Pursuit Of Passion

A LABOR OF LOVE FOR HER OWNERS—AND THOSE WHO BUILT HER—THE HUNT 72 WAS DESIGNED TO EXCEED EXPECTATIONS.

- Daniel Harding Jr.

Walking along the bulkhead in West Palm Beach, my head was on a swivel trying to find the Hunt 72 I was scheduled to test. I recognized a similar lost look ahead of me in the face of Hunt President Peter Van Lancker.

“I think we’re looking for the same boat,” he offered with a handshake.

“Well at least I know I won’t be late.”

We continued making small talk as we set out in search of the 72—in itself not a difficult task. With a dark blue hull and gleaming teak everywhere, she stands out like a haystack in a pile of needles.

Our conversation wandered from the weather (it was beautiful) to the Palm Beach boat show that concluded a couple days prior, to travel schedules. Van Lancker had been in Palm Beach for the show, then returned home to Rhode Island for a spell, only to return for our test.

“You’re a man on the move,” I suggested. “It’s a lifestyle, not a job. If this was a job it would be impossible,” he replied with a laugh. This was unfiltered, off-the-cuff Van Lancker, who wasn’t spinning a line he thought would look good in print. No, it was clear: As we spotted the boat and made our way toward it, he meant what he said.

Climbing aboard the 72, I was reminded of the first time I met the boat at the Newport International Boat Show months earlier. She towered above her siblings—a mix of runabouts and weekenders— like a protective older sister. She shared a resemblance to the other models, but it was also apparent this boat was different.

Third in Hunt’s line of Ocean Series yachts, which includes a 68 and 80, and the result of a collaboration between Hunt Yachts and Taiwan’s Global Yacht Builders, she is a semicustom boat.