ESCAPE
HIGH SEAS
Pardo goes BIG
The Italian builder best known for sleek and slender day boats adds a stunning new FLAGSHIP CRUISER to its lineup By Howard Walker For our French lesson of the day, consider the phrase “en plein air.” Translated, it means “out of doors.” But it was also a term used to describe the practice adopted by Impressionist artists of painting from start to finish outside. Of course, there are always those who take en plein air to the extreme—like nineteenthcentury British painter Stanhope Forbes, who was reportedly photographed painting during a gale, his easel tethered down by ropes. Strange, then, that Italian boat builder Pardo Yachts should use a French phrase to describe the feeling you get stepping aboard their stunning new flagship cruiser, the Pardo Endurance 60; all’aria aperta sounds just as good. Either way, both phrases describe the way this sleek, ax-bowed 60-footer can transform its main salon into a magical open-air solarium at the mere touch of a few buttons. 56
Press one to power down the huge, darktinted salon side windows. Press two to open the full-width concertina-style doors to the aft deck. Press three to power down the vast side sections of the hull to almost double the width of the rear teak-decked cockpit. With everything open, it creates the coolest beach club this side of Saint-Tropez. En plein air, indeed. Founded in 1973, Cantiere del Pardo—based in the town of Forlì near Italy’s Adriatic coast— has been building a lineup of Grand Soleil performance sailboats. They’ve built more than 4,500 to date. But it was in 2017 that the yard really got into its stride with a switch to turning out walk-around, center-console, go-fast day boats. The Pardo 43 was followed by the Pardo 50 in 2018 and the Pardo 38 last year. But it seems existing Pardo owners wanted something bigger to spend more time aboard
with friends and families. The result is the spectacular Endurance 60, which makes its debut at the Cannes Yachting Festival this month. The hull is from the drawing board of Swiss naval architect Davide Leone with an interior by Milan-based Nauta Design. As with Pardo’s day boats, the 60 sticks with that trademark reverse bow, the pop-out anchor cradle, and high bulwarks capped with teak. Add to that a pair of huge hull windows on each side and that distinctive big-windowed cabin with fullwidth, angled-back forward window and curvy roof design. On top of it all, there’s a spacious, low-profile flybridge with loungers galore. Just gazing at the deck, it feels like every inch has been maximized to provide the most usable space—from big foredeck sun pads to massive side decks to the vast cockpit with room for a table for six. As for those fold-down
PALM BEACH ILLUSTRATED
056_HIGHSEAS_0921.indd 56
8/5/21 3:14 PM
