123 Palmer Johnson Motoryacht [Boat Review + Video]

Take an extensive tour of the 123 Palmer Johnson Motoryacht [TEMPTATION] in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with David Johnson.

This article is a transcription of the 123 Palmer Johnson video from Denison’s YouTube Channel. Tune in daily to discover the latest yacht video walkthroughs from the world’s largest yacht video collection. Watch the full video below:

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Hello, my name is David Johnson with Denison Yachting. I’m here in Fort Lauderdale, Florida at the Sunrise Harbor Marina. Tom George from the One Water group invited me to come on board TEMPTATION.

TEMPTATION is a 123 foot Palmer Johnson built in 2005. She’s had a couple of big refits including the most recent one was in 2019, the entire hole was painted gray and she looks amazing. Like to take some time show you around the sundeck right now. Let’s start with the helm, got a couple nice helm chairs here and a nice array of electronics. Everything has been updated, all the charts are current. You’ve got a huge sun deck here and the recent installation of this hardtop right here was a great addition. Something the boat needed, it still feels very modern and has a great look to it. Working our way aft here on the flybridge, there’s a beautiful teak dining table that has a beautiful settee. All the upholstery and all the exterior furniture is new. It looks great, colorful design. This table will accommodate 10 guests in comfort and then as you work our way over to the port side, there’s a nice large bar here. Behind the bar you’re going to find two wine refrigerators, an ice machine, a sink and a lot of room for preparing drinks and hors d’oeuvres and serving some food over to the guests having dinner.

Something else that’s a nice addition on this boat is a proper commercial electric grill here, something the chef will definitely appreciate. Even more aft here on the flybridge, a couple things we want to point out. This beautiful hardtop, you can see here is where it opens up. So when you’re hanging out here on the sunpads, you’ve got all the sun shining through right where you want it. Jacuzzi here which is really nice. It’s not a little tiny jacuzzi where you’re trying to stuff a bunch of people in there. The VSAT and all the audio video was replaced in 2020. So the boat is as high tech as it can be right now. Everything’s been replaced in terms of communication and audio video. Off in the distance you can see a lot of clouds, so we’re not going to bother taking the covers off the jet skis and the tender. But I would like to point out you’ve got two Sea-Doos that were bought new in 2019 and you’ve got a 15-foot Novurania. All three of these toys will be launched by a 3000 pound tender crane here. Toys are ready to go, ready for charter.

Now that I’ve shown you the sun deck we’re going to work our way down to the main deck. First thing I see down here on this spacious aft deck, another great bar here. Behind the bar we’ve got a large wine refrigerator and ice machine here and lots of room for the crew to prepare some food before they serve it over there. Other items found back here a large dining table. You feel how big the space is here. This boat actually has a 25 foot beam. It’s called the wide body version. And that’s because there’s no side decks on this boat. Everything is full beam whether you’re standing here on the aft deck or when you’re in the main salon. It’s got a nice MarQuipt boarding ladder here. It’s also Euro style transom. So you’ve got staircases on port and starboard side, wide staircases making it easy to get down to the swim platform.

First thing you’re going to notice is that there’s a lot of room down here whether you’re getting your towing harness ready for your toe tender, you’re putting on your scuba diving gear, they got substantial gates here. Everything’s covered in teak which is nice, keeps people from slipping. This is also the entry into the engine room.

The first of the two tactical spaces is the lazarette. Currently standing here in lazarette, it’s a little bit noisy down here and that noise is coming from shore power units. This is used to condition the shore power as it comes into the boat. It’s got a Glendinning shore power unit. It’s got a water softening system. Back over on this side over here, you’re going to find the control panels for the generators and the breakers that supply the electrical to the rest of the boat.

From this point we’ll work our way into the engine room. First thing I should point out in here is that it’s a little bit noisy while we’re sitting in here as well. That’s coming from the air conditioning plant over here. These chillers were replaced and the water circulation pump was also replaced in October of 21. Got two MTU 16v 2000 MAN engines, each put out 1800 horsepower. Recently boroscoped, these engines are good for many thousands of hours. No need to do any work on these engines right now. Working our way over to the port side, we’ve got two water makers. Each water maker has a 1500 gallon per day capacity. Looking at the engine room down here you can see this is a boat that is really well maintained. The deck plates have been painted. There’s no signs of any oil leaks anywhere, any water leaks, it looks really good.

Working our way over the starboard side, it’s got an Alfa Laval fuel polishing system. Your quantum stabilizers. One unique thing I just noticed that you normally wouldn’t find is a full shower here on top of the main engine. This shower actually gets hooked up into the swim platform, kind of slides into a slot in a swim platform and you’ve got a proper shower back there with hot and cold water which is really nice, for when you come out of the water on a chilly day.

Two more items I’d like to point out are the two Northern Lights 16 kW generators that we see here. Generators have about 10000 hours on them I believe. These have also been recently serviced and are ready to go for another 10000 hours.

Here on the foredeck, this is a proper working deck on this boat. It’s not covered in teak. You’ve got non-skid here which is just less maintenance for the crew. This is an area where you’ve got fenders being stored, you’ve got your anchors dropping left and right, a lot of working space up here. Easy access up to the brow up there, if you wanted to put some sun pads up there you most certainly could. Overall the paint, the non-skid, the ground tackle – just everything looks really clean up here.

Having shown you the engineering spaces, let’s take a look at the finer spaces which is going to be the inside of the boat. Walking into the main salon, it’s really easy on this boat. No confusing buttons, there’s one button here to press which is actually very nice. Come on inside. Once again just like on the aft deck, you really feel that they’ve utilized every inch of the 25 foot beam. This is a spacious salon for 123 foot yacht, giant L-shaped sofa and some poofs here to kind of pull out so the whole family can watch some movies.

Taking a look at this dining area here. This is a huge formal dining area. I mean, you’ve actually got proper sized chairs here, table big enough to comfortably fit 8 guests, no need to try and squeeze in more chairs. This is a perfect setup for this boat. Something else I didn’t point out earlier is that all the headliners in this salon have also been recently replaced. This salon feels like a new room and so it’s got a good feel to it. From here you’ve got access up to the foyer. We’re going to work our way there soon, but for now let’s check out the galley.

Working our way into the galley I gotta remind myself that we’re on a 123 foot yacht because the galley on the TEMPTATION is considerably larger than you would normally find on a yacht this size. First thing I’d like to point out is that you’ve got 2 really large refrigerators here and 4 freezer drawers down below. 2 Miele ovens, an induction cooktop, lots of storage all below the cabinets here and you’ve got a nice large sink right here.

Working our way to the second part of this large galley, this would be more for the stewardess to prep for the dinners, help the chef out with some dishes. As we work our way forward here, we’re going to see if there’s a lot of storage underneath and up above an even larger sink here and then you’ve got a dishwasher, a microwave forward to there. This is a nice cool area, you’ve got the air conditioning blowing right down here. It feels great especially on a really busy day. Nice access to the foredeck right here as well. Easy in, easy out; there’s actually a boarding gate right here. So when the boat is in the marina, it’s real easy for this gate to be opened up and that they can just hand in all the groceries or anything else that needs to come into the galley or down to the crew area.

Located conveniently, close to the chef’s galley is actually the entrance down into the crew accommodations. Down here in the crew area, it’s a really nice layout in here. First thing we see right away is the first set of washers and dryers. Here you’ve got a refrigerator for drinks and some milk and stuff for the crew, microwave, lots of storage, full-size sink. As we work our way over here to the starboard side, the crew settee, you can easily fit the whole crew behind the settee here. You got a ship’s monitoring system, tank sentry, separate monitor for security cameras.

From the crew lounge we’re going to work our way forward and we’ll start off by showing you the first of 4 crew cabins. This cabin right here is kind of an engineer’s cabin. Full-size bed, every crew cabin has their own toilet and shower which is really nice. Wrapping up down here in the crew accommodations, we’re going to work our way upstairs up to the main foyer. Wrapping up in the galley and crew area, we’re going to work our way forward. I’ll be pointing out the wheelhouse, master cabin, guest accommodations. So as we’re walking up, we’ve got the stairs leading down to the 3 guest cabins down in the lower deck. Forward of the guest accommodation stairs, we’ve got a dayhead finished off really nice. We’ve got a door leading out to the starboard deck and boarding gate, master cabin and wheelhouse.

One of the first things I notice here in the wheelhouse of the TEMPTATION is that it’s quite large. A lot of times the wheelhouse will be in a cramped area because you don’t have a lot of usable space. You definitely do not feel cramped in this wheelhouse. It’s a great space overall. You’ve got a really wide helm. You’ve got an abundance of screens that you can access everything from your fish finder to your navigation, your wind speed between the Furuno gauges and control panels. You’ve just got a really nice setup right here. The upholstery throughout is also in really nice condition. A lot of times you’ll notice that the armrests here on the bridge helm chairs that they’re kind of worn. This one’s definitely been reupholstered, it looks great. Another thing I’d like to point out is that we’re in South Florida. It’s really hot outside right now. It’s nice and cool in this wheelhouse. Ex-captains like myself, we all know that the wheelhouse does tend to get pretty hot, especially in these raised pilothouse boats. It’s a hot day out there and it’s nice and cool in here right now.

Here on the aft side of the wheelhouse, we’ve got the stairs that lead up to the flybridge. We’ve already been up there. So now we’re going to work our way down to the main deck and into the master cabin.

Here we go. We are in the master cabin, full beam, on the main deck. Something I’d like to point out is that this is a 4-stateroom boat. A lot of people will try and pack 5-staterooms into a boat this size. The owner was, in my opinion, smart when he had this boat built and he specified a 4-stateroom so that all the guests would have a big space rather than having too many people and not enough crew to look after a total of 10 guests. Very large California king bed in here. This boat is all about luxury. It’s got two large walk-in closets that are cedarlined, a nice desk to get some work done as well as a little seating area over here on the port side. When it comes to layout of the ensuite, it’s got a his and hers layout with a shower in the middle.

As we work our way back aft now, we’re going to walk past the wheelhouse, pass the dayhead and right down into the guest accommodations down on the lower deck. Here at the foot of the stairs is the lower companionway. This is a great area. It’s going to lead into the 3 remaining guest staterooms. A couple things I’d like to point out, one very important item on a yacht, this is the second set of washers and dryers and in here you’ll find a nice LG commercial set of washers and dryers. You’ve also got a really nice coffee nook right here. This way in the morning the guests can come out, have a little coffee and then go back into their cabin, get ready for the day. Variety of good storage right here for cleaning supplies, ironing, you name it anything, a stewardess can get it in there.

After the lower foyer, we’ve got the full beam VIP. This VIP has got a pretty standard layout, good use of space. We’ve got a full walk-in closet over there on the port side aft, another large closet forward, desk area here, little seating area. After the VIP, we’re going to find the ensuite. You’ve got a marble countertop, marble floor, gold fixtures and then a large shower that’s got a nice bench in it. Wrapping up in the VIP, we’re going to work our way forward to the 2 remaining cabins. These are the twin cabins, nice arrangement, good use of space up here, pretty standard what you’re going to find on most yachts. These two are identical, we call it a mirror. This room’s got a nice TV. I would like to point out again that all the audio/video on this boat has been updated. So you’re going to have the best of everything if you spend any time down here.

One thing that I haven’t pointed out yet is that this boat has had a very successful charter history. Boat charters out for about $75000 a week which makes it really appealing to some buyers. You can offset a lot of your annual operating costs by putting this boat out for charter. This one happens to be very successful because of the 4 cabin arrangement. I’m a big fan of this boat now. Just spending a little bit of time on board, I realize that she’s in excellent condition. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me directly.

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