Pascoe International

A pair of tenders for the Maltese Falcon

Pascoe International began building tenders in 2004, and the first commission was not a modest one. The owner of the 88 m Perini Navi Maltese Falcon ordered a matching pair of custom 10 m boats, one open and one with a cabin, with Ken Freivokh Design on the styling. Starting at that level fixed the company's position before it had a catalogue. Twenty years on it reports more than 270 tenders in active service.

The company works from Eastlands Boatyard at Swanwick on the River Hamble, where composite construction, timber joinery, fabrication, engineering, pattern making, sea trials and warranty work are all handled on one site. A phased redevelopment of the yard put in refurbished production units and offices in 2022, with a purpose-built boatbuilding hall and a new headquarters still to come. Owning the whole process matters when every hull is drawn around a different garage.

What a limousine tender is actually for

The limousine solves one specific problem. A yacht anchored half a mile off a town in a fresh afternoon breeze puts everyone aboard the tender in spray, and guests arrive at a restaurant with wet hair and salt on their clothes. An enclosed, air-conditioned, sound-insulated cabin removes that, and it also removes the calculation an owner makes about whether the trip ashore is worth the discomfort.

The second effect is on how late the day runs. Guests come back at midnight in the dark, and an enclosed boat with proper seating and a heater turns a cold transfer into a non-event. The cabins are trimmed to echo the yacht's interior, so the tender reads as part of the vessel. Pascoe also builds open guest tenders, chase boats, beachlanders, workboats, catamarans and SOLAS rescue craft, which lets one yard supply a yacht's whole support fleet.

A limousine tender weighs four tonnes and takes fifteen months, which makes it a decision about the yacht and not an accessory bought afterwards.

The range, and the numbers behind it

Five limousine families run from 8.40 m to 12.50 m. The SL sits at 9.40 m to 10.60 m and is the platform most owners meet, the TL at 10.40 m to 10.60 m is built around privacy, and the largest boats at 11.50 m to 12.50 m go to the biggest yachts. Independent register data puts the 10.4 m TL at 36 knots for sixteen people, an 8.6 m boat at 35 knots for sixteen, an 8.1 m at 35 knots for twelve and a 6.2 m at 30 knots for twelve.

The published detail is thinner than it should be. Pascoe's own model pages give lengths and descriptions and no weights, engines or speeds, which is a real gap for an owner comparing boats before he has a dealer in the room. The best documented figures come from press launches. The SL 8 m Limousine was announced at about 2,850 kg on a 2.65 m beam, 250 litres of fuel, ten people including crew, about 33 knots and CE category C.

Weight, and what the crane can take

The number that governs everything is mass. Boat International recorded the 9.6 m SL Limousine at 4,300 kg, which is more than twice the weight of a large production jet tender and well beyond any transom crane. A limousine of that size needs a dedicated davit or a knuckle-boom crane rated with margin, a garage or aft deck cradle sized for it, and a launch procedure the crew can run in a swell.

That single figure explains why limousines belong on yachts of roughly 50 m and up. Below that length the crane, the garage volume and the deck structure rarely exist, and fitting them into a refit costs more than the tender. An owner should have the naval architect confirm the lifting arrangement and the loaded weight, including fuel, batteries and passengers, before he signs for a hull.

What it costs, and how long it takes

Pascoe quotes on request and publishes no prices. Two dated figures exist in the public record. At the SL launch in August 2013, SuperyachtNews reported the open Landau from EUR 780,000 and the enclosed Limousine from EUR 1,070,000. In August 2015 Boat International put a 9.6 m SL Limousine at about GBP 1 million excluding VAT. Both are more than a decade old and should be read as a floor, not a quote.

The lead time matters as much as the money. The same 2013 report gave twelve months for the Landau and fifteen months for the Limousine, and a custom boat drawn around a specific garage takes longer. An owner who leaves the tender until the yacht is in the paint shed will take delivery of his yacht without one. Order the tender when the general arrangement is fixed.

The electric limousine, and the figure Pascoe does not publish

In January 2022 Pascoe announced what it called the first fully electric superyacht limousine tender, built on the SL platform after six years of development with propulsion and battery specialists. It uses oil-cooled electric motors, charges from the mothership's own power generation, and the company claims 40 knots top speed with a maximum range of 60 miles. The first boat was contracted for delivery in 2023 to a new build from a major northern European yard.

Two things are missing from the public specification and both are the owner's problem. Pascoe does not publish the battery capacity or the boat's weight, and a battery pack capable of 40 knots is heavy enough to change the crane calculation entirely. It also does not say whether the 60 miles are nautical or statute, and at 40 knots that range is a little over an hour of hard running. Ask for both numbers in writing, along with the charge time and the load the yacht's generators will see.

Who draws it and who builds it

The styling comes from Ken Freivokh Design, whose studio is on the same river and is credited with close to 200 Pascoe tenders, with hull naval architecture by Patrick Banfield. That continuity is why a Pascoe from 2014 and one from 2024 look like relatives. The company took a Superyacht Design Award in 2015 and a Boat International Design and Innovation Award in 2019.

The engineering problem is packaging. An air-conditioned cabin, sixteen seats, sound insulation, a generator, twin diesels and sterndrives all have to fit inside a hull light enough to lift and slim enough to pass a garage door. Pascoe uses composite construction and, on the 9.6 m SL, twin 260 hp diesels on Yanmar sterndrives with joystick control, a combination it described as the only one of its kind.

Aftersales, warranty and the retube

Pascoe runs aftersales, warranty care and refit from the Hamble yard, which is the right model for a boat with no two examples alike. It also means the reference point for a serious repair is the south coast of England. For a yacht in the eastern Mediterranean in August, the practical question is what the yard can talk a local composite shop through by telephone, and that is worth testing before the boat is ordered.

Pascoe publishes no warranty term on its website, so the length and the exclusions are contract items to negotiate, and there is no published standard to look up. On the inflatable-collar models the tubes are a consumable and third-party retubing specialists in the United Kingdom advertise Pascoe work, which is useful evidence that the boat can be maintained outside the factory.

Against the alternatives, and who should buy elsewhere

Against Williams Jet Tenders the comparison is not close on either side. Williams delivers a proven boat from stock at a fraction of the price with a global parts network, and it does not build an enclosed air-conditioned cabin. Compass Tenders competes directly at the custom end. Castoldi in Italy, Cobra and Whitmarsh in England and Reliant Yachts in Rhode Island cover adjacent parts of the market.

The owner who should buy a Pascoe has a yacht of about 50 m or more, a garage still on the drawing board, guests who go ashore for dinner and a crane that will lift four tonnes. The owner who should not is refitting an existing yacht with a fixed transom crane, needs a boat this season, or wants a tender his guests can drive themselves off a beach.

Who it is for: Owners of yachts of about 50 m and above with a garage still on the drawing board and guests who expect to arrive ashore dry.