The Porsche Boat Story, From the Fearless 28 to Today

What people mean by the Porsche boat

Porsche has never built a boat in its own factory, so the phrase porsche boat covers several collaborations. The first, and the one this page is about, is the Fearless 28, a 28-foot sportboat styled by the Porsche Design Studio for a Miami Beach start-up called Fearless Yachts. It debuted at the Miami Boat Show in February 2007, promised 80 mph, and was meant to launch a fleet that would grow to 150 feet. It never got close.

Since then the Porsche name has appeared on a Dynamiq superyacht and, most recently, on an electric runabout from Austria's Frauscher. If you are shopping for a Porsche boat for sale today, you are almost certainly looking at either a very rare Fearless 28 or the Frauscher x Porsche 850 Fantom Air. We cover both below, but the Fearless is the original and by far the rarer of the two.

Porsche Design meets Miami powerboat engineering

Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, designer of the 911, founded the Porsche Design Studio in 1972 to apply the same thinking to consumer products. By the mid-2000s it was designing everything from eyewear to trains, and Fearless Yachts brought it boats. According to Robb Report, Porsche Design managing director Roland Heiler worked with naval architect Chris Elms and the engineering team at American Marine Holdings, the Sarasota company that built Donzi and Pro-Line boats, to develop the 28. Fearless Yachts' own website was showing the boat by spring 2006, and Motor Boat & Yachting dated the partnership to around that year.

The design brief was a boat that looked like a car designer's idea of speed without becoming a caricature. The deep-V hull's lines wrap up and around into the curve of the deck, the deck hardware is hidden to cut turbulence, recessed running lights run along the bow, and a low topaz-tinted windscreen deflects the wind over the occupants. The launch boats wore Porsche silver; Fearless said the first 30 would share the prototype's color before custom paint was offered.

A hull built without a hull-deck joint

The engineering was more serious than the marketing. Fearless listed the hull as an E-glass, Kevlar and carbon composite, built with a vacuum-assisted molding process that allowed the builder to eliminate the conventional hull-deck joint. The cockpit and deck supports drop into the hull and are fixed with both adhesive and mechanical fasteners, which Robb Report described as creating a stiff, virtually compression-proof structure.

The bottom is a twin-step deep-V that Fearless called Fluid Diversion. Fearless's spec sheet lists 27 feet 7 inches overall, an 8-foot 6-inch beam that keeps it trailerable without a wide-load permit, about 5,000 pounds, and 38 inches of draft with the drive down or 25 inches with it raised. A 90-gallon tank feeds the engine.

• Length overall 27 feet 7 inches (8.4 m), beam 8 feet 6 inches (2.59 m)
• Weight about 5,000 pounds (2,268 kg)
• Draft 38 inches with drive down, 25 inches raised
• Fuel 90 gallons (340 liters)
• Hull: E-glass, Kevlar and carbon, twin-step Fluid Diversion bottom

Seventy knots on one engine

Power came from a single 525 hp gasoline V10, and Fearless quoted a top speed of 80-plus mph, or 70-plus knots. Robb Report described the boat jumping from a 36 mph cruise to an 80 mph thrill ride, and Fearless estimated a range of 164 statute miles (about 142 nautical miles) at 40 mph from its 90-gallon tank. Sources disagree on the engine's origin: Power & Motoryacht describes it as a Dodge Viper engine, while Motor Boat & Yachting called it a Mercury V10. Either way, a buyer today should treat it as a specialty powertrain and confirm exactly what is installed.

Fearless also fitted a Silent Choice muffler system that could route exhaust through the side of the hull or below the waterline, so the boat could idle out of a marina quietly before opening up. Motor Boat & Yachting summed up American reactions to the performance with a phrase we will not repeat, but the gist was that it was very fast.

A cockpit laid out like a roadster

This is an open boat with no cabin and no head. Robb Report counted seating for five in a teak-floored cockpit: adjustable bucket seats for driver and passenger, which Power & Motoryacht described as two buckets plus a rear bench. The helm used a stainless steel throttle and shifter and Livorsi gauges set into carbon fiber panels, and a sound system with an iPod dock and satellite radio was standard, which dates the boat as precisely as its silver paint.

It is a weekend toy rather than a family boat. There is little storage, no shade and no room to lie down, but as an object it remains one of the cleanest-looking small performance boats of its decade.

Why a fleet became four boats

Fearless had big plans. In 2007 it said 45 boats were scheduled for production that year with deposits on about half, a 44-footer would follow at the next Miami show, and a 68-footer with twin 1,500 hp MTU diesels and Rolls-Royce waterjets would arrive in 2008, followed by 125- and 150-foot yachts. Power & Motoryacht reported in 2018 that only four 28s were sold. The timing, just ahead of the 2008 financial crisis that hit the luxury powerboat market hard, did not help, and the larger models never appeared in the market.

For a buyer that rarity is both the appeal and the problem. A Fearless 28 is a genuine piece of Porsche Design history, but there is no dealer network, no parts supply for the boat itself and almost no market to price it against.

Porsche boats since the Fearless

Porsche did not give up. It designed an aluminum-hulled 135-foot catamaran for Singapore-based Royal Falcon Fleet that Power & Motoryacht reports was never finished. It then worked with Monaco-based Dynamiq on the GTT 115, a hybrid superyacht priced at $13.4 million with a 21-knot top speed and houndstooth fabric as a nod to 1970s 911s.

The closest thing to a Porsche boat you can buy new is the Frauscher x Porsche 850 Fantom Air, announced in 2023. It is based on Frauscher's 858 Fantom Air, 28 feet 5 inches long and 8 feet 1 inch wide on a stepped hull, but powered by an 800-volt electric drivetrain from Porsche's electric Macan with a battery of around 100 kWh. Helm ergonomics and upholstery were developed with Studio F. A. Porsche, and Frauscher said the first 25 boats would be a limited edition. Interestingly, it is almost exactly the size of the Fearless 28, with a very different idea of speed.