The first Maiora I ever reviewed was an 80-foot flybridge called Max & Ale , back in the mid-1990s. It had a dark, high-gloss, flame-cut mahogany interior with a lot of bright, canary-yellow upholstery. That yacht had a personality, plain and simple.
More recently, I got aboard Pesa II , which is a Maiora 35 Exuma, and I wondered what kind of personality a yacht with the model designation Exuma might have. Despite all my years of getting on boats, I have never visited the Bahamas—a massive omission for someone in my deck shoes, I know. But alas, it’s all too true, for now at least. My online search led me to the Bahamian musician Tony McKay, also known as Exuma, who is currently my go-to life soundtrack. Soon, I was reading up on the island chain that runs southeast of Nassau down to Great Exuma. Pals with years of experience cruising those shoal waters tell me the Exumas are some of the most idyllic islands in the world, especially if you like scuba diving. But you do need the right boat to get the most out of them, with a shoal draft and good speed.
Pesa II is just such a yacht. This 115-foot composite trideck launched last May with a striking, silver-metallic livery and an unusual general arrangement.
Approaching from the stern, guests step aboard at the swim platform. Curved “palazzo steps” extend across the transom. While the cockpit is conventional enough—it has a sun pad and booth-sofa island, as well as stairs to the deck above—what lies beyond is far from ordinary. You could say this yacht is almost a wide-body, or even that it has partial asymmetry. At the main-deck level, it has a sizable salon with a single, well-protected side deck to port and a full-beam owners’ stateroom forward, plus a few other surprises.
