the water under the hull, the biggest source of hull noise is removed. This makes Petestep® hulls create a lot less noise from waves, which significantly adds to the comfort of the ride.

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Italian prosecutor opens manslaughter inquiry in Lynch yacht sinking

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Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari Writing by Frances Kerry Editing by Kirsten Donovan

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab

An Italian prosecutor has opened a manslaughter investigation into the deaths of British tech magnate Mike Lynch and six other people who were killed when a luxury yacht sank off Sicily this week.