A 45.7-metre yacht that draws 1.8 metres is a rare piece of engineering, and it is the first thing to know about STEALTH. Palmer Johnson built her in 2010 to a Nuvolari Lenard design, with a hull shaped to run fast and sit shallow. She tops 27 knots. She also crosses banks and slips into cuts that most yachts of her length can only look at from the deep water outside, which is precisely why she spends her year in the Bahamas.
Her profile is low, dark-glazed and deliberately unfussy: a long unbroken sheer, tinted bands running the length of the superstructure, no visible clutter. The name is not decoration. Refitted in 2022 and previously named VANTAGE, she carries ten guests in five cabins with nine crew.
Life on board runs outdoors. The main deck aft is one wide social space under a shade awning, a deep settee wrapped across the transom with low tables and sun pads either side, and a separate dining table sits forward of it under the overhang so that lunch and lounging never compete for the same seat. One deck up, the bridge deck aft holds a circular jacuzzi with its own bar surround, jetskis parked on davits either quarter and an awning that comes across for the afternoon. Right forward, the bow opens into a second sun lounge: a curved settee and a low table under a parasol, tucked behind the anchor gear and out of sight of everyone else on board.
Her best trick is on the side. A section of hull folds down at main deck level into a private balcony over the water, railed and teak-laid and large enough for two chairs and a drink. It turns the saloon from an inside room into something open to the sea, and it is the reason she reads as a much newer boat than her build year suggests.
Inside she is warm where the exterior is cool. Cherry and pale timber run through the main deck floor to deckhead, with wide hull windows down both sides at seated height. The lounge takes the after half, with armchairs, a long settee and a large screen, and dining sits forward of it beneath a sculpted mirrored ceiling. In the corner beside the balcony there is a chess table built into the joinery, which is the kind of detail that tells you how a boat is actually used rather than how it was marketed.
Accommodation runs to five cabins in the same cherry joinery. The master is the largest, with a writing desk along one side, windows at berth height and an en suite in marble and glass. Two doubles carry king berths, paired portholes and en suites of their own. Two twins take a pair of singles each, with two further berths available beyond that. Every cabin has its own bathroom, which on a yacht of this generation is not a given.
Nine crew run her. She is not available for charter to EU residents while in EU waters. For everyone else she is a fast, shallow, quietly styled boat with a balcony that folds out of her side, working the Bahamas through the summer and adding the Caribbean for the winter.
