1986 Cheoy Lee Midnight Lace

Featured in the movie Wild Things with Kevin Bacon and Matt Dillon

This boat rides on top of the water not in the water. An ingenious design for speed and fuel economy. Designed by naval architect Tom Fexas. Only 65 Midnight Lace ever built

This one of a kind Cheoy Lee Midnight Lace is a mixture of performance and noble tradition. She’s a custom boat with a design from out of the past. One of a kind, this 65’ was the only 65 produced, among twenty 44’ Midnight lace’s, thirteen 52’s and this single 65’. The Cheoy Lee Midnight Lace is a true classic, custom built in Brazil and named after an Alfred Hitchcock movie from the 60s and with her black hull and bright deckhouse, she is glass but looks like a wooden gold-plater. The ambient elegance of this exotic beauty is spread wide with appointments that are truly luxurious boasting a wealth of conveniences including a huge double stateroom and an open, airy dinette.

The long, lean smuggler’s look is what was accomplished by her designer, with an updated twist. Designed by Tom Fexas, a naval architect, the Midnight Lace was inspired by the slippery old hulls that were developed during the age of the rumrunner. The current trend at that time in production boat building had been toward beamy boats which is simply what the market demanded.

With the demand being large interior accomodations, the beamy boats were trending to keep up with the market, and this meant more power required to push through the water. That translated into bigger more costly engines for planing hulls, and higher fuel consumption at planing speeds. The design of the Midnight Lace dates back to WWII when designers were taught much about getting speed out of available horsepower.

Lightweight, this hull design was built with Airex core material as the matrix with added extra layers of glass reinforcement in all the stress locations, instead of a beamy production boat with all its extra structural material and heavy machinery needed for more power to push thereby adding more weight.

The Midnight Lace gets up and sets herself at her modest 2 degree running angle at about 11 knots with a hull design concept that involves rounded chines including the bottom edge of the transom being faired round to reduce drag that would otherwise occur at speeds where chines and transom are still immersed.Her low profile and light superstructure creates lower initial stability which results in a long, slower, more gentle roll period than that of other beamy boats.

Because of her long, clean running attitude, she is styled to reduce windage with all forward facing surfaces on the superstructure raked aft, and the windshield, molding, trim all keeping within the principles of aerodynamic feel and flow making her a piece of art afloat.

Feel free to contact us with any questions or further interest.

Cruise speed 22 knots which requires only 50% of both engines RPM
Top speed 32 knots
Generator
Fuel Consumption is 1 gallon per nautical mile or 25 gph
Owner just spent $100,000 in restoration work October 2019
Twin MAN Diesels V-12 1000 hp Original engines 878 hours
Range is 600 miles at 1700 rpm
No moisture in hull. Oct 2019
Hull was glass beaded Oct 2019
3 coats of barrier coat and 3 coats of bottom paint done Oct. 2019
Entire boat painted 2019
New Air Conditioning / Heating Units
New Toilets
New Carpet
New Holding Tank
Electronics
Planing Modified V Hull with Flat Bottom, Hard Chines and Flared Bow
Folding Mast at the top is hinged which will lower the bridge clearance from 18' 10" to 15' 7" when lowered.