Excel. A Labour of Love

When Dave Peet and his wife Raewyn purchased the 43ft Bill Upfold design named Excel, they did so with a restoration project in mind. Based in Tauranga, Dave was a retired wholesale jeweller – and in his own words – he needed a hobby to keep him out of trouble!

“When I purchased Excel in 2017, the boat was based at Te Atatu Marina in Auckland – and even though she was 22 years old at the time – she’d only had 2,000 hours on the engine. In other words, she was hardly used,” says Dave.

“Bill designs great boats, and although the interior was dated, Excel had excellent bones. So we set about our project - gutting the inside and completely rebuilding her.”

Dave’s love of woodwork and natural attention to detail came to the fore, and over the years they have restored Excel to showroom condition.

But that wasn’t all that needed changing.

“Excel came with a 250HP Mercedes-Benz V8 motor, which cruised at 12 knots. And although it didn’t have a huge number of hours on the clock, an upgrade was in order.” 

“When it came to choosing a new powerplant, we talked to the guys at Marine Diesel in Tauranga. We’d dealt with them before and trusted their judgement and the quality of their workmanship.” 

Dave and Raewyn have berths in Tauranga and at Gulf Harbour, so Excel needed a powerplant that could handle that journey, as well as trips out to Great Barrier Island and beyond. 

The powerplant of choice was Yanmar’s 6LY-440 – a high-performance engine known for its compact design, reliability, and efficiency. This in-line six-cylinder, 5.8-litre engine delivers a maximum output of 324 kW (440 mhp) and proved to be the perfect match.

“The new Yanmar has us cruising at 18–19 knots, it’s more fuel-efficient and runs extremely smoothly at low revs. It’s a lot quieter too – which makes getting from A to B more enjoyable.”

“The Marine Diesel guys have a top-notch skillset and they’re practical problem solvers too. The install process went off without a hitch, in fact, the toughest part was getting the bulky old Mercedes engine out in the first place. The Yanmar was more compact, and we had to slightly narrow the engine bay, which is now clean enough to eat off!”

“All in all, it’s been a wonderful result. We took Excel out of the water for the repower in September 2025 and couldn’t be happier with how its performing.”