Palm Beach Motor Yachts
Mark started sailing at the age of six, racing with the Manly lads and later spending his teenage years at the Royal Motor Yacht Club where he completed his apprenticeship as a shipwright.
By the age of twenty he was racing as a professional yachtsman in the Admiral’s cup and then spent ten exciting and challenging years traveling the world on the Grand Prix racing circuit.
This experience gave Mark a foundation in all aspects of designing and building boats. From sweeping floors to helping John McConachy develop the latest innovations for his America’s Cup yachts, he learned the trade and craft inside and out.
Inspired by the lines of the lobster boats he saw racing in the USA, he decided to design and build a high-efficiency, high-speed cruising motoryacht that he called ‘the sailor’s powerboat’.
He studied the competitors and found them sluggish, unbalanced, and wildly inefficient. So, drawing on his racing experience, he set about building a lighter boat whose hull penetrated the water better, provided a smoother ride, and consumed only half the fuel.
Working from basic 2D drawings, he created the first PB38 concept and immediately sold four of them from the plan.
This was the launch of our company and set the template for the way we work, our standards, our values and our ambitions.
Since those early days, PB38 has spawned nine models in our range, each an evolution of the previous model.
Twenty-five years later Mark is still involved in every aspect of the design and production of our boats. They are born in his imagination. (Seventeen started their lives in the notebook next to his bed!)
The designs are then processed under his meticulous eye before construction is approved. Once in the factory, each boat is subject to his fanatical attention to detail.
If you have a problem on a Palm Beach Motor Yacht, it’s fair to say that Mark is the only CEO in the world who can grab a toolbox and come fix it!
In the late 90s, Mark first collaborated with Bob Oatley to develop a series of 60ft racing yachts. This teamwork culminated in the slogan ‘Another Duchess’, which proved to be the star performer at the 2003 Race Week on Hamilton Island. With Mark at the helm, he is dubbed ‘Unstoppable!’ by competitors and experts alike. It was defined as .
However, it was the arrival of Wild Oats IX that same year that cemented Australia’s most successful racing partnership. Named after one of Bob’s vineyards in Mudgee, she was the first yacht fitted with a hydraulic keel and took Mark to victory in the Admiral’s Cup in England.
Its successor, the 66ft Wild Oats
But it is Wild Oats XI that will go down in history. This 100ft maxi yacht was completed just two weeks before the 2005 Rolex Sydney to Hobart yacht race and still went on to win the ‘treble’ – line honours, handicap and race record.
And that was just the beginning of his story. Since then Mark has led Wild Oats XI to victory a further eight times, winning the Treble for a second time and breaking all records time and time again in this toughest of races.
