Quality in Motion
Courtesy ECLIPSE Yachts
Most people who had just flown halfway around the world from South Africa to Florida would be pretty darn tired. But Tim Derrico, director of sales at HMY Yachts, the designated ECLIPSE Yachts dealer, could hardly contain his excitement.
He was just back from his most recent visit to the shipyard that builds the ECLIPSE 505 Shadow and its new sistership, the ECLIPSE 605 Shadow. It’s a massive shipyard that turns out custom catamarans up to 75 feet long, in addition to rescue boats for the South African government. “The high level of quality is clear – they know what they’re doing. Their key people have been in the industry for a long time and the team knows how to build production boats and get things done,” Derrico said in late June. “It’s really quite the operation. When you walk into the ECLIPSE building, there are a handful of boats in build.
The ECLIPSE 505 Shadow is already a hit with HMY’s customers, he says. Several satisfied owners are using the versatile boats in all kinds of different ways.
“We hear it from everybody: They look great; they perform great,” he says. “These express cruisers have a lot of the features that people are looking for today in cruising outboard boats. From island hopping around the Bahamas to cruising the Eastern Seaboard, it’s a great open water boat —it’s a Michael Peters design. You want the nicest sandbar boat? There you go . Because it’s an outboard boat, you can push the bow right up on the sandbar, put the balcony down, and you’ve got it.”
Courtesy ECLIPSE Yachts
The ECLIPSE 605 Shadow will be all of that and more, in a bigger package that has three staterooms and three heads. The first 605 Shadow’s hull and deck are done, with the second hull in the mold as of midsummer.
As with the 505 Shadow, the 605 Shadow is being designed from day one to include outboard power. ECLIPSE teamed up with Michael Peters Yacht Design to bring this express cruiser series to life. That’s a big deal, according to John Dial, Eclipse sales manager for HMY Yachts.
“There are other boats out there that are constructed with a similar layout and look , but I don’t think there are many boats constructed with a hull laid specifically for this kind of performance,” Dial says. “A lot of builders in the express cruiser space will hang outboards on them and glass on a bracket, but the boat isn’t constructed at the level ECLIPSE offers. You’ll see hulls modified one way or the other.”
Dial says the design and construction quality is evident in the way each ECLIPSE hull comes out of the mold at the shipyard. The method utilized for the gelcoat and paint creates an extra quality-control step for every single ECLIPSE boat.
Courtesy ECLIPSE Yachts
“Generally speaking, there are two types of boats,” Dial explains. “There are those that are painted and those that will be painted, according to my old friend and boat builder Bob Roscioli. A manufacturer using a pigmented gelcoat in the process will put the desired color gelcoat in the mold so that it comes out with the colored gelcoat exterior on it.” Gelcoat is higher annual maintenance than painted boats due to the need to buff more frequently to maintain the shine.
On the ECLIPSE line, by contrast, the gelcoat is applied clear and then gets faired, sanded, then painted with multiple coats of quality paint and final layers of clear coat in the production process. The clear gelcoat allows the shipyard team to see if there are any imperfections in the layup process. “It’s like looking at a glass window of the layup,” Dial says. “A lot of boats out there now are exterior pigmented colored gelcoat because it’s a less-expensive way to build.”
On the other side of the coin, the level of attention to detail at ECLIPSE he adds, is something that sets the brand apart from competing boatbuilders. “What we’re doing with ECLIPSE is going over everything with a fine-tooth comb.”
Courtesy ECLIPSE Yachts
Dial says boaters who want to check out the ECLIPSE line can visit the HMY Yachts Sales Willoughby Creek facility in Stuart, Florida. The company has two of the 505 models there, with one of them being used as a demo boat. There is a third boat being displayed at Northern boat show events so that people can experience, in person, what the ECLIPSE line is. From the Florida location, he adds, it’s easy to do a test run and get a real feel for how the boat handles on the water.
“We’re 15 minutes to the inlet, and we can run in any kind of weather for test runs,” Dial says. “And this boat only drafts about 3 feet. You can trim up motors and go in shallow waters in it. You can cruise this boat very comfortably and economically at 38 knots. That’s good in anybody’s book. That’s here to West End, Bahamas, in two hours with no problem.”
Dial says he also sees a lot of applications for cruising the ECLIPSE boats in other parts of the country too.
“For South Florida, New England, or the lowcountry, these boats are perfect,” Dial says. “You can run from Hilton Head to Charleston or Savannah for the day or throughout the weekend. The ECLIPSE 605 Shadow, with its additional onboard space and creature comforts, will be good for all of that and more. Derrico says that while the hope is for the first ECLIPSE 605 Shadow to be ready in time for the fall and winter boat-show seasons at the end of 2025 and into early 2026, the company isn’t rushing to make any deadlines.
The top priority is quality, he says, no matter how long it takes to get everything just right.
“We want to work with urgency, but let’s not rush,” Derrico says. “Our philosophy only allows for doing things the right way.”
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