GT63

The Flagship of Hatteras's 2011 GT Series

Hatteras launched the GT Series in 2011 under then-president Jim Meyer, an honest-to-goodness naval architect by training, covering the GT54, GT60, GT63 and GT70 on resin-infused, variable-deadrise hulls engineered specifically to chase real speed rather than the more sedate performance of earlier Hatteras convertibles. The GT63 became the volume seller of the family and the first hulls delivered from the New Bern yard in 2012, at 63 feet 10 inches on a 20-foot beam.

Production ran six full seasons, through 2018, when Hatteras retired the GT63 in favour of the GT65 Carolina, unveiled that September and debuting at Palm Beach the following fall with a computational-fluid-dynamics-optimised hull and an infused hull-and-stringer structure built as a single part, an industry first for the yard. That makes the GT63 a genuinely finished, closed chapter with a full production run behind it rather than a live model, which is exactly why its record on the water and on the brokerage market is worth taking seriously.

Twin Caterpillars and a Genuine 40-Knot Top End

Hatteras offered the GT63 with twin Caterpillar C32A diesels at a standard 1,600 hp, with 1,800 hp and range-topping 1,900 hp options. On the 1,900 hp boat, driving through ZF marine gears at a 2.52:1 reduction and Michigan five-blade propellers, Power & Motoryacht's own trial recorded a 40.2-knot top speed at 2,250 rpm burning 200 gallons an hour, a 35.4-knot real-world cruise at 2,000 rpm burning 152 gph, and a more economical 30.4-knot cruise at 1,750 rpm burning 124 gph.

A separate sea trial by Marlin magazine, run independently on the same 1,900 hp engine option, recorded a 41.3-knot top speed, within a knot of the Power & Motoryacht number and a genuine two-source agreement on performance. Owners and captains discussing the boat against rivals like the Viking 62 report a roughly 33-knot, 120-gallon-an-hour cruise as typical in service, consistent with both magazine tests, and Marlin's tester found backing-down performance beyond 9 knots, a detail that matters when a crew is fighting a fish boatside rather than running to the grounds.

Twin Caterpillars good for 40-plus knots and 1,900 gallons of fuel took the GT63 Post One across the Atlantic twice in a single year, under her own power, no tow required.

Built to Cross Oceans, Not Just Run Offshore

In June and July 2018 the GT63 Post One, under Captain Josh Heater with crew Jay Heater, Curt Vandervere and Tessa Setzer, ran 4,085 nautical miles from Panama to the Azores by way of Bermuda, 27 days actually underway across a 33-day span, refuelling three times at sea from the owner's 147-foot Cheoy Lee motor yacht Dorothea III, transferring roughly 1,500 gallons each time. The Bermuda-to-Azores leg alone covered 1,985 nautical miles in nine days at a 10.5-knot cruise on 850 rpm, burning 18 gallons an hour and making 850 gallons of fresh water along the way.

That November the same boat made a second, separate crossing, 3,600 nautical miles from Mindelo in Cape Verde to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, roughly twice the distance of the first. Hatteras and independent marine press both describe Post One as among the first production sportfishing yachts of her size to cross an ocean on her own bottom without a tow, and the crew still found time to fish six days in Bermuda along the way. It is a real, dated, named-captain achievement, not a marketing claim, and it says more about the GT63's tankage and sea manners than any brochure figure could.

What Is Actually Aboard

Standard equipment on the GT63 includes twin Onan 21.5 kW diesel generators, freshwater-cooled with sound enclosures, and 1,900 US gallons of fuel, a figure that every source, from dealer spec sheets to both magazine tests, agrees on. Fresh water capacity is reported less consistently: 270 US gallons on HMY Yachts's and United Yacht Sales's spec sheets, but 300 US gallons on Power & Motoryacht's tested boat and on a 2016 hull's own brokerage listing, a genuine conflict between equally credible sources that is given here rather than resolved by guessing. The hull itself is resin-infused, balsa-cored above the waterline with a solid fibreglass bottom, a construction method Power & Motoryacht's tester singled out for a stronger, lighter structure than hand-laid competitors.

Stabilisation and a bow thruster were both options, never standard. The factory-listed option was a pair of Seakeeper 9 gyros, though at least one well-kept 2016 hull on today's market instead carries twin Quick MC-2 19K gyros fitted in 2018, alongside an electric Side Power bow thruster and twin Dometic 800 GPD watermakers, all owner-added rather than factory-standard on that boat. The tournament-style Palm Beach helm does build bow-thruster control into its single-lever throttles on every hull regardless of which options a given owner chose, a small but real piece of standard fit and finish.

Three Owners Since 2001, and What That Means for a 2012-2018 Hull

Hatteras itself has changed hands twice since the GT63 was designed. Brunswick Corporation owned the yard from 2001 to 2013, then sold Hatteras and its CABO sportfish brand to Versa Capital Management, a Philadelphia private equity firm, in August 2013, a period across which the New Bern workforce fell from a peak of roughly 1,500 employees to about 275. White River Marine Group, the boatbuilding arm of Bass Pro Shops, bought Hatteras from Versa Capital in May 2021.

White River Marine Group has kept New Bern building sportfish boats, but at a genuinely smaller scale than the GT63's own era: it laid off about 80 workers in November 2023 while retooling the plant for an all-new sportfish generation that reached market as the 48 and 77. The GT63 itself was already out of production by then, replaced in 2018-2019 by the GT65 Carolina. A buyer of a used GT63 today is therefore relying on parts, warranty and service continuity from a company on its third corporate owner since 2001, a real consideration even though the hull's own sea-going record is not in question.

Who it is for: A tournament-minded buyer who wants a proven, out-of-production Hatteras convertible with a genuine ocean-crossing record and 40-knot speed, and who has priced in factory support from a builder now on its third owner since 2001.