PHOTOGRAPH: JEFF BROWNNOVEMBER 2017 WWW.BOATINTERNATIONAL.COM
he owner of 164ftGigi,a
Westport 164, got to the
point where he needed a
larger yacht. It’s a problem
adventurous owners face — big cruising
plans require big boats.
Another solution presented itself at
the 2016 Fort Lauderdale Boat Show and
Gigigot herself a sidekick instead. With
the addition of a Damen Yacht Support
vessel, the owner now has almost 350ft
of boat, but doesn’t exceed nine feet of
draft and enjoys the
ultimate in redundancy
and flexibility.
The boat purchased
was Fast & Furious,
renamed Axis. Built on
spec, her interior and
huge toy-carrying deck
were a blank slate waiting
for someone’s personal
touch. The owner chose
to undertake the
modifications at South Florida’s Dania
Cut shipyard using subcontractors.
Murray & Associates was the logical
choice to handle the refit design and
engineering. Patrick Dupuis, naval
architect at the Fort Lauderdale firm, had
redesigned two of the same 5009 Damen
models (and is working on his fourth), and
this experience brought a lot of creativity
to the table, says the owner.
The practical changes started with
replacing the ducted air conditioning that
was taking up too much real estate with a
chilled water system. Repurposing two
freshwater tanks – one for workshop
space and another for a 1,760 gallon
gasoline tank to fuel the toys –
necessitated adding a watermaker, and
another tank became a walk-in freezer
space. One innovative move was toHow refitting a support vessel
solved one owner’s space problemsPOWER
OF TWO
deck superstructure to stow an Icon
floatplane and Triton 3300/3 submarine.
The open deck behind it holds a Fluid RIB
to support sub and dive operations, Laser
sailboats, WaveRunners and a Hell’s Bay
flats boat. The owner also has a 52ft
Viking, whichAxis’s deck could handle,
but it would require a commercial lift to
load it. If the fleet transits the Panama
CanalAxiswould serve as the sportfisher’s
personal transport ship. For the final
touch, they painted “windows” on her
sides to match the lines of the mothership.
All of this was accomplished in a tight
22 week timeframe.
Cruising plans include the Bahamas
and Caribbean, even islands wiped out by
recent hurricanes. “Our unique, self-
supporting program allows us to do things
other people can’t; we can go to those
places that have been decimated and
help,” says the owner. “We’re also going to
treasure hunt,” he adds. “We have the
perfect program for that.”Bincorporate refrigerated garbage storage
inside the crane’s base. Axis also benefits
from all new audiovisual, communication
and navigation electronics, including the
first Hatteland 55in electronic chart table
in North America.
On the main deck, empty interior space
was turned into guest overflow cabins for
eight. Design improvements included
adding wing stations and rebuilding steep
staircases as spirals.
At the center of the action, the vast toy
deck gained a new hangar aft of the main“Our self-supporting
program allows us
to do things other
people can’t”T
ALL-ACTION HERO
Axis boasts almost
2,500 sq ft of
exterior space,
a crane that can
reach 16ft and lift
13 tons, a top speed
of 22 knots and a
range of 5,000nm