Kraken Yachts is the brainchild and passion of British businessman Dick Beaumont who built his first boat, the Kraken 66, in China and then sailed it half-way around the world to England.
Beaumont’s objective with the 66 was to build a true ocean-going cruising boat with the emphasis on safety, ease of handling and true live-aboard comfort. He was not setting out to build a race-cruiser that was full of the necessary compromises.
The 66 proved to be just what Beaumont wanted and, as it turned out, it was also just what many other blue-water sailors were looking for. Kraken are center-cockpit, aft-cabin designs with a raised saloon that has a raised dinette and a raised chart table. The concept is similar to Oyster, Discovery and Gunfleet yachts, all British-style, luxury blue-water boats.
The new 58 follows the launch of the 50 a couple of years ago. That boat attracted so many buyers that Kraken, which is based in Bodrum, Turkey, has been forced to open a second factory, this time in Poland, to meet demand.
The 58 fills the gap in the product line between the 66 and the 50 and soon will be followed by a new 44 footer. New Zealander Kevin Dibley is Beaumont’s designer and has produced lines for the 58 that are modern without being trendy, handsome without being flashy and salty-looking without being mired in tradition.
The hull has a somewhat traditional bow that will keep water off the decks and allows the anchor to be raised and lowered without banging the hull. The forward hull sections have a V shape that prevents the boat from slamming onto waves when sailing upwind in choppy conditions.
Unlike almost all modern designs, Dibley does not carry the boat’s beam all the way aft and thus eliminates the need for twin rudders. This is important because Beaumont wanted a single rudder, which Kraken calls the Alpha Rudder, with a full-length, steel reinforced skeg to protect it from damage in a collision with sea life or flotsam.
The keel design, labeled by the builder as the Zero Keel, is integral to the molded fiberglass hull with all lead ballast encapsulated inside it. This eliminate keel bolts and creates a double bottom. The keel design is a modified fin with a bulb that is fairly long fore and aft. This, in tandem with the skeg-hung rudder, will provide excellent directional stability that will be easy on the helmsman and the autopilot.
In addition to these robust safety features, the hull has water-tight bulkheads in the bow and stern to prevent water ingress from a rudder post or engine shaft failure or a heavy collision. Also, Aramid fiber-cloth is added to the laminate in the bow sections to strengthen the hull.
The hull and deck are foam-core laminates which adds rigidity while keeping weight down. And, foam coring provides both sound and temperature insulation. It is interesting that Kraken also builds all interior bulkhead as foam-cored laminates instead of the usual plywood.
The 58 has two standard layouts. Plan A had the master suit aft, a generous guest cabin forward and a pullman cabin just aft of it. Plan B converts the forward guest cabin into two pullman cabins for a total of six berths forward of the saloon. The galley is in the passageway leading aft to the master suite.
One of the features Kraken adds to all of their boats is a very complete list of standard equipment so new owners don’t have to spend 20 to 30 percent of the purchase price adding essential gear and equipment.
The new 58, like the 66 and 50, is a true ocean-sailing yacht that can and should be sailed around the world and to the high latitudes and most remote cruising grounds on the planet.
