PURPOSE was built by Trinity at New Orleans in 2005, and she was built the way
American yards built at the time: a steel hull, an aluminium superstructure,
860 gross tonnes and a full-displacement form with 5,000 miles of range in it.
Two decades and a 2023 refit later, that specification is what makes her
interesting. She goes places, and she carries a crew of eleven while she does
it.
Her range is the argument. Twelve knots and 5,000 miles is an itinerary that
does not have to stay within reach of a fuel dock, which is precisely what South
East Asia asks of a yacht. The Andaman coast, the Mergui archipelago, Komodo and
Raja Ampat are cruising grounds where the distance between one good anchorage
and the next is measured in overnight passages rather than afternoons. On a
displacement hull with stabilisers working at rest and underway, those passages
happen while everybody sleeps.
Dee Robinson drew the interior and it is unapologetically traditional: dark
mahogany panelling, cut-glass chandeliers, gilt-framed pictures and deep
carpets. The main saloon lightens it considerably with cream tub chairs and
electric-blue velvet, and the effect is a room that feels like a club rather
than a hotel. Dining is a separate saloon forward, round table, patterned chairs
and a glazed wine store set into the panelling. Above, the sky lounge is the
easier room: a bold blue-and-white patterned carpet, low swivel chairs, a chess
table and artwork with some humour in it.
A lift serves the guest decks, which on a five-deck yacht is a practical piece
of specification rather than a flourish, and it changes who can charter her
comfortably. The sundeck carries a raised jacuzzi on teak steps with a curved
bar alongside, sun loungers along the rail, a full gym with a treadmill and a
weight station, and a grill. A cinema screen plays in the open air after dark.
The aft deck below is furnished as a lounge with e-bikes racked at the back of
it, and the stern opens into a beach club with a 20 by 50-foot inflatable
platform, a 30-foot waterslide, three jet skis, two waverunners, three eFoils,
kayaks, paddleboards, kiteboarding and surf equipment, and a full complement of
deep-sea and fly fishing gear.
Twelve guests sleep in six cabins. The master is full-beam on the main deck,
finished in blue against the mahogany with a chandelier, a private office and an
en-suite with a jacuzzi bath. A full-beam VIP sits below with a king bed, and
four further staterooms follow – three kings and a twin – several of them with
library shelving worked into the joinery, which is a nice piece of thinking on a
yacht built for long passages.
Eleven crew for twelve guests, on a boat with the range to use them properly.
The 2023 refit brought her systems and finishes current without touching what
makes her work, which is the hull underneath. Steel yachts of this generation
were built with a margin the market has since engineered out, and it shows in how
she behaves in a seaway. She is not a fast boat and does not pretend to be. She
is a comfortable one over distance, which is a different and rarer quality.
For a group that wants to cross real distance rather than circulate between the
same three bays, PURPOSE is a genuinely different proposition.
