HCB 65 Estrella Review, Price, Top Speed and Ownership Guide

The HCB 65 Estrella and the start of the mega console

When the HCB 65 Estrella showed up at Montauk in the fall of 2018 with five 627 hp Seven Marine outboards hanging off the transom, the reaction was split almost exactly down the middle. Serious sportfishermen and motoryacht owners lined the dock to see it; online commenters asked who could possibly need 3,135 horsepower on a center console. A video of the boat posted by Power and Motoryacht passed half a million views in a few days.

Eight years on, the argument is settled. The 65 Estrella is still in production, HCB still bills it as the world's largest production center console (a claim the 66-foot-9-inch Scout 670 LXS now contests on length), and it opened the door for the Scout 670 LXS, the Valhalla V-55 and a whole category of super consoles that now stretch past 55 feet. HCB, the Vonore, Tennessee builder formerly known as Hydra-Sports Custom Boats, now markets it as a Mega Center Console Yacht, and the name fits.

At launch the boat started at around $3 million, and the first buyers reportedly included an heir to a beer fortune, royalty from the UAE and several well-known professional athletes. That tells you who this boat is for: owners who might otherwise buy a 60-foot convertible or a sport yacht but want the open-deck freedom, shallow draft and maintenance logic of outboards.

A tank-tested hull with an 18-degree transom

HCB did not simply stretch its 53 Suenos. Senior naval architect Matt Huyge, who designed the hull bottom, took a six-foot scale model to the Stevens Institute tow tank and spent two weeks running seakeeping and bare-hull resistance tests before tooling began. The result is a deep-V with an 18-degree deadrise at the transom, a sharper entry forward and a 16-foot beam that gives the boat both stability at rest and room below.

The ride impressed every early tester. Power and Motoryacht measured just 72 decibels at the helm, mostly wind noise, and noted pillow-soft landings when crossing its own wake. Yachting magazine put the boat hard over in a single boat length at 36 knots. Huyge himself reported running through 14-foot seas at 42 mph in the Out Islands on the delivery trip.

Draft is the other surprise. With the engines tilted up the boat draws about 36 inches, 48 inches with them down, and HCB's own captain famously ran zigzags across a North Carolina sandbar in three feet of water. Try that in a 65-foot shaft-drive convertible.

Engine packages, top speed and fuel reality

Three generations of power have been hung on the Estrella. The first boats used five Seven Marine 627 hp supercharged V8 outboards, then the most powerful outboards in the world. Volvo Penta bought Seven Marine around the time of the launch and later discontinued the Seven Marine outboards, so HCB moved to Mercury. Current packages listed by the builder are five or six Mercury Verado V12 600s, or five Yamaha 450 hp XTO outboards. HCB does not publish a maximum horsepower rating for the hull.

On the original quint Seven Marine rig, Sport Fishing's instrumented test recorded a top speed of 55.5 mph (about 48 knots) at 6,100 rpm with 460 gallons of fuel aboard, and Power and Motoryacht's test boat came in a couple of knots shy of HCB's 52-knot target. Yachting wrote of speeds upwards of 56, a figure that matches the mph numbers rather than knots. Best economy in the Sport Fishing test was about 0.3 mpg at 40.4 mph, while the builder's designer has cited the low 40s in knots as the hull's sweet spot, remarkable for a boat weighing 68,275 pounds wet. A sextet of Mercury 600s puts 3,600 hp on the transom, and the extra engine is about acceleration and holding speed with a full load more than chasing a new top-end record.

Fuel is the cost every buyer must face honestly. With 1,730 gallons aboard, filling the tanks from empty can approach $8,000 to $10,000 at marina gas prices, and a fuel dock stop takes a long time even with multiple nozzles. HCB's own delivery captain said the hardest part of running the boat up the coast was not the sea state but planning fuel stops.

• Current options: 6 x Mercury 600, 5 x Mercury 600, or 5 x Yamaha 450
• Original 2018 package: 5 x Seven Marine 627 hp, 3,135 hp total
• Tested top speed on the original package: 55.5 mph (about 48 knots)
• Fuel: 1,730 gallons of gasoline, water: 120 gallons

A salon, a master stateroom and the famous mirror TV

Below the console the Estrella has an honest-to-goodness salon rather than a cuddy. HCB claims a cabin roughly twice as large as other center consoles, and early boats measured more than eight feet of headroom. To port, a U-shaped dining settee converts into a berth, and a Pullman berth folds out of the wall above it. Opposite sits a wet bar and a television that disappears into a mirror when switched off, a roughly $10,000 option borrowed from superyacht practice.

Forward is a private master stateroom with a double berth. The head sits aft of the salon with a shower stall measuring about 3 feet by 3 feet 6 inches and seven feet of headroom, finished with a rainforest shower head. All told the interior sleeps five, which is enough for a fishing crew of four plus a captain or a couple with two children on a Bahamas weekend.

Behind the cabin, HCB built a walk-in machinery room where the generator, pumps, filters and electrical gear are accessible standing up and out of the weather. On a boat with this many systems, including a watermaker, a Seakeeper and multiple air conditioning zones, that room alone justifies a large part of the price.

Fishing cockpit and entertaining deck

The cockpit is built for big-game fishing. Twin 80-gallon livewells sit in the transom, three in-sole fish boxes lie beneath the deck, and inward-opening dive doors to port and starboard make it easy to bring a fish or a diver aboard. Many boats are fitted with a fighting chair. A mezzanine with sinks on each side gives the crew a shaded place to watch the spread.

Under the hardtop, the helm seats five, and the seats rotate to face a five-person sleigh lounge with a table, creating an alfresco dining area for ten. Forward, U-shaped bow seating with a hydraulic table drops into a sun pad, and two forward-facing lounges ahead of the console are the best seats on the boat when running. Bow and stern thrusters are standard, which matters on a 65-foot boat with this much windage.

In practice the Estrella is used more as a day yacht and island hopper than a pure tournament boat. Owners run to the Bahamas in a couple of hours, fish in the morning, beach the bow in the afternoon and sleep aboard or ashore.

What it really costs to own

A new 65 Estrella with six Mercury 600s, a Seakeeper 9, full electronics and the usual options should be budgeted at roughly $4.3 million to $5.8 million in 2026. Used boats have recently been listed between about $2.5 million and $3.15 million for 2023 and 2024 hulls with Mercury power, while early Seven Marine boats trade lower and often need repowering to attract buyers.

Annual costs are yacht-level. Expect $220,000 to $420,000 a year once you add a full-time or part-time captain, insurance on a multi-million-dollar hull, a 65-foot slip, outboard servicing on five or six engines, generator and Seakeeper maintenance, bottom work and fuel. Outboard service is still simpler and cheaper than diesel inboard maintenance on a comparable convertible, and engines can be swapped individually rather than pulled through a deck hatch.

Depreciation is real but not brutal. Quality super consoles have held value better than many sport yachts, partly because demand at the top of the market has stayed strong and partly because build slots are limited.

Buying a used Estrella

The first question on any used Estrella is the engine brand. A Seven Marine boat can be a bargain only if the price reflects a full repower to Mercury V12s, which with rigging, controls and joystick integration is a six-figure job per engine set. Ask the seller for written quotes or proof of conversion work.

Beyond engines, review the service history of the generator, Seakeeper, watermaker and air conditioning, all of which work hard in tropical use. Many Estrellas have been run by professional captains, which usually means good records; insist on seeing them.