Monte Carlo Yachts 70 Test Walkthrough Video

After winning the Best Design Trophy at the Cannes Boat Show and the Best Motoryacht 70-80 ft. Editor’s Choice Awards at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, the Monte Carlo Yachts 70 has not surprisingly seen great success. Join us as BoatTest.com tests this distinctive motoryacht: 

The following opinions are solely those of BoatTest.com and its test captain.

Hi, Capt. Steve for BoatTest.com, and today we’re on a new launch from Monte Carlo Yachts, it’s the MCY 70 and I’m going to put it on a full test and performance review. Let’s start by taking a look at some of her operational features.

The crew can step down to work almost waist-high to the foredeck. Quick windlass, stem mounted anchor, deep storage compartments to either side, and look at this – emergency fire hose. Let’s take a look at the engine room, which is accessed from a watertight door at the transom.

The twin 1,200 horsepower V8 MAN engines are separated by 22 inches and I’ve got 6-feet 4-inches of headroom. Now the 1200 horsepower MAN engines will be standard on the MCY 70, but the options will include the drives – either V drives or in this case Pods.

Now let’s take a look at the operating stations. The flying bridge helm, elegant in its simplicity with two 16-inch displays to either side, the compass mounted right in the center and a small cutout in the panel, the ZF controller just below that, joystick over to the left-hand side, digital controls over to the right-hand side.

On either side of the panel, the MAN engine controls, autopilot, wind speed indicator, and I like the ergonomics – as I’m standing the wheel goes right to my fingertips, which is exactly how I like operating this boat.

As far as visibility is concerned, it’s a home run, only interrupted by the supports for the hardtop and the staff to the rear. And the hardtop has plenty of room for any antennas or whatever optional electronic packages are chosen.

The lower helm is over to the starboard side, soft touch panel, two touchscreen displays to either side, ZF controls to the right, joystick to the left, steering wheel vertically mounted. Visibility forward into the side is great, to the stern, not so much.

We’ve also got a footrest, a flip-down bolster. Here’s a nice touch, the magnetic keys come together. And just behind the lower helm but ahead of the galley, is the ship’s main electrical panel.

One of my concerns with this MCY 70 is whether it’s going to be able to handle close quarters or not. So to find out, we’re going to put it into some tight areas. Well, if you wanted a good representative example of the maneuverability of the MCY 70, you couldn’t get a better place than the New River in Fort Lauderdale.

And I’m finding the maneuverability to be spot-on. I’ve got a slack tide and every time I turn the wheel, the response is instantaneous. Not only that when I have to wait for a drawbridge, it’s got the station keeping; thanks to the ZF system, which works excellent. I have you, I’ll back off.

So here’s a good example of the station keeping uses. I’ve got a pedestrian crossing the drawbridge in front of me. It can’t open until he’s gone. Engage the joystick, one button for station-keeping, and now we’re holding position nicely.

I even found her to respond nicely to the helm with the engines out of gear. For example, as I’m coasting up to a bridge. And interestingly enough, as we joined on on waterway, we started meeting an outgoing tide.

Now with a fair tide running behind me, it would be natural to expect that there’ll be some lag time between my inputs at the helm and the responsiveness of the boat. But I’m not seeing that with this MCY 70. That may have something to do with the ZF pods, that may have something to do with the hull design. Either way, it’s a combination that works.

Now let’s get this MCY 70 up to speed and see how she performs. Our test Monte Carlo Yachts MCY 70 has a length overall of 69-feet 11-inches, a beam of 17-feet 9-inches and a draft of 5 feet.

With an empty weight of 92,594 lbs., 45% fuel and 5 people on board, we had a test weight of 97,879 lbs. The 1200 horsepower MAN V8 engines reached top speed at 2340 RPM, which had us running at 32.9 knots. At that speed fuel burn was 122 gallons per hour, giving us a range of 257 nautical miles.

Best cruise is subjective as the performance curve is fairly linear as you move the throttles forward. But the MAN recommended cruise setting is 80% of full throttle, which works out to be 2,000 RPM. At that speed, we were running at 26 knots burning 86 gallons per hour, which the MCY 70 can keep up for just over 11 hours, giving her a range of 288 miles.

If the intention is to really put on some distance, go at idle speed of 7.6 knots, the same cruise as an average trawler yacht, and it’ll burn a combined 4 gallons per hour and keep going for 237 hours and 48 minutes and 1,799 miles.

If you ask me one word to describe the MCY 70 underway, I would say, “solid.” She handles like the heavy ocean capable boat that she is. Of course we scored a flat calm test day, but a feel for how she handles can still be had from crossing heavy wakes. She’s a stable platform remaining in a fairly consistent trim and balance angles regardless of the direction we took waves from.

Her wide flare bows gave us a dry ride and aggressive turns were not enough to cause any discomfort whatsoever. And she only leans 10 degrees into the turn. She makes a full 360 degree turn in 70 seconds at speed and at cruise, she’ll come around just under 60 and take up roughly 4 boat lengths while she’s at it.

And of course at the end of the day, thanks to her joystick functionality, precision docking can be achieved by a captain with practically any skill level. This of course makes the MCY 70 very appealing to an owner-operator.

This all new MCY 70 shares a lot of the same characteristics as her siblings, but she’s certainly destined to follow in no one’s wake. That’s our full test of the MCY 70 from Monte Carlo Yachts. For BoatTest.com, I’m Capt. Steve. We’ll see you on the water.