Horizon Yachts will show the PC68A at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, 28 October to 1 November. It is a version of the 20.73-metre PC68 power catamaran, built to order for an owner who uses a wheelchair. The first boat, hull 9, is finished and makes its world debut there. It has a lift through three levels, five ways to board in a wheelchair and two 850 hp MAN engines, and Horizon says its batteries run the boat up to 20 hours a day without the generator.
Austin Lin, president of Vision Shipyard in Taiwan, part of Horizon Group, and Richard Ford of The Powercat Company, Horizon's US dealer, reworked the production PC68 from the ground up around the owner's routes through the boat.
Richard Ford, founder and CEO, The Powercat Company:“Designing for accessibility isn't about adding features. It's about removing obstacles before they're ever encountered. We wanted to create a yacht that allows owners to move naturally throughout every space while preserving everything people love about the Horizon PC68.
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How the lift on the PC68A works
Horizon designed the lift for this boat. It takes the owner from the master cabin in the starboard hull up to the main deck, then on to the flybridge and the Portuguese deck forward. In the saloon the glass shaft stands beside the galley island, near the door to the aft deck. Its doors are frameless glass, so the saloon stays open around it.
A turntable built into the car rotates the wheelchair, so the owner can roll in and out on either side without turning round in a tight space. "When you push the button to the lower cabin, it takes her down and turns her. Then she just slides straight out into the cabin," Ford told Yachting magazine. Horizon calls it the first lift of its kind on a power catamaran this size and has not named the maker or the load rating.
Five ways aboard and a deck without sills
A retractable boarding ramp, widened side gates and a hydraulic hi-lo platform at the stern give the owner at least five ways to board in a wheelchair; Horizon does not say how the five break down. What is known is that Horizon moved the tender crane so the owner can get between yacht, dock and tender without help. At the stern she drives onto the platform between the aft-deck seats. "She transfers to a waterproof seat, goes down, takes the Seabob and goes snorkeling," Ford said.
The saloon doors open automatically and the main deck floor is flush. The team sourced a wheelchair in Japan with the tightest turning circle it could find, so the owner can move as freely as possible both inside the yacht and on the open decks.
Up to 20 hours without the generator
The boat carries Horizon's Silent Living Package: a 1,600 amp-hour Victron lithium iron phosphate battery bank and Termodinamica air conditioning with a variable-speed compressor. Horizon says the pair can run the boat for up to 20 hours with the single 21.5 kW Onan generator switched off. Underway, high-output alternators on the engines recharge the bank. Victron inverter-chargers start and stop the generator automatically and let the batteries cover peak loads.
The package is standard on Horizon's production PC52, PC60 and PC68 catamarans, and the yard claims an 84 per cent improvement in energy efficiency. For comparison, the MODX 70 sailing catamaran from France's Océan Développement carries a 250 kWh battery bank and no generator at all; the PC68A keeps a diesel generator and uses the batteries to run without it.
PC68 hull, engines and range
Angelo Lavranos drew the resin-infused hull, which carries Humphree stabilisers. Horizon quotes 20 knots cruising and about 25 knots top speed for the PC68A model and has published no range for this model. In Yachting's 2023 test of the standard PC68, the measured fuel burn gave a range of 1,417 nautical miles at 10 knots and 644 at 19.7 knots. Power & Motoryacht put its volume closer to a 90-foot monohull, the same case Oyster makes for its first catamaran, the C60.
At the show the PC68A will be at Dock F, Slip 608, Horizon says, next to a PC60 with the master cabin on the main deck. Horizon keeps experimenting with the PC68: the next boat on the platform will be the first with five cabins. She is due to launch in January 2027, and her debut follows soon after at the Palm Beach International Boat Show.
Photo: Horizon Yachts. Source: Horizon Yachts, Yachting, Power & Motoryacht, Southern Boating.
