The Stability 60 was built around a single design brief: let a disabled person confined to a wheelchair operate the vessel and live aboard entirely without assistance. What Stability Yachts actually delivered went considerably further than that brief. **Mark's connection to this specific boat** Mark met designer Rich during Covid in 2020 and toured this particular vessel with him in person. Rich has since passed away. The boat is now anchored in Miami, owned by Marco, who worked alongside Rich for many years. As of last year, Marco was still working on it with a number of development plans in motion — though it's genuinely unclear whether he'll be able to move it forward from here. **The technology** SWATH (Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull) was, before this project, exclusively military and deep-sea research technology, never available in a private yacht. The hull form lets waves pass through the vessel rather than lifting it, virtually eliminating the sudden jarring motion that makes boats hard to move around on safely. In quiet water, the SWATH hulls can be raised out of the water at the push of a button, converting the boat into a conventional power catamaran — meaning it adapts its own operating mode to match conditions rather than compromising on one setup. **Specifications** - 63 ft LOA | ~$700,000 (2008) | Draft: 18 inches - Fuel economy: ~3 mpg at 8 knots, ~1.8 mpg at 20 knots | Top speed: ~30 knots - 5.5 ft wide single-level interior access, easily reconfigurable - Reinforced roof rated to land a small helicopter - Meets all federal disability codes **Built around the wheelchair user, not retrofitted for one** A built-in elevator connects every level at dock height, and combined with the SWATH system, doubles as a genuine water-level platform: it submerges roughly two feet below the waterline, letting a diver or swimmer float onto it and be lifted straight to deck level rather than climbing a ladder under the weight of a scuba tank and weight belt. The entire vessel runs level rather than bow-up, with no stairs anywhere, no exposed propellers to worry about in the water, and joystick-controlled commercial jet drives that let the boat move sideways for effortless docking — the anchor launches and retrieves at the push of a button too. At just 18 inches of draft, she can run straight up onto a beach and function as a two-story, shaded beach house with sand and water underneath. Jet drives plus that shallow draft mean a built-in winching system can free the boat if it runs aground — making it semi-amphibious, and opening the door to exploring shallow coastlines most vessels simply can't reach. **Redundancy and safety, genuinely engineered in** Port and starboard run as fully separate systems — independent fuel tanks, batteries, and electrical loads — with the ability to temporarily cross-link and recharge one side from the other if a fault occurs, making the loss of both engines at once highly unlikely. The engines meet Tier 2 emissions standards and keep running even after losing an alternator or with a plugged water intake (dropping to a slow-speed, internally water-cooled mode instead of failing outright). The hull is divided into separate sealed, pumped compartments, engineered to keep the boat afloat even with most compartments damaged — and to stay afloat even if every compartment is compromised. The structural material itself is non-flammable, with an optional automatic fire suppression system available for the engine compartments. **Living with it** One real owner account: after hosting a party aboard, the same owner rolled up the carpet and swapped in patio furniture days later for an offshore fishing trip — then pressure-washed the entire vessel, inside and out, on return. That kind of quick reconfiguration is only possible because there are no stairs, no inclines, and no narrow passageways to navigate: the elevator delivers everything, including furniture, straight to dock level. The whole boat can be fully cleaned in under an hour, since there's nowhere for water or dirt to get trapped — even the stanchions are secured below deck. **Photos** Six images exist in the original New Atlas coverage; direct URLs are in the image manifest for download. Note these are hotlinked from a press article, not Stability Yachts' own site, so treat them the same as the other press-sourced images in this project. *Sources: New Atlas ("Stability 60 SWATH - the practical superyacht," Mike Hanlon, February 2008), New Mobility (2017), and Mark's own firsthand account of meeting designer Rich and touring the vessel in 2020.*