Oceania Marine – Superyacht Refit Season Kicks Off

Oceania Marine kicked off its Superyacht refit season a little late due to congestion in the shipyard but it is now in full swing with the arrival of Black Pearl for her first annual maintenance stop. Black Pearl was launched at the yard just under a year ago and according to Captain Paul Sewell she has completed 12125.3 nautical miles from launch back to the cradle in that short period of time.

Black Pearl - Preparing Access & Protection

The vessel has just completed an extensive cruise of the South West Pacific. Initially she departed New Zealand shores from Nelson to visit the owner’s home city, Melbourne. From there she made passage to the Queensland coast to put in an appearance at Sanctuary Cove Boat Show where she was the highlight of the show. Immediately afterwards she headed out into the Pacific amongst the magnificent island groups that fill this part of Oceania. Her course was Northwest through New Caledonian, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands into Papua New Guinea. With the owner spending as much time on board as he could manage the vessel made its way to the outer reaches of Oceania at the Northern tip of New Ireland before turning around and heading back to New Zealand.

For Black Pearl this has been just the beginning because as soon as she completes her haulout at Oceania Marine she will be loaded on Dockwise for transport to Europe. There she plans to spend the 2012 season in the Mediterranean exploring everything from the Black Sea to Gibraltar. Thus begins a 3 year world cruise back to the South Pacific via the Caribbean.

Black Pearl Captain Paul Sewell

As to Black Pearl herself, Paul states “We are very happy with the boat – everything has worked well and she has met every expectation that I and the owner had. We have done a lot of miles in the last 10 months and even the tender has 450 hours on the clock”. So no doubt Paul will be looking forward to completing the haulout and might even get some ‘R&R’ for Christmas.

Oceania Marine Project Manager Brent Charlesworth has the paint team detailing the Awlcraft 2000 SE paint system originally applied by the yard when the vessel was built – “It’s a metallic and pearlescent ‘Special Effect’ paint system and this was one of the first projects where it was used so I was interested to see how it has stood up. I must say I am pleasantly surprised how good it looks, given the extensive use the vessel has had since it was launched. By the time we have finished Black Pearl will be at her sparkling best”.

Black Pearl on Oceania Marine 800 Tonne Slipway

The vessel is due for re-launching prior to Christmas.