Don Pedro from Holland

The Pedro shipyard was founded more than 35 years ago and during this time has presented almost two thousand yachts to lovers of water recreation.

It was “given away”, since the boats of this brand have always been distinguished by quite reasonable prices.

Not much has changed since the time when Emperor Peter studied shipbuilding in Holland. The Netherlands remains the leading shipbuilding country in terms of reliable, comfortable and leisurely yachts. And the only one where boats are made of steel. Unless, of course, do not count Russia. But in our country the number of such shipyards can be counted on one hand, and in little Holland there are several dozen of them.

Shipbuilders from the town of Zuidbroek have so much merit that they may well bear the title of "Don"

Most of the Dutch shipbuilders do not try to "reinvent the wheel", but order the project of the future ship from the most reputable company in this industry - the famous Vripack. They will do everything there. From draft design to pilot sample. This is exactly what Pedro-Boat BV has been doing in recent years. The most popular boats of the company have descended from Vripack boards (Pedro positions itself as Boats, not Yachts). True, any of our compatriots first of all associates this name with Don Pedro from the country of wild monkeys.

The shipyard Pedro-Boat BV was founded more than 35 years ago and during this time has presented almost two thousand yachts to lovers of water recreation. It was “given away”, since the boats of this brand have always been distinguished by quite reasonable prices. Today, a team of fifty people annually produces about the same number of yachts. Broad nomenclature! These are the Marin 30, Donky 30, 34, 37, Solano 38, Aspre 36, Levanto 32, 38 and 44, Pedro 32 and 36, Skiron 35 and the flagship Bora 43. (Hereinafter, the boat indexes show their length in feet) .

The powerful and integral image of the Bora 43 has been forged for almost a decade and a half. The first Bors did not even reach 35 feet, therefore they looked rather curvy. Each subsequent model added a foot, but today's Bora 43, at 12.95 meters long and 4.4 meters wide, is still the smallest vessel among steel yachts of similar architecture and layout. The designers managed to make around the cabin a promenade deck, closed from rain and sun, seventy centimeters wide and with gates in the sides, which, combined with a canopy over the cockpit, turns Bora into a real “steamboat”. For those wishing to sunbathe, the upper deck, which can no longer be called a flybridge, is at your service. Where else have you seen almost 25 square meters flybridges?

Upstairs is a U-shaped sofa with lockers (optional), a powerful mast capable of lifting a dinghy, and a second control post. Three steps down lead to the wheelhouse. On the port side there is a sofa on a small podium, which appeared due to layout considerations: under the podium there is a corridor to the bow cabins and a latrine. At the request of the customer, the wheelhouse can be either combined into one space with the aft saloon or isolated by a partition, which will allow sailing the yacht even at night, while the company continues to walk in the saloon flooded with light. Below, next to the gangway to the aft saloon, there is a writing desk, opposite it is a well-equipped galley. Another half a level down and we find ourselves on the lowest deck. There is a spacious (more than two meters long!) latrine with a shower. In the bow is the master cabin with a huge bed, a bunch of lockers and a dressing table. On the starboard side is a guest cabin, where there can be up to four beds as in a carriage compartment. So if you count from this level, Pedro Bora 43 turns out to be a four-deck ship!

The yacht's hull is welded from 5 mm thick steel sheets, the deck is 4 mm thick, and the superstructure is made of 6 mm aluminum. The 17-tonne vessel is powered by a 6-litre Perkins Saber M185, with the power reflected in the motor index. At 2200 rpm. this Perkins allows the yacht to achieve a top speed of 9.4 knots. Fuel consumption of 35 liters per hour and a noise level of 70 decibels for such a hulk can be considered quite acceptable. But if the speed is reduced to 1300, the speed will drop only to 6.7 knots, but the consumption of diesel fuel will drop as much as 8.5 liters per hour. If you really want silence, then at 4.8 knots the noise level will be only 59 dB, and only 6 liters will go out of a 1200-liter fuel tank per hour! Although, fuel consumption for a yacht worth about 400 thousand Euros is not a dominant factor.

At the other extreme of the company's production program is Marin. Apart from the very idiosyncratic Rogger 850AK, Pedro Boats has managed to create the most practical boat in the 30ft class. Yes, style and practicality are incompatible on yachts of this size. Pedro Marin 30, launched for the first time four years ago, turned out ... The way it turned out.

At 9.1 meters long with a width of 3.4, it turned out to arrange a spacious saloon, an aft cabin with many wardrobes and a dressing table, a comfortable latrine with a shower, a galley with a dinette and a large double bed at the very bow of the ship. All this became possible thanks to the simplified contours of the "sharpy" type with a small bow transom. Beauty is not the main thing here!

Thanks to these contours, the manufacture of the hull in Hungary, which is being completed in the Netherlands, and the shipyard's inherent minimalism in finishing, it was possible to set a very attractive price. Agree, about 170,000 Euros for all the amenities offered - very good! Paying about 20 more you can get a running awning, a Webasto heater, a boiler, an anchor winch, a charger and a few other nice additions, including Raymarine Tridata.

A rather spacious cockpit, high (the company never ceases to emphasize this) railings and sufficient equipment allow you to go on a long journey. A real family boat! Good autonomy is served by a 390-liter fuel tank, and the desire to stick to the vending shore, a draft of 0.9 meters. Diesel Perkins M92 already at 1200 rpm. provides a speed of 5.9 knots, without putting six dozen decibels on the crew's ears, and on the owner's wallet with five liters of consumed diesel fuel per hour of reliable operation. The maximum that Marin can do is 8 knots. But, as they say, do you need it?

Skiron 35 is the most beautiful yacht in the company’s lineup!

Beauty is a terrible force! Apparently, the company was guided by this slogan when deciding to order Vripack and release the Pedro Skiron 35. The most beautiful yacht in the company's model range! Even today the Skiron looks fresh and elegant. For ten years these boats have been plying the water expanses of Europe, both in private ownership and on charter flights. Anyone can try driving a steel cruiser of 8.5 tons displacement for one and a half thousand Euros per week. You can't rent it in Moscow for 185 thousand rubles a day Pedro 32 with one cabin and a cockpit!

As a result, the Skiron has become the most popular yacht in the company's lineup. In addition to its elegant appearance (except for the absurdly high awning through the radar arch), its trump cards include a lot of layout options, a cool bathing platform with a huge hatch from the aft cabin and a very attractive price. But the price also has a downside.

Among all its competitors, the Skiron 35 has a rather simple interior design. Here you will not see nobly rounded corners and carefully sized cabinets. Everything is quite simple and practical. But one miscalculation of the designers, nevertheless, makes the interior of the cabin unconventionally strange. Nowhere else is such a technique used as folding wooden hatches above the doors to the aft cabin and latrine! Not very comfortable and not very aesthetically pleasing.

Pedro Skiron can be ordered in various layouts. Sleeping accommodations in the bow part, open or isolated by a bulkhead. Or located there a separate cabin with a double bed and a personal latrine. Or a spacious dinette near the galley. Master stateroom forward and galley aft with dinette? You are welcome! Maybe you want a wide cabin, or maybe a second control post on the port side? The Pedro Boat company is always ready to fulfill any wishes of the client. Even make the entire interior with the necessary rounding. For a very separate fee.

But the yacht will remain the same externally. Dimensions 10.60x3.50, a powerful fender at the waterline, an elegant stem and railing bends. For those who do not care much about the capacity of fuel and water tanks (300 and 250 liters, respectively), they may well be in line for construction. Or find a suitable used Skiron yacht, which are offered on the secondary market at prices ranging from 110 to 180 thousand Euros.

"Maximum Usability" Probably the main task in the design of yachts of the Levanto series. By the way, the same Vripack engineers. In 2006, the Levanto 44 was the first to see the light - with a length of 13.35 meters, the largest ship in the Pedro model range. The water-engine community has been preparing for the appearance of the Levanto 32 for a long time, and two years ago the Levanto 32, 9.7 meters long, appeared. The width of the boat is 3.5 meters, the draft is one meter. The yachts of the Levanto line are the fruit of the hard work of the company's designers to improve the hydrodynamic and seaworthiness of Pedro products. Full bow lines with a pronounced chin, due to the complexity of manufacturing, are rarely used on steel boats. This was done at the Pedro Boat shipyard, which made it possible to classify the seaworthiness of the Levanto 32 as category "B".

The vessel, with a displacement of 8 tons, is driven by Pedro Boat's favorite engine - a diesel naturally-aspirated Perkins Sable M92B with a displacement of 4.4 liters and a power of 86 horsepower, which the company uses on a good half of the yachts it produces. The engine weighs nearly half a ton and is capable of moving a ship in cruising mode for several days without stopping, consuming about 8 liters of diesel fuel per hour of its reliable operation. Cruising mode is 1800 rpm, at which the Levanto-32 develops a speed of 7.1 knots (13 km/h) and makes noise in the passenger compartment at a level of 68 dB. Moreover, the noise level can be reduced to 63 dB, correspondingly lowering the Perkins speed to one thousand two hundred. The speed will drop to 5.5 knots, but the consumption will also become completely ridiculous - 4.5 liters per hour.

The external architecture of the vessel is traditional to the point of banality, and, frankly, boring. Central saloon plus cabins at bow and stern. The Levanto 32 comes to life only with an aluminum arched mast above the helm station. It allows you to quickly pull up the running awning when the weather worsens without getting confused in the arcs, to permanently place navigation lights and other devices, including GPS sensors and a radar "pan". True, the place on the captain's bridge panel allows mounting chartplotters only on separate brackets. In addition, the vessel in the basic version will have to be operated while standing, since there is no chair. Yes, and all guests will have to sit either on the side rails or on folding chairs.

The customer can choose one of three interior layouts. The most interesting is the version with a galley and a dining room in the stern, a spacious owner's cabin in the bow of the hull, adjacent to the "separate bathroom". Where a latrine with a washbasin and a shower are located on different sides. The dining compartment converts into a double bed, as does the sofa in the central saloon. So that the six inhabitants of the yacht after a delicious dinner can comfortably settle down for the night. Almost the same conditions are offered by the Levanto 32 variant with a galley and dinette located in the bow of the hull.

Last summer, Pedro offered another layout option for the Levanto 32. In the aft cabin, the bed is located across the vessel, and the latrine is separated from the owner's cockpit by two doors. And it is right! Prices for Pedro Levanto 32 in Europe start from 200 thousand Euros.

Levanto 38 looks more proportionate. With dimensions of 11.55x4.05, this yacht holds the record in its class in terms of habitability. Huge living room with sofa. Convertible dinette, spacious galley, two latrines with shower and three separate double cabins! Competitors can only cry! Located aft, the master cabin with a diagonal bed, in addition to voluminous wardrobes, lockers, a transparent hatch for access to the bathing platform, also has a dressing table where you can reminisce about a successful life behind a laptop. Okay, planning! Seaworthiness class "B", 150-horsepower diesel, 600-liter fuel tank, 14-ton displacement. And all this at a price of about 250 thousand Euros. Such yachts simply do not exist anymore in the world!

For true sea lovers, the company offers yachts with a purely masculine appearance - the Donky series. It could be considered that this is a kind of restyling of the outwardly friendly Pedro 32 with an aft cockpit. Negative inclination of windshields, round portholes, soft bumper on the nose. And here it is - a full-fledged ship! But the first Donky appeared a long time ago. And like all yachts over the course of a couple of decades, they have undergone changes in the direction of growth in size and living space, moving away from the former image of a utility boat, which was once a rather nice Donky 29.

One important option can be ordered from all Donkys: a second helm station in the cockpit on the aft bulkhead of the saloon. When mooring, or just on a hot day, a very good help. The gate in the transom is also well conceived, from where you immediately get to the bathing platform. The internal layout can be varied by the client at his discretion. Surprisingly, the company is able to custom-make a control post in the cabin either on the right or on the left. By the way, the left-hand helm position on European yachts in right-hand traffic is not very convenient, but it has a strong justification. Numerous narrow canals and rivulets, along which most European voyages are carried out, force the captains to very carefully disperse to port.

Pedro Boat was either spurred on by the global crisis or forced to do something that has never been done before. The shipyard's director, Mr. van der Velde, says this is a very prudent decision, since the demand for small cruising boats in Europe is growing, and the Pedro range cannot cover it. As a result, fiberglass hulls of boats with the completely logical name Kent have just begun to be delivered from foggy Albion to Zuidbroek (the company, like many British manufacturers, has already been “on the shoulder blades” since 2005). In the Netherlands, they undergo complete retrofitting, including the interior, power plant, other mechanics, etc. And so, the first Kent 28 Cabins are already being offered to customers at very interesting prices.

The boat with a forecastle, a whaleboat stern and dimensions 8.45 x 3.23 has a traditional layout for yachts of this size: a V-shaped berth in the bow, a small latrine, a large closet opposite it, a slightly higher salon (clear height 190 cm) with a fold-out sofa , helm station and galley. At the stern there is a spacious cockpit with spacious locker seats. The boat's displacement is about 4.5 tons, and all this retro-style beauty is propelled through the water at a maximum speed of 7 knots by an unusual engine for the shipyard - a Volvo Penta D2/55, which is powered by a 215-liter tank.

Time will tell how accurate Mr. Velde's calculation was. As the saying goes: “I grabbed the tug - don’t say that it’s not hefty”!

Text: Farit Valiullov