GT70

The Largest Boat in Hatteras's GT Convertible Line

Hatteras unveiled the GT70 in October 2014 as the fourth and largest model in the GT convertible series that had begun in 2011 with the GT54, GT60 and GT63, a range built on resin-infused, variable-deadrise hulls engineered for real offshore speed rather than the more sedate ride of older Hatteras convertibles. At 70 feet 6 inches on the hull, 73 feet 8 inches with the bow pulpit and a 21-foot 4-inch beam, the GT70 is sixteen inches wider than the GT63 and was pitched by Hatteras and its dealers as a genuine step up, not a stretched version of the smaller boat.

Dealer listing aggregators YachtBuyer and itBoat both record a production run from 2014 to 2023, a full nine seasons, and that is corroborated on the water. Brokerage listings today include a 2015 hull and a 2024-built example still being sold as new-old-stock after the line closed. A 2018 hull, delivered new to a private owner who flew a captain to North Carolina to bring her home, resurfaced on the brokerage market years later, so this is a genuinely delivered, multi-year production model rather than a boat that only ever existed as a boat-show render.

Two Engine Rooms, One Genuine 41-Knot Top End

Hatteras's own spec sheet lists the GT70's standard power as twin Caterpillar C-32A diesels at 1,800 bhp each, matched by Kusler Yachts' dealer buyer guide at the same figure, though YachtBuyer's listing and BoatTest.com's spec table both give the standard Cat option as 1,900 hp, a real split between otherwise reliable sources this page does not resolve by guessing. On the standard engines Hatteras itself claims a cruise in the mid-30-knot range and a top end over 35 knots; no independent test of the standard-power boat was found to confirm that.

The number most buyers actually chase is the optional twin MTU 16V 2000 diesels at 2,600 hp each, and here two independent sea trials agree closely. BoatTest.com's tester ran an MTU-powered GT70 to 41.0 knots at 2,450 rpm burning 262 gallons an hour in 3-to-5-foot swells, and Marlin's Captain Karl Anderson, testing a different hull off Fort Lauderdale, hit 41 knots on the pins with a 30.5-knot, 162-gallon-an-hour cruise at 1,900 rpm and a slower 25.8-knot, 120-gallon-an-hour cruise at 1,700 rpm. Both testers also logged a genuine economy figure, 10.2 to 10.4 knots at idle-up speed on 14 to 20 gallons an hour, the number that matters on a long passage rather than a photo-op top-speed run.

Two independent sea trials, three years and two different hulls apart, both timed the MTU-powered GT70 at 41 knots on the pins, a rare case of press and dealer numbers actually agreeing.

The Factory's Own Tournament Boat Proves the Point

Hatteras keeps its own demo and factory fishing-team boat, Hatterascal, campaigned by longtime captain Jeff Donahue, and for several seasons that boat was a GT70. At the 2016 Hatteras Shootout in the Bahamas, organized by tournament veteran Captain Skip Smith, Hatterascal arrived late on the final day after a private fishing trip off San Salvador and was, in the event report's own words, greeted to the delight of the anglers and onlookers, while a sister GT63 in the same fleet fought a 400-pound marlin for 25 minutes. Donahue later moved the Hatterascal campaign to a GT59, so the GT70 chapter of that program is a closed one, which if anything makes it easier to check: it ran a real tournament schedule, not a single demo day.

Away from the factory boat, the clearest owner-level account is the delivery of Resilient, a 2018 GT70 that a Kusler Yachts sales professional accompanied Captain Frank D'Anna to collect from Hatteras's New Bern yard and run to Fort Lauderdale, ultimately bound for Southern California. That boat resurfaced on the brokerage market in San Diego years later, described as captain-maintained and tournament-ready, with her original 2,600 hp MTUs, a Seakeeper 26 gyro and a 1,800-gallon-per-day watermaker still aboard, the kind of long ownership record a buyer wants to see on a boat this specialized.

Fuel, Water and the Systems Aboard

Hatteras's own specification sheet lists 2,140 US gallons of fuel and 330 US gallons of fresh water, and BoatTest.com's tested boat matches the fuel figure exactly. Freshwater capacity is the one tank number every source agrees on without exception, from the builder to Kusler Yachts to Yachting magazine's original 2014 preview. Fuel is quoted less consistently elsewhere: Yachting's preview article, written before the model was finalized, described a 2,740-gallon four-tank arrangement including an alternate configuration for boats fitted with a gyro, while YachtBuyer rounds the production figure down to 2,000 gallons. This page uses the builder's own 2,140-gallon figure, matched independently by BoatTest.com, as the number that applies to delivered hulls.

Standard equipment includes twin 21.5 kW diesel generators, Cummins Onan units on at least one delivered hull, and a running gear built around ZF deep-reduction gearboxes turning five-blade Nibral propellers set into prop tunnels, a Yachting magazine detail that also explains how a 120,000-lb, 70-foot boat draws only 5 feet. A Seakeeper 26 gyro is a factory option rather than standard fit, confirmed both by Kusler Yachts' buyer guide and by the Resilient listing, which also specifies a 1,800-gallon-per-day watermaker and an electric bow thruster, neither of which Hatteras lists as included equipment. A buyer should treat gyro, thruster and watermaker as line items to verify hull by hull, not assumptions.

A Discontinued Model From a Yard on Its Third Owner Since 2001

Hatteras Yachts has changed hands twice since the GT70 was designed. Brunswick Corporation, which had owned Hatteras since 2001, sold it and the CABO sportfish brand to Versa Capital Management, a Philadelphia private equity firm, in August 2013, a year before the GT70 was announced. White River Marine Group, the boatbuilding arm of Bass Pro Shops, bought Hatteras from Versa Capital in May 2021 for a reported USD 35 million and moved to modernize the New Bern plant.

White River Marine Group laid off approximately 80 New Bern workers in November 2023, confirmed by Boat International and The Triton, while retooling for an entirely new sportfish generation, and the GT70 itself went out of production that same year. The three models announced for the new generation, the Bimini Run 48, the Cat Cay 66 and the Chub Cay 77, bracket the GT70's 70-foot size without directly replacing it, so a buyer of a used GT70 today is relying on parts and warranty continuity from a company that has rebuilt its factory and its model range twice since the boat was new.

Pour qui: A tournament-serious buyer who wants Hatteras's biggest GT-series convertible, genuine 41-knot performance on the MTU option and a real factory racing pedigree, and who has accepted that they are buying a discontinued model from a yard now on its third owner since 2001.