When Royal Huisman’s Project 398 was announced at the Monaco Yacht Show 2014, the yard revealed the owner’s brief: “Build me a beast. I don’t want a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Three years later, we know what he meant by beast.
“He was very clear on his ideas. He wanted something that hadn’t been done before. He really pushed Ed [Dubois] very hard,” says project manager Godfrey Cray, a Whitbread Round the World Race and America’s Cup sailor who has managed the build of 14 superyachts, including eight Dubois projects. “The owner wanted a boat that was fast and aggressive looking, a visual weapon with no superfluous systems. He wanted a sailor’s superyacht and didn’t want to compromise on speed by adding more beam or a bunch of extra cabins.”
At first, the owner’s vision outstripped that of his naval architect. “The first designs were not sleek enough, not oriented for the sheer joy of fast sailing,” says Ngoni’s captain, Iain Cook. “We had asked three architects for proposals and gave them two months to work up a design. When he saw Ed’s, he told him ‘I know you can do better.’” Thus challenged, Dubois went back to his studio and started again, using some of his earlier powerful racing boats as inspiration. “In two weeks he gave us a design that was like nothing we had seen before,” says Cook. “That was it.”
The Beast takes styling cues from Dubois’ racing boats and 66 metre Anatta (launched in 2012 as Aglaia), with copious amounts of glass defining her superstructure, but that’s where similarities end. Dubois’ enthusiasm was palpable when he presented the design at that press conference; its reverse sheer and bow shape were quite a departure from the status quo. Although the designer would not live to see the yacht’s completion, his joy for something he considered truly visionary is a happy memory for all involved in the project.
Ngoni — the word is the name for a people of eastern Africa and their language — is also unique for the non-traditional way she was managed. “It was a bit different for Royal Huisman,” says Cray. “Generally about a year into the build, a project focuses on rig and deck layouts, load factors being accommodated at that point.
“We had all of our partners in at the beginning to discuss speeds and loads that would be generated by the sails, how we would handle them on deck and how this would impact the entire design, the amount of glass, and the large tender that would be stored under deck. Only by having everyone in on the details from the beginning were we able to achieve this level of detail without revisions.”
Cook, a British sailor who brought to the table 20 years of racing and cruising experience and seven years of captaining for Ngoni’s owner, shared the development and supervision equally with Cray. The owner told them to get on with it; he’d see them in three years.
Londoners Rick Baker and Paul Morgan, who have created furniture pieces and design features for the owner for 20 years, were asked if they would design an interior around the GA developed by Cook, Royal Huisman and Dubois. They embraced their first yacht project unequivocally.
“We planned an interior that is modern, organic and curved, following on the exterior lines. We know the owner likes curves and tactile finishes. It’s nice when you can be on the same page with a client,” Morgan says. “We approached it with a very open eye. Royal Huisman was so helpful and there was a shared respect for craft. I think our concepts were eagerly awaited in the manner of wondering what we would come up with next. They kept us to a strict weight budget except for the marble in the showers and the wooden soaking tub,” he adds.
To the description modern, curved and organic, I would add youthful and exuberant. Colours and art pieces — a collage of photos that becomes a seascape by Vik Muniz, a bust of a woman with an artichoke on her head and a Stefano Bombardieri sculpture of a rhinoceros suspended in air — could be talking points for days, but the real show-stoppers are wall panels commissioned by Officina Coppola, an English company specialising in custom finishes and art panels of resin, metal and limestone.
The pieces are pressed into service as wardrobe doors and bedside wall panels; their colours and movement make it seem like you are looking at the bottom of a shallow sea.
Indeed, contact with the water was key for the owner, which is why there is no superyacht sundeck. Ngoni’s main deck is completely encircled with optically perfect glass with exacting compound curves. Only one manufacturer, BCM in Turkey, would attempt the project.
The glass, which is laminated with tinted film and heated to a near liquid state, is slumped into moulds to shape as it cools. The effect of the near 360 degree view from almost anywhere within the main deck structure is nothing short of awesome.
The forward end of the glass deckhouse wraps around a navigation and communications console on starboard and a service pantry on port. In the centre of the open area is the top of the massive lifting keel box doing double duty as a chart table and staging meal service from the galley below.
As if the curved glass wrapping around and over the coachroof frame isn’t enough, skylights give views of the towering mast above, creating an atrium-like effect on the crew space below. With the doors open, as they generally are, it is possible to see from the aft deck straight through the saloon and navigation station to the bow.
The open plan saloon — there are no internal supports — encompasses a dining table, a full wet bar with a backlit onyx top and custom bar stools matching the satinwood dining chairs by Francis Sultana, and a circular section for watching television or films from a small pop-up screen. Textures such as bleached wenge floor planks, the uniquely textured bronze-look “Boetti” bar front and matching staircase surround and coarse fabric on the sofa form a counterpoint to the glass and white painted panels.
Elsewhere, highly figured Tabu and Alpi veneers and simple leathers form the backdrop to the passing scene. Aft of the saloon proper is an outdoor lounge with enormous L-shaped sofas under a hardtop that extends aft from the roofline. Sliding side windows can make this well sheltered in inclement weather or open to the breeze and it grants a great view of the dual helms. A 75-inch television monitor pops up from a cockpit counter for an al fresco cinema next to an outdoor dining table.
From the saloon a circular superyacht staircase descends to the accommodation and guest dayhead. Two guest cabins benefit from being at the widest point of the yacht, just aft of the engine room. The rest of the lower deck accommodation is all owner’s suite.
First up is a glass-walled superyacht gym with a maple floor. Opposite is the owner’s study, wrapped in turquoise leather and panelled with a striped engineered veneer the owner spotted in Italy. Niches display books and racing memorabilia. It is a chorus of curves from sofa to desk and pleasantly cocoon-like compared to the openness of the main deck.
Furthest aft is the master suite, a double-height masterpiece of relaxation. The wardrobes and dressing area are on the same level as the gym and guest cabins but then, to gain width, the floor is raised three steps and this is the location of a stunning pewter free-form desk, a curved sofa and the master bed.
The master bath is next aft but instead of being full beam, there is a small owner’s pantry to starboard with facilities for rustling up coffee, tea or snacks. A secret staircase tucked in here provides access to the aft deck through a teak hatch.
“The boss is up, has his juice and coffee and is off for a swim all independently. When he’s finished, he’s back to his suite without ever having to go through the saloon,” says Cook.
Atypically for a yacht this size built today, Ngoni has direct mechanical steering via a quadrant, chain and cable. Royal Huisman engineered the system, putting considerable ingenuity into reducing friction at the various turning blocks in the mechanism. Considering the forces generated by the sails flying from a 72 metre Rondal mast, the request for direct rather than hydraulic steering necessitated thorough tank testing of the keel and rudder.
The stainless steel keel foil is shaped for delivering maximum lift to windward and the flattened torpedo bulb contains all the yacht’s 73 tonnes of lead ballast. “The boat is perfectly balanced with just a touch of weather helm,” says Cray.
Taking the helm as the boat cruises in light airs off the cliffs of Mallorca, I’m happy to confirm this and, as the last of the season’s sun turns those cliffs a deep gold, it’s impossible not to think of Dubois. At the press conference announcing the project in Monaco, his ultra-modern profile sketches induced gasps from the assembled press. Now three years later I’m the first journalist allowed on board.
I look aft to admire the stairs stepping down to the sea, appreciating how Dubois’ career came full circle before he died. When he burst on to the scene in 1986 with Aquel II (now Philkade), people were amazed at the yacht’s open stern with steps down to the water.
But Ngoni is not a requiem for Dubois, rather it’s a celebration. “The best part of the build experience was the people and the opportunity to utilise 20 years of experience and passion to create something special,” says Cook. “The energy and expertise everyone put into creating this very special yacht was like nothing I had experienced before. My only regret is that Ed did not get to see this magnificent yacht sailing. I am sure he would have been exceptionally proud of his final yacht.”
“I fall in love easily,” explains the owner of Dojo over breakfast at the Hotel Metropole in Monaco. Then he sighs. “When I first saw her, I knew.” This tall man with intense eyes isn’t confiding details of his romantic life, but trying to articulate why he bought and comprehensively refitted a vintage 43 metre Feadship that first tasted salt water in 1981.
He had tired of his 25 metre. “I have known bigger boats all my life. I’ve always felt comfortable on them, and it’s the only way I can really relax.” But he didn’t want a new build. Budget was not the issue — he spent well over €10 million — it was more a question of timing and style. “I was looking for something with character. To use a car analogy, I didn’t want an old Fiat 500 — more like a Mercedes with gull-wing doors.”
And that is just what he saw when he read that a Jon Bannenberg-designed Feadship, then called Branzino (ex-My Gail, Khalifah, Ramses), was for sale. A few days later he was on board. He liked her owner’s suite on the main deck, with a big entertaining space aft. He also liked her VIP cabin and two guest cabins; the wide, relaxing deck spaces and huge sofas on the superyacht sundeck. “The only thing I didn’t like was the stern.”
He asked Andrea Carlevaris of ACP Surveyors for a detailed assessment of the yacht’s condition and potential for refit, also engaging Feadship for a feasibility study on a new stern and upgrading to zero-speed stabilisers. The team spent two days measuring up the boat, and six weeks later the owner got the answer he wanted.
The first job was to commission designs for the new stern. As well as Feadship, the owner asked Italian refit specialist Lusben for a concept, which he ultimately dismissed. The brief was to create a large bathing platform close to the waterline, with steps up to the main deck. This also made room for a necessary technical space under the steps.
“We tried to do what — humbly — Mr Bannenberg would have done if he’d built a swim platform,” the owner says. “Extending at the stern three metres was never an issue of saying ‘this is a 45 metre yacht’. It was about being closer to the sea, playing with the kids and adding liveable space with a shower.”
As he talks, it becomes clear that this owner had a very clear vision of what he wanted from the start, going into the detail that many would shun. It is a theme that comes up again and again in conversation with the whole Dojorefit team. “He defined everything himself,” says Francesca Nenci at ACP Surveyors, who, with Simone Curti, managed the day-to-day details. “I was surprised because normally the wife is involved with some of the interior decisions.”
“We supported the owner, but he also dragged us along,” adds Carlevaris. “He was a whirlwind!”
At this stage, there was still no yard appointed, although both Feadship and Lusben had been asked to quote. It was something of a gamble, but in September 2015 the owner hauled the boat out at Lusben’s Viareggio yard before concluding negotiations with director Paolo Simoncini. It could have been a costly move, but the refit schedule was tight and the owner wanted the work undertaken in two parts, so that he could use the boat during the intervening summer.
Technically, it was always going to be a tall order. The yard would have to cut away the old high rounded stern and replace it with the new one, which was being manufactured off site by a subcontractor. Then there were 250 square metres of teak deck that needed complete lifting, levelling and replacing, and the hull had to be faired and repainted. All in just eight months.
“It was very difficult,” agrees Lusben’s overall technical manager Alessio Centelli as we sip coffee in the all-new crew galley. “When she arrived she was not in good condition. And as the boat is old, you don’t know what you are going to find when you start removing panels.”
As with any superyacht refit project of this size, the owner’s team had to keep a close eye on the progress of work to ensure that the tight deadline was met. Once the yard had come to terms with this, it put Centelli directly on to the refit. As the owner himself puts it: “I knew Lusben could deliver; they had the capacity. But they needed to be followed well.”
He describes a game of good cop, bad cop, with Carlevaris and him discussing tactics in the car on the way down to Viareggio for inspections. Carlevaris had local knowledge and could verify prices, while the owner took a different approach, learning the names of the workers and a little bit about their lives. “Before going in to see the boss, I would go and speak to the workers on the boat. A little interest buys you incredible results.”
After three weeks of skilled welding, Centelli’s team got the new stern attached in early 2016. By contrast, it took three months to remove the old teak decks, which were glued and screwed in hefty 35mm planking. Some 2,000 litres of levelling compound were used to fair the exposed steel surface before new teak was laid.
In the end, there was even time to squeeze extra work into this first phase of Dojo’s refit. “We had a window to do the plumbing,” says the owner. This involved ripping out all the old copper piping and replacing it with plastic and stainless steel, in line with current practice.
He took the opportunity to remove, scrub and repaint the inside of Dojo’s water tanks, as well as installing state-of-the-art filtration systems. Nobody is likely to try, but if a guest did want to drink the boat’s tap water, they would find it cleaner than Monaco’s mains water.
Clearly this is one of the owner’s foibles, and it comes down to wanting to provide the safest possible environment for his family. His other bugbear was the hygiene of the air-con system, which later led him to install an entirely new system throughout Dojo.
Aware that his negotiating hand would be much weaker if he committed both phases of the refit to Lusben, the owner decided to wait and see how well the yard dealt with Dojo’s new stern before discussing the interior work. “It’s just like a deal — it’s what I do every day,” he says.
During his summer cruise, he took stock of progress and decided to stick with the Italian yard for the difficult interior phase. The design work was to be done by Domusnova — who had worked on his apartment in Monaco — run by brothers Marco and Carlo Manzoni.
In a cosmetic refit as recent as 2014, the yacht had been restyled with a beach house feel. But no one seemed to like it, least of all the new owner. His brief was simple. “I wanted to bring the boat back to life, which meant a classic interior,” he explains. “You can’t completely change the inside flavour — if I’d wanted modern, minimalist design, I could have bought a new boat.”
If the brief was simple, fulfilling it was anything but. For a start, the tight time frame left the Manzoni brothers just six months to design and approve the concept, build it and install it. “It’s easier to completely destroy everything and rebuild it, but we had no time,” Carlo says. “So we decided what was good, then created new things around it.”
The original interior had been light, varnished oak and it had not aged well — developing a slightly yellow tinge. Nevertheless, the quality of the wood was excellent and heavily built, so it was possible to strip down and repaint large parts of the interior joinery and panelling. The brothers began with the frames around each window, then built out from there.
Key cabinetry is painted in dark tobacco, but the rich grain is still clear. This has been coupled with lustrous cream carpets, large silk panels in turtle dove grey on the walls and deep, vintage-effect leather for key items of furniture. The brothers use the top quality unsplit hide, known as pieno fiore, that is rolled and brushed for softness, then dyed.
In Dojo’s master cabin, this has been employed to great effect around the windows, and it is repeated in the other cabins. Used on the dining room sideboards, the leather gives the effect of a traditional steamer trunk, complete with brass rivets and handles.
At nearly two metres tall, the owner is a big man, so a key part of the design brief was to gain as many extra centimetres of headroom as possible. The Manzonis worked closely with Lusben to move ducting and trunking so they could raise the ceiling. “The gloss white ceiling panels create a sense of light and space,” says Marco. “In the main saloon, this brings the light from the water inside.”
The other change in Dojo’s main living area has been around the superyacht staircase connecting the bridge deck and the main deck. “It is structural, so we couldn’t do anything with it,” sighs the owner. “It was visible from both the dining room and the saloon, so we built a library to hide it.”
The Manzonis’ solution was to box the staircase into a new vestibule, accessed by mirrored doors from the dining room forward and the saloon aft. The mirrors cleverly create extra light and depth without looking kitsch, while the new walls give both areas a confidential air that the previous open plan arrangement lacked.
“I use Dojo a lot as my private escape, going there for a drink after work, for instance,” the owner explains. “Monaco is a small place, so I also use it as a private meeting place.”
The owner’s cabin occupies the full 7.7 metre beam of Dojo, with a shower room finished in bold Bardiglio marble (they went through three tones for the cabinet doors before the owner finally settled on matt white). Just aft is another room that could be attached to the master to make a suite, but is currently set up as a cabin for the owner’s daughter.
On the bridge deck, where the old davits have given way to an outside dining area, a further cabin has been converted into an upper saloon, with a sweeping view aft. There is also a pantry for the family. In each space, the Manzonis have subtly varied their key theme by using slightly different fabrics for the wall panels and cushions. It is both elegant and intimate, bringing out the classic character of the boat. “I wanted people to feel able to sit down and put their feet up if they want,” says the owner.
The crew areas below and amidships have not been ignored either. Hearing grumbling from the original crew about stuffy conditions, the owner has been particularly careful to improve the ventilation and air-con. The whole area has been given a makeover in limed oak.
It’s part of what has helped create a real sense of pride on board Dojo. As skipper Bobby Chapman puts it later as we cruise from Monaco to Villefranche through moderate swell: “To be involved in refitting a vintage yacht and bringing her back to as-new, you learn to respect the old girl more.”
Dojo was finally relaunched on a bright spring morning in early May 2017, with her topsides gleaming. After sea trials and a final snagging session, she was soon steaming her way west to Monaco, where she is now berthed. The owner knows he set a tight schedule, but sees the project as a success. “The Lusben team did a high quality job. I am very pleased with the result and, more importantly, so is my wife!”
As the interview draws to a natural close, one final question remains. Why call the boat Dojo? The owner looks at me for a moment, then grins. “I could make up some romantic story,” he says, “but the truth is I wanted something short and easy to turn into a logo. A dojo is a temple of combat and meditation, and I liked the analogy.”
Mixing business with pleasure can be a dangerous game but it’s one that the owner of Vertige plays brilliantly. He was looking to move up in size to a boat he could use with his grown-up family, but also one that could host business meetings and be used for charter too.
And he got it: a highly customised interior, with guest friendly layout, makes sure the clients are happy, and the presence of music and wine — in a boat named after his favourite white from the Rhône Valley — ensures that pleasure is plentiful for all.
Doing business with the builder, Tankoa Yachts, proved a pleasure too. Tankoa, which was established in 2008 in Sestri Ponente, Genoa, bills itself as a “boutique shipyard”, presenting top-quality concepts for vessels from 50 to 90 metres that owners can customise to suit their needs.
The genesis of Vertige backs up the yard’s philosophy: the owner saw a model for the 50 metre Tankoa S501 displacement series, fell in love with it, signed the contract in early 2015 and received his new superyacht in 2017. She is the yard’s second completed build after the 70 metre Suerte, launched in 2015. It also has a 72 metre under construction.
“All of the hull models and projects we propose are engineered, tested and ready to be built,” says Michel Karsenti, sales director at Tankoa. “We encourage owners to customise interior layouts and furnishings, but having the hull models ready and tested saves time for everyone.”
Vertige’s all-aluminium alloy hull was built in Marina di Carrara, at the foot of the marble producing mountains, because Tankoa didn’t have large enough facilities in Sestri Ponente. “But we have expanded and now do the cutting and metalworking in Sestri,” says Karsenti.
Francesco Paszkowski Design created the hull, superstructure and interior, the last in collaboration with Margherita Casprini. If you look at Vertige from her high plumb bow, her low superstructure makes her appear like a crouched animal that could unleash hidden power and pounce at any moment. But moving around the yacht, what looks like the top of the freeboard becomes part of the superstructure, a line that is carried fore to aft in a continuous, easy sweep.
“Vertige’s hull shape has proved to be very stable and smooth,” says Captain Filippo Belli. “The combination of this hull shape, slightly detuned 1,000hp MTU engines and Vosper Naiad zero-speed stabilisers is a real plus for charters. The yacht is very quiet and stable and you can’t feel any vibration at all.”
The interior, which Paszkowski designed to be under the 500GT threshold to help keep management costs down as per the brief, presents a cool, calm atmosphere. “Vertige was really a yacht that was created step-by-step by a team made up of my design studio, the shipyard and the owner, with whom we worked in harmony right from the start,” says Paszkowski.
“It was important to create visual continuity with the sea, so we used lots of large windows. The interiors are balanced between natural and bleached teak and dark polished rosewood. The rosewood, especially, was important for creating the sophisticated style that we wanted, a kind of modern interpretation of the 1950s.”
The owner wanted the outdoor spaces to be as large and comfortable as possible and he certainly got what he was looking for. On the aft main deck, sofas and loungers can easily accommodate 14 people and are shaded by awnings that admit light and air but filter out UV rays.
Two coffee tables have Vertige-themed, V-shaped supports in natural teak, while a nearby teak and golden glass bar has a convenient refrigerator and icemaker. Two fold-out terraces add extra square metres of floor space and open up the view to the water even further.
The aft upper deck’s 14-seat dining table is the owner’s favourite place for meals. Sofas and low tables are on hand nearby for coffee in a welcoming spot that can be shaded with umbrellas. For guests who can’t bear to miss a game or want to enjoy a film al fresco, a 65-inch flat screen television and speakers are hidden in the ceiling above the dining table. And a refrigerator and icemaker in a built-in cabinet at the foot of the stairs leading to the superyacht sundeck indicate careful crew service planning.
The owner paid special attention to the large saloon on the upper deck and the relaxation area forward. “This is the quiet area aboard, the place to come to just enjoy the view,” says Captain Belli. Adjustable-height tables can be adapted to make the area a huge sunning (or napping) platform shaded by the same UV-filtering awnings found on the other decks.
The sundeck is the perfect place for cocktails, in the owner’s view. The area is protected by a wraparound glass partition that reduces the breeze while keeping views to the water free and open. Forward is a superyacht spa pool surrounded by sunloungers, while aft are chaises longues that can be repositioned at will. The hardtop conceals a retractable awning and has louvres in the centre so that the banquettes and convertible tables beneath it can be shaded if necessary.
Also in the hardtop are built-in Bang & Olufsen speakers, just part of the state-of-the-art, iPad controlled sound equipment that this music-loving owner has installed throughout Vertige. There is a golden glass and teak bar to starboard similar to the one on the main deck, but with not only a refrigerator and icemaker but also a teppanyaki grill and a 42-inch television.
These three decks offer plenty of outdoor living options, but there is more. The transom opens to become a large beach platform with easy and direct access to the sea. When the transom is open, guests use the symmetrical staircases that lead down from the main deck aft to access a superyacht gym, complete with the latest Technogym equipment, and a dayhead with a spa steam shower. In port, the gym can be screened from view by light curtains. Captain Belli proudly shows off the refrigerator in the gym — another feature that makes Vertige such a special yacht. The trail of refrigerators and icemakers — four spotted so far, without entering the interior — is leads to the heart and soul of this boat.
Captain Belli leads the way through the main saloon’s living and dining areas. There is barely time to admire the views through the huge windows, or the Jerusalem stone wall with burnished brass accents, before we pass through the dramatically lit entrance hall and open a door. The entire inboard wall of the corridor is lined with a retro, illuminated, floor to ceiling wine cellar — or rather showcase, since this is not hidden away. It contains 300 bottles of the finest wines, including a generous cache of the owner’s favourite, Vertige from Domaine Yves Cuilleron. This very aromatic dry white from the north Rhône region is made from 100 per cent Viognier grapes.
“Constructing this cellar was a bit of an engineering feat,” says Karsenti, “because the different compartments contain wines that have to be kept at different temperatures. The owner’s real passion is for whites but he also stocks reds and wants them all stored correctly.” Hence coolers and icemakers everywhere.
But this is just the beginning of the story. A door from the wine corridor leads to a beautifully appointed VIP cabin with a Mies van der Rohe chair, leather fronted wardrobe, woven leather headboard and silver silk curtains. It has a 55-inch television and a mini refrigerator, naturally. The en suite is lined in precious onyx.
Another door leads to an equally beautiful, full-beam owner’s suite that is a larger version of the VIP with the addition of a study, dressing table, an Eames lounge chair with ottoman, a magnificent en suite with his-and-hers basins and spa shower, and a walk-in wardrobe. As a bonus, it also has spectacular opening side terraces. And, yes, there is another refrigerator.
Why have the VIP cabin so close to the master suite? “This layout was the owner’s decision,” says Karsenti. “He said he would be using the yacht for business meetings and couldn’t imagine entertaining an important business contact and then sending him or her down to a lower deck to sleep. It just didn’t sit well with his idea of hospitality. Two very top suites also work well on the charter market.”
So the picture becomes clearer: the owner loves music, wine and people. He uses Vertige both for and as a business, and when he is not hosting private meetings and entertaining clients, he charters. The layout includes four lower deck guest cabins — three doubles and a twin that can be converted to a double, or even a triple by pulling down the Pullman berth. There’s another mini refrigerator behind the teak panelling in the guest foyer.
The crew of nine was also chosen with chartering in mind. They come from the owner’s native France, Italy, Ukraine and the Philippines and can speak nine languages between them. However, crew and guest areas are kept separate. “Vertige is organised so that crew use the port staircases and corridors and the owner and guests use the starboard ones,” says Belli. “It works well for everyone because it keeps work paths free and protects the privacy of guests.”
En-suite crew quarters are situated on the lower deck and the captain’s cabin, also en suite, is on the upper deck next to the superyacht's wheelhouse. The crew staircase connects their quarters to a large pantry on the main deck and a pantry just off the bar on the upper deck.
Guests, meanwhile, can get to the various decks using the dramatically lit curved teak staircase with leather lined walls and floors. When the doors to the crew passage are closed, they are so well integrated into the panelling and walls that no one would ever notice them, making Vertige a yacht built for privacy as well as business and socialising — and the owner will surely want to drink to that.
The exact origins of the phrase “cloud nine” have been lost to the mists of time, but it has become synonymous with a state of supreme elation and happiness — the perfect name, in other words, for a new superyacht with an emphasis on family relaxation.
Cloud 9 represents a considerable achievement considering its builder, CRN, wasn’t exactly in a place of supreme elation and relaxation when it learned its original client for the 74 metre hull would not be able to finish the boat he had on order. Enter a new owner, with his design and build teams, who was able to find the silver lining and turn CRN’s second largest yacht into a stylish and comfortable cruiser — and one eminently worthy of her moniker.
The adventure began with a phone call in January 2014. Captain Colin Boyle was in Singapore where his yacht, the 60 metre CMN Cloud 9 was based. “One night at about 10pm the owner called and asked: ‘Can you get on a flight to Rome at 1am?’” Boyle recalls.
“He said, ‘There is a boat I want you to look at to see if it’s worthwhile’.” Burgess, who had represented Boyle’s owner on the previous build at CMN, knew he was looking to build a larger yacht. Here might be an opportunity to get one that was already well under way, but Burgess and Boyle knew it had to be the right fit.
From Rome, Boyle travelled to Ancona, Italy, where CRN project 131 was in stasis. The metalwork of the 74 metre hull and most of the superstructure were substantially completed, and the majority of major machinery installed. Underwater, it shared lines with award-winning predecessor Azteca and, higher up, styling similarities with the yard’s 80 metre flagship Chopi Chopi.
Structurally and mechanically it had great potential but the layout required substantial rethinking. As Bernardo Zuccon of exterior design firm Zuccon International Project puts it, this “forced the shipyard and the designers to rewrite the story with a new owner”. As it turns out, it is a story with a very happy ending.
“We had three months to replan and redraw it: staircases out, staircases in, top deck off, raise it up, rework the naval architecture,” the captain says. Then, once the layout and exterior details met the owners’ expectations, he gave his team and the yard 30 days to get to a mutually agreeable contract. “We signed in June 2014,” notes Boyle, and the new Cloud 9 was under way.
“The project was born with a well defined will to meet the concept of timelessness that we always value,” says Zuccon. He also uses descriptions such as “maturity” and “substance together with a great attention to the human being” about the styling. Inside and out, and in spite of her size, Cloud 9 feels utterly approachable, even from the stern platform, where the massive fold-down door forms part of a sprawling superyacht beach club.
Stairs flank a 10,000 litre superyacht spa pool with a glass bottom, which is at the heart of a recreation area on the main aft deck. Privately, the owners like to call their new superyacht “Cloud 9 Plus” and stepping through the doors that slide open into the main saloon, it’s immediately apparent how her owners came up with the nickname.
The new Cloud 9 measures around 2,218 gross tonnes, which is about twice as many as the first one. This extra volume translates into generous dimensions, apportioned in comfortable spaces that flow neatly from one to the next.
Devoid of a conventional dining area at her owners’ request, the main saloon ambiance is open, casual and sunny. A 3D porcelain panel “cloud” by British artist Fenella Elms adds movement and depth to the central bulkhead along with two Vortex sculptures by Tim Royall. “The sofa in the saloon (and the one on the aft deck) is 1.5 metres deep. It’s a lie-down sofa, which is what you want to do when you watch a movie or come up from the swimming pool,” notes Mark Mämpel, the designer in charge of the project for Winch Design.
The studio received carte blanche from Cloud 9’s owners to come up with an interior concept adapted to their family needs and future charter guests. The final result was kept a secret at the request of the husband to surprise his wife, although the 3D renderings produced at the onset are uncannily similar to the final result.
Moving around the guest areas feels easy and natural. Forward of the main saloon is a foyer with an eye catching central glass and steel superyacht elevator — in Winch design language, it is meant to represent a waterfall from sundeck to beach club, connecting the exterior blue stripe to the interior.
A long, wide corridor leads to six cabins (including two staff cabins finished as guest cabins, which could be used for nannies or teachers). Each door has a nameplate engraved with the name of a Star Wars character. They are removable, in case the next guests are not fans of the films, and underneath are elegant numbers in stainless steel.
Captain Boyle leads me through the yacht’s six decks (counting the technical deck dedicated to stores, laundry room and machinery spaces such as the pump room), patiently answering questions about his new charge in soft speech with the hint of a Scottish accent. A concert musician who studied and taught at London’s Royal Academy of Music before embracing a new career at sea, he stepped onto the first Cloud 9 eight years ago and aboard the new one in May 2017.
Within minutes of being aboard, warm lighting and silence have melted away my stresses. Heavy layered doors to the cabins, with soundproofing from specialist Cergol Engineering, shut with a muffled click. The yard achieved a 48dB(A) level in the master suite at cruising speed and 45dB(A) at anchor. Cloud 9’s not quite concert hall quiet, but she’s pretty close.
Subtle curves throughout contribute to the sense of wellbeing. The interior needed to be friendly to children, so there are no sharp corners or angles. Curved support columns are clad in limed oak veneer with thin stainless accents on the windows, doorframes and nearly all of the bespoke furniture. “Easy to draw, very hard to realise,” observes the captain, who was an integral part of the team managing the construction of Cloud 9.
This team included technical consultants from Burgess who ensured compliance with the owners’ wishes (and class rules), blending their modifications with the pre-existing project. Ed Beckett, the naval architect on the Burgess team, scrutinised the technical details and equipment, elevating some of the technical focus and integrating the new interior. Based in Scorze in Venice and part of the Ferretti Group, Zago Interiors worked with outside suppliers to produce all of Cloud 9’s polished steel details, which amount to around 4,500 metres for the guest areas alone.
What sold the new Cloud 9 to his boss, the captain says, is the owners’ deck, which contains a magnificent suite with wraparound windows looking onto a private terrace and helicopter deck below. These owners don’t intend to use the helipad, so they decided to turn the vast open space into a grand entertaining platform instead. Andreas Iseli, responsible for exteriors at Winch Design, came up with the idea of a large tent that can be installed there to shield guests from weather while they dine al fresco. It’s become a favourite spot for karaoke, too.
Other important modifications included adding an interior crew staircase and creating a beautifully finished fire- and soundproof passageway through the engine room’s top level to connect the beach club with the port tender garage for the MasterCraft ski boat and other toys, and the guest arrival lobby to starboard. This highly practical lobby also exemplifies the whole interior design philosophy.
“The biggest challenge mastered by CRN was to combine, in balance, the interior and exterior design with the functionality required by the owner,” says Raffaele Giannetti, the project manager in charge of the Cloud 9 build for CRN.
“We made that entrance lounge into a space of waves,” Andrew Winch says. From the bright sunlight, guests move into a quiet, soothing space that allows the eyes to adjust gradually after bright sun. To achieve this effect, the design team created a bespoke teak and holly design with wave details carved into it and repeated all around the room.
“We wanted it to be an envelope, a cocoon. It’s the same pattern on the ceiling and on the floor,” Winch adds. “That is an ongoing story on Cloud 9, to give you a sense of relaxation.” On the whimsical side, Winch Design interior decorator Rebecca Johnstone added table lamps with a Picasso-inspired painted design and white curtains with blue ombre that recall sky and sea.
Aft is Cloud 9’s beach club, which has an espresso bar complete with a professional machine and a seating area with wonderful views. Light streaming through the pool above bounces wave patterns all around. The owners so enjoy this space that they often like to dine al fresco here. The primary outdoor dining area is on the upper deck, protected from wind by sliding glass panels, adjacent to the main indoor dining area which is semi enclosed by glass doors.
Both areas feature large circular wooden tables that can be expanded to accommodate more guests, or removed completely to make room for a dance floor or corporate event. This may be the space that best exemplifies the goal of both Zuccon and Winch studios to merge indoor and exterior spaces.
“Certainly, the exterior spaces of the boat — in particular the cockpit on the main deck and the bow area — are key elements that testify how important it is, despite the dimensions, not to forget the real reason why boats are designed: to live on the sea in its purest form,” Zuccon says. “The work of Winch Design has been strategically important for he was able to create a perfect dialogue between the experience lived outside and the one felt once entered.”
For his part, Andrew Winch is very pleased with what he calls the “on-water house”. “I think that Zuccon designed a beautiful yacht… his style signature on this boat is pure, and I find it very lovely. I think it is a very chic, elegant exterior and we were happy to work with him to fit into it all that the owner required.” The good partnership between designers made the work easier, says the captain, and has left a lingering feeling of goodwill on board. Yet another reason for guests to feel that they are on cloud nine, when they are on Cloud 9.
When it comes to the 100+ metre field of yachts, few capture the imagination as instantly and as vividly as Oceanco’s new 110-metre Jubilee. Her exterior profile, studied from whichever angle, leaves one mesmerised and slightly perplexed even as the mind attempts to make sense of where lines begin and where they end. This level of illusionary design is not often found on this scale and makes the entire project ever more impressive. With so few details known about the yacht herself, we spoke with the man behind this captivating design, Igor Lobanov, and his studio Lobanov Design to get the story behind her unique look.
“You can say that it was a type of experiment,” he explains when I ask him how they arrived at Jubilee’s one-of-a-kind exterior. “There was no request or any kind of exterior design brief. Often when I or another designer from our studio has an idea that seems interesting we would do a quick concept sketch in 3D. Our private portfolio contains many such projects and Jubilee happened to be one such concept picked out by the client.”
There was, however, a clear motivator behind those curved shapes of Jubilee. As an ex-car designer himself, Lobanov is known to draw inspiration from several fields of design and this project was no different. “Modern architecture,” says Lobanov. Before Jubilee, we had a concept called Unfoundland which was based on a platform with above-average deck heights. The the studio looked towards solutions used in the design of buildings and real estate to arrive at a well-proportioned and sleek profile despite the immense volume of Unfoundland. “So I started to think about a visual trick on how to hide the excessive height of the yacht. This led us to the idea of having it appear as if there are more decks than what the yacht really has.” The original platform was never used but the styling and design remained to create the Jubilee we see today. “I thought that perhaps the 110-metre will look more like a 140-metre.”
Despite having the design intended to make the yacht seem somewhat larger than in reality, Lobanov wanted deck space to feel familiar and comfortable at the same time. “In our opinion, the spaces on a yacht have to be comfortable both for small groups of people as well as for larger ones.” He set out to create an opulent yet functional and, surprisingly, homely environment. “During my travels I often get to stay at grand hotels, especially in the off-season when there are fewer guests around. I find that I don’t like eating alone in large empty saloons or sit on the huge terrace of a 5-star hotel with no one else around.”
It was this sense of loneliness that Lobanov tried to avoid at all costs – something not easily achieved on such a large vessel. “On Jubilee, we wanted to offer guests with a variety of options. There is a very large and open space on the main deck, a medium-sized sundeck for mixed uses and a much smaller and cosier owner and upper decks. Imagine it is only the owner and his wife spending time on board this 110-metre yacht – now they can choose to be on their own deck designed just for them without feeling lost.” The same philosophy was applied to the layout of the interior, designed by Sam Sorgiovanni Designs, with larger saloons are accompanied by smaller tea rooms, game rooms libraries suited for two to four guests.
Such an elaborate design, however, does seem rather complex to build. But is it really? “The has more different surfaces and consequently requires more man-hours to build the superstructure. But if you consider the size of the overall project, I don’t feel there is a dramatic increase in total build time, no. Either way, if anyone could have pulled it off it would have been the project teams at Oceanco and Burgess.” The client was introduced to Oceanco by Burgess who then closely followed the project as Technical Consultants. Few know the project better inside and out than this team at Burgess which is also why they are exclusive worldwide central agents for the sale of Jubilee.
However iconic Jubilee may or may not become, Lobanov’s one-yacht one-design philosophy still applies and it is unlikely that we will see another of her kind be constructed anytime soon. “This style is not going to become our trademark as Jubilee is just one of our ideas which we are constantly generating. It is in a way a demonstration of our force.”
After her recent delivery from the Oceacno shipyard, Jubilee is spending her first summer season in the Mediterranean and will be on display during next month’s Monaco Yacht Show through Burgess.
It is fair to say that all superyacht projects around the 100-metre mark range possess a certain amount of innovation and even a few never-before-seen features that set them apart. The words ‘innovative’, ‘ground-breaking’, and perhaps even ‘iconic’ are often used to describe these projects. For one owner, this level of distinction was simply not good enough, and with a clear concept in mind that was inspired by the famous Maltese Falcon, set out to create what the superyacht world has been missing up till now. What follows are the events of how a talented group of designers and a shipyard, personally lead by a motivated and foresightful owner, came to create what will undoubtedly go down as one of the industry’s most defining projects.
When Ken Freivokh Design was contracted to take responsibility for the design and styling work on 7 July 2010, it would be the beginning of a process that would push boundaries in every area of the yacht, from her extraordinary rig to her cutting-edge power systems, green technologies, and futuristic styling details. the result would be a 96m preliminary design, codenamed nautilus, bearing the distinctive DynaRig across three free-standing masts – an outward sign of the advanced nature of the concept whose core delivers evolution and revolution in equal measure.
Given their experience with the Maltese Falcon project and the development of the DynaRig concept, it was only natural that Freivokh would introduce the Dykstra Naval Architects team to the owner, and to Nautilus. the partnership would prove highly advantageous – with the owner seeking to push both the boundaries and the technology far beyond what the Maltese Falcon project had achieved, the Dykstra team’s expertise would be critical in refining and further advancing the DynaRig system. This was redesigned to improve performance through changes both to mast shape and installation.
As the preliminary concept, preliminary design, design development and the first stage of detailed design neared completion in the Ken Freivokh Design (KFD) studios, KFD commissioned Devonport yachts (Pendennis shipyard) in the south-west of the UK to undertake a technical study of the yacht in order to complete the tendering package. The tendering process began in June 2011 through seven leading shipyards in both northern and southern Europe, and the US.
By November 2011, the Freivokh design team had extended the design from 96m to 100m, and a scale model was produced from the plans, fully machined with a CNC lathe. As Oceanco was selected for the build, in 2012 Nuvolari Lenard – who had worked with Oceanco on several previous superyacht builds – joined the team for the build of Freivokh’s Nautilus design, and influenced a handful of styling tweaks, notably the three elliptical hull windows, and elements of the superstructure including further development of the original distinctive arches.
The hull design continued to evolve, with heavy input from the owner, as various studies by the Freivokh team on the bow shape led to refinements borne from essential technical requirements. It was by the owner’s own hand that these modifications gradually evolved into the distinctive overhang-to-reverse bow concept that graces the final 106m design iteration of the nautilus concept, which would be built as project Y712 and named Black Pearl.
For the interior, while the KFD studio had created the framework and the layout, the owner worked closely with designer Gerard Villatte to develop the essential style and the detailed treatment of surfaces.
As the project nears completion, and with Ken Freivokh design – as per contract – overseeing the final stages of the build since April 2016, following completion of Nuvolari Lenard’s involvement, it is already clear that Black pearl has far exceeded the expectations of all those involved in her original concept development. not just in terms of style – creating an Avant-garde giant sailing yacht was a given, particularly with the second generation DynaRig – but also in terms of the technology, methodology and rationale behind every aspect of her systems and operation. As she undergoes sea trials and prepares for the final detailing before her summer delivery, Black Pearl will not be a yacht to lie in the shadow of the project that inspired her, but rather will be the project to show how evolved design can pay homage to and surpass that which has gone before.
“When my son, West, was about seven years old, I bought a Palmer Johnson sailing yacht named Shanakee. We would go sailing and imagine what our perfect yacht would be like. With friends who helped us refine the dream over 20 years, the boat became our daily conversation. So more than the creating of a high performance yacht, more than the creation of a work of art, it’s been the thing that’s bonded me and my son.”
These words are from Bill Duker’s address to the guests assembled in Viareggio to celebrate the completion of Sybaris, Duker’s Perini Navi ketch, which, at 70 metres, is the largest sailing yacht launched in Italy to date. It is not a coincidence that the yacht’s name is the same as that ancient Italian city-state known for wealth and a lifestyle of extreme luxury and pleasure seeking. “I have three passions — art, poetry and sailing. This boat combines all three,” he says.
Duker is a softly spoken, amiable man who likes projects and enticing people to be creative and thorough. Witness his push for R&D at Perini Navi. As Burak Akgül, managing director of sales, marketing and design, says: “We began talking to the client in 2010 at about the time we had committed to move from the 56 metre to the 60 metre model. We developed this fully custom all aluminium hull interpretation of the 60 especially for him. It has serious performance capability, compared with other recent launches. On a scale of Seahawk to P2, it’s more like P2.”
So determined was he to wring every bit of performance out of Perini, Duker brought naval architect Philippe Briand into the mix to evaluate and fine tune the builder’s design work. “The design of the yacht existed, the GA existed and the initial naval architectural plans had been drawn,” says Briand. “The specifications, the main dimensions, the displacement, the centres of gravity and the height of the masts, as well as draught, [had been] defined and approved by the owner. For the final stages, we worked on the hull lines, the appendages and the sailplan. It is a bigger intellectual challenge to [re]design the existing [hull] for tomorrow as opposed to start from scratch.”
In 2012, Briand’s office conducted CFD tests of the hull lines and made 37 changes, including modifying the waterline length and wetted surface and redrawing the bow and stern shapes. The swing keel and single rudder were optimised, as was the vessel’s stability versus overall weight.
Calling the owner a forward-thinking man with very modern tastes, Perini design chief Franco Romani said the brief for Sybaris challenged his team “to create a new interpretation of their design language. The near vertical bow combined with the low profile superstructure has resulted in a new look for Perini.”
Perhaps the biggest change was moving the mizzen mast back 3.3 metres to improve airflow over the mizzen sail for more driving force and to create space for a mizzen staysail. This sail, flown in apparent winds of 50 to 100 degrees, adds 0.6 knots of speed. “It wasn’t our intention to design a racing yacht,” says Briand, “but we can guarantee Sybaris is a cruising yacht with the potential of sailing excitement.”
In its turn, Perini upped the performance of its electric furling drums and captive sheeting winches, delivering speeds beyond those of its previous benchmark, Seahawk. The powerful sailplan on Sybaris uses North Sails’ 3Di technology and relies on two carbon fibre masts stretching 71.59 metres and 60.96 metres above the water, supplied by Rondal, with Carbolink composite stays and Kevlar running rigging. Controlled by Perini’s latest generation electric winches and software, the system allows the yacht to be sailed entirely from the cockpit consoles.
Sybaris is also breaking new ground for the builder in terms of power management. Two variable speed generators supply electrical power via a DC bus to the vessel’s main electrical grid with the potential to store excess power in a 137kWh lithium polymer battery pack that provides two to three hours of silent operation capability, according to Akgül.
Repositioning the mizzen mast also improves the flow of the main and flybridge deck layouts as it shifts the bottom of the mizzen spar away from the aft glass doors of the main saloon, allowing a large, round dining table to take pride of place under the flybridge overhang. The table is milled from titanium, its base looking like a geared drum and its top scribing a rose petal pattern matched in the overhead — a nod to Duker’s estate, Rosehill, near Albany, New York.
In fact, nearly all the exposed metal on Sybaris is bead-blasted titanium or a smoky bronze. “We chose titanium for the way it looks against the natural American ash millwork, and because the owner wanted something fresh and different,” says Peter Hawrylewicz of PH Design. Although this Miami-based architect and designer is new to yacht design, Sybaris is his 12th project for Duker. Yet she didn’t start out as his project.
“We knew he was interviewing designers and, because it was a yacht, we didn’t consider that he would consider us. One night he took my partner and me to dinner and asked what we thought about taking on the Sybaris project. It was a big surprise. The interior company, Yachtline 1618, had already been given the contract for the joinery and built-ins,” Hawrylewicz recalls. “Knowing how long Bill had been thinking of this boat was daunting.”
The brief was fairly simple: a neutral path. “Even though we didn’t know all the works of art yet, we knew the interior of Sybaris would be lavished with art from the owner’s contemporary collection and this set the theme,” said the architect. “That also ramped up the pressure on developing the lighting plan. We began developing that plan from the first sketches,” Hawrylewicz says, “selecting the amount and type of lighting we wanted first.”
Aside from major statement fixtures such as chandeliers and sconces, which were designed by Lindsey Adelman, Hawrylewicz developed the fixtures such as the wall washers and down lights that fit in architectural recesses next to each door. By directing light away from the intersection of surfaces butting against walls or ceilings, for example, and by leaving tiny gaps instead, he’s created a sensation of even more space, as if there is something behind the gap that you can’t see.
“The team at Perini was an amazing mentor to us,” says Ken Lieber of PH Design. Interestingly, it was Yachtline 1618’s first Perini project as well. All furniture and surfaces were built offsite and finished before being taken to the yacht for assembly.
Sybaris updates strong features of the Perini Navi design DNA both inside and out. On deck, for example, the recessed cockpit aft of the saloon is still an engaging outdoor living/dining space, but the sweep of terraced steps to it flows beautifully and emphasises the luxury of space that the extra 10 metres delivers. All the furniture, including the bronze end tables with slab marble tops, are from the team at PH Design.
The saloon is open plan, with no structural supports blocking the views. This is no mean feat since there is the load of an 18 metre superyacht sundeck above and the torque of the mainsheet to defuse. The forward bulkhead divides the guest areas from the superyacht wheelhouse, butler’s pantry and the crew stairs to the galley and their quarters.
There are no built-in cabinets in the saloon on Sybaris. Instead four groupings of bureaus, looking like steampunk versions of Louis Vuitton steamer trunks covered in alligator hide, are attached to the walls by titanium straps. The drawers hold glassware and crockery. For handrails around the room, teak batons within titanium turnbuckles add a vintage nautical theme. A dining table is anchored by an ambitious Adelman chandelier and a Ron English Guernica-esque painting commissioned by Duker. Wool and silk carpets by SHIIR of Chicago appear as mirror images in their soft grey and bronze pattern.
The overheads throughout Sybaris are soft matt titanium. Because the cambered overheads on the main deck are 2.1 metres high at window level, the darker material does not cramp the room. It softly reflects and diffuses light and adds a certain liveliness.
“Titanium was entirely Bill’s idea,” says Hawrylewicz. “He said ‘I want to do metal ceilings’ and I thought he meant a thin sheet of painted material, but no, he meant real titanium sheets.” These are rendered in large squares with nearly seamless joints. Titanium, for all its fireproofness and anti-corrosion capability, proved to be a tough material for the yard.
Welded joints tend to leave keloid scars and in the end there was only one subcontractor who could finish the work, from deck rails to the tiny piercings of the overheads for speakers, to both the builder’s and owner’s satisfaction. “If you can dream it, Perini will find a way to build it,” says Duker. “To me, that challenge is why you build a boat.”
Perini Navi aficionados will recall that a superyacht staircase amidships on centreline is the typical access from the saloon to the accommodation for owner and guests. There have been versions with landings, versions with multiple access points and even a spiral. Sybaris delivers a straight fore and aft run of steps but, like the IM Pei pyramid at the Louvre, the staircase is also the way that light — and in this case an epic amount of it — is ushered below to the accommodation lobby, from where all the cabins are entered through very hip titanium-clad submarine doors, with the logo of the bull of Sybaris in the centre of the opening mechanism.
Enormous sheets of laminated tempered glass form the “walls” of the stair column. Hawrylewicz had originally drawn them as a single piece, but no sources yet exist for tempering such large panels of glass. Each of the staircase walls weighs 600 kilograms and they are elastically anchored to the decks above and below. Massive floating oak steps, suspended from the glass with titanium pins, usher guests below.
There are six cabins on the lower deck of Sybaris, including a master suite that takes advantage of the yacht’s full 13 metre beam to create a space to spoil the owner in surroundings of American ash. A superyacht office is situated to starboard with the king-sized bed offset to port. Lindsey Adelman bronze and porcelain sconces above the bed flank an art feature of layers of wood relief that looks a bit topographical. The element was a deliberate contrast to the machined look of many of the pieces in the room and the titanium overhead.
The bed surround showcases another of the design features in the boat, the mortise and tenon style joinery details that are left exposed. It continues in the full-beam his and hers bathrooms, with their simple palette of ash, stone and titanium. “The simpler the palette, the larger the space,” shares Hawrylewicz. “My goal at the end of the day was to create a yacht that is comfortable, beautiful and perhaps even memorable.”
A former Soviet icebreaker, Legend has come in from the Cold War and been transformed into a sumptuous 77 metre explorer. But she still can’t stay away from the white stuff...
Lightning strobes across the horizon as our tender slogs through the heave and chop of the Mediterranean just off Beaulieu-sur-Mer, towards 77.4 metre explorer yacht Legend. Whipping rain, cracks of thunder — it certainly feels as if the Côte d’Azur is lavishing its most melodramatic weather on this ultra-tough vessel.
But it’s not making much of an impression. The thing you notice, as you step on to Legend’s stern platform from a rolling tender, is her rock-like stability. For her, this doesn’t really count as weather.
Legend’s adventures will begin with charters in Antarctica this Christmas, on to South America and Greenland in spring, summer in the Baltic and then back again to the frozen south for winter. Her owner, Jan Verkerk, says: “My plan is to follow the polar summers and allow Legend to provide a luxurious cruising platform for anyone looking for a real adventure.”
Delivered this summer after a 12-month refit at Icon Yachts in the Netherlands, Legend started life in 1974 as an icebreaking tug from Dutch yard IHC Verschure. She was sold to a private owner and converted into a yacht - Giant - from 1999-2003, then laid up in 2005. Verkerk, who had spent years exploring the Antarctic aboard his classic yacht Sherakhan, saw a “gap in the market” for a true expedition yacht and the potential of Legend’s hull - thoroughly rebuilt - to fill it.
“She was built as a Class 1 icebreaker - an icebreaker, not just Ice Class. This is something important. As is her reasonable fuel efficiency and her obvious safe and solid structure,” he says. “I have been able to create a vessel that can go anywhere in the world, but also provide the luxuries that have become standard in the superyacht industry.”
Legend certainly feels solid. Her 6.4 metre draught is nearly twice as deep as many yachts her length, and the same can be said of her weight. Aesthetically, she also balances Verkerk’s portfolio nicely. “Legend was built for the Soviet Union during the Cold War and has seen active service. I like this part of her history and I believe that this shines through her personality. I say ‘she’ but with her powerful lines Legend really is a ‘he’. Sherakhan is more of a classic, old lady. She was built just a few years before Legend, but in those years shipbuilding technology saw significant changes,” he says.
While Verkerk admired the boat’s bone structure, he was bold about the rest: by the end of the refit at Icon, 100 tonnes of new steel and aluminium had been added. Major structural changes put function first. “Legend had a canoe stern — round, closed — but the use of the boat really asked for a big swim platform, where you could moor the tenders and have a closer relation to the water,” says Hans-Maarten Bais, creative director and naval architect at Diana Yacht Design, who was responsible for the exterior design and engineering of the rebuild.
The answer was lengthening Legend’s stern by 3.6 metres, allowing for not only a new swim platform but also a massive 16-person superyacht spa pool— with waterfall — for when the ocean is not suitable for a dip. And there were other fundamental challenges further forward.
“There was a huge tender amidships, which really broke up the boat into a fore-ship and an aft-ship,” says Bais. The solution was removing a massive secondary mast from this space, adding an extra deckhouse and extending the forecastle deck back to join more substantially with Legend’s aft deck. There’s still tender storage amidships - both on this deck and the one below - but Legend’s two halves feel united. As Bais puts it, the change “brings back the balance”.
Also added to Legend’s adventurous kit was a commercial-standard superyacht helideck on the owner’s deck aft, suitable for a six-person Eurocopter EC135, along with its state-of-the-art fire extinguishing systems, an eight tonne helifuel storage tank and bunker systems. There will also be a smaller chopper, for emergencies, to be craned from the helideck to sit on the extended forecastle deck. Rotor blades will be stored neatly in new foredeck lockers and both helicopters vacuum-wrapped to keep them pristine on crossings.
Legend packs in every superyacht water toy a guest could hope for as well as the necessary extra staff — she can take an expedition crew of 10 (helicopter pilot, doctor, expedition leaders, naturalists and so on) on top of the 19 regular crew. Their accommodation is forward on the lower, main and boat decks — giving easy access to every level of guest accommodation. The captain’s cabin and the ice pilot’s, meanwhile, are up behind the revamped wheelhouse.
“The new bridge layout is intended to reflect the atmosphere of the old passenger liners,” says Legend’s captain Bernard Vivegnis, “so you have free-standing consoles rather than a steering desk up on the windows. It is quite nice as you can actually walk up to the window in front of the consoles and check the view. The consoles themselves group navigation, conning and communication in separate units in an efficient way so that the watch is always an easy task.” There’s also a conference corner to plan the next day’s activities with the guests and expedition team.
Up front, the Legend refit project extended the foredeck tender garage so it could accommodate two snowmobiles (fitted with trackers in case guests lose their way) and the ultimate exploration gadget - a three-person U-Boat Worx C-Explorer submarine. Lifted by a foredeck crane through a hatch in the ceiling and into the water, it can dive to 300 metres with two guests and a pilot, and do seven 45 minute dives a day.
“I made a dive with it in the Norwegian fjords,” says Thom Beerens, Legend’s purser. “It’s a really cool, strange experience, sitting there like you’re in a car or an airplane. You see the water level rising, it gets dark, then you switch on the lights and see whatever’s in front of you. We were suddenly looking at a shipwreck.”
But to get her 26 guests to such fantastical locations, rather more prosaic considerations had to be taken into account - especially with a charter yacht that needs to meet standards for a passenger vessel. “The use as a PYC-classed vessel required major modifications of the staircases and fire-retarding bulkheads,” says Jen Wartena, CEO of Icon Yachts. “Other safety systems required replacement of all ceilings.”
The owner’s experience of cruising extreme latitudes also served to bulk up Legend’s safety credentials further. “Because the approach is to sail in Antarctica — the owner has a lot of experience sailing there with Sherakhan — and the aft windows were quite low to the water and massive, he didn’t want to have the risk that a big wave could blow them out. So we made them smaller. The total area of glass is the same, we just extended the area of the windows and divided them into smaller portions. And we made the glass really, really thick so they can withstand the biggest waves.”
In terms of the engine room, as Wartena puts it, “the only things that are still the same are Legend’s beautiful and very powerful main engines, gearbox, shaft and propeller. It is really impressive to see them, and is wise to keep them as part of the history of the boat.”
They certainly seem to work well in concert with the capable hull. “Legend handles nice and easy in any sea state,” says Captain Vivegnis. “Her draught and inertia make for a very easy rolling that the stabilisers compensate for adequately. A following sea is sometimes more annoying as we have built new nice social spaces very close to the sea aft, so that is taken into account when planning a day’s navigation. “I brought Legend from Italy in 2014 without stabilisers. That was in January and Biscay was wild, but the ship handled well then. Now, with the refurbished stabilisers and new software, it has become a really easy ride.”
It’s also important to note that Legend will comply with the IMO Polar Code that comes into effect on January 1, 2017 and covers safety measures and environmental protections for yachts venturing into defined polar waters. She satisfies technical requirements for her category of navigation. The pending requirements are procedures, loose equipment and certification of the officers, but these will be taken care of by the beginning of Legend’s first Antarctic season.
In terms of lifestyle, Legend’s layout has been thoroughly shuffled. “From the main deck up, the luxury interiors have been replaced — all new lounges, a VIP and owner’s area as well as the new wheelhouse and captain’s cabin,” says Wartena. Only four of the original guest cabins remain and they have been comprehensively revamped.
Legend’s owner and his Verkerk Yachting Projects planned the interior design with assistance from Beerens — selecting materials, creating sketches and mood boards. They passed these on to an interiors company for technical realisation. “Our main goal was that every door you open you say, ‘wow’,” says Beerens. “We wanted to make a walk through Legend an adventure by itself. Even if we had clients on board for four weeks, in the third week they should still be finding new things. With the destinations Legend is going to, they stay on board much more than they do here [in Europe], where at night you can go out for dinner. In Antarctica there is no restaurant.”
“We’re going to get a big chunk of ice from Antarctica and put it in a cooler with a glass vitrine,” says Beerens. “So our clients can take a 30, 40, 50-year-old vodka or whisky, take 2,500-year-old ice with a hammer in their glass and drink it.” To port from here there’s a 14-seat cinema that feels - in the spirit of glamorous adventure - like sitting in the first-class carriage of a classic train. To starboard you will find Legend’s superyacht gym with gear by Life Fitness Parabody, including an inset treadmill for taller guests.
On an explorer yacht it makes sense to promote this space from its traditional position lower down, since guests spending long periods on board Legend will likely use it more than Med cruisers, who can opt for an evening stroll on shore. They’ll appreciate the light and being close to social life on board. And, as Beerens notes, “one of the crew is a fitness instructor and two are masseuses”. The latter will pummel muscles in Legend’s Balinese spa below the saloon, with its decorative woodwork, a central spa pool, sauna and massage rooms.
The large saloon is the cosiest area on board Legend, with space to dine in company and warm up around an ornate fireplace. Up a level, the aft boat deck saloon is a modern, light indoor-outdoor space that gives the feeling of relaxing al fresco even when conditions won’t permit actually venturing on deck.
Inside, there’s a bar, TV lounge, self-playing Mason & Hamlin piano and white modular seating around a central artificial fire. Out on the aft deck these shapes are echoed, with a circular barbecue grill taking the place of the fire. The 13 en-suite guest cabins on board Legend include two VIP suites, five double and five twin cabins (some convertible) and a forward owner’s suite ranged across the owner’s deck. “Her accommodation is designed around big cities, with each room containing an element of the city it has been named after,” says the owner.
The colours and ambience inform the accent tones and materials - particularly evident in the VIPs Moscow (dark glossy wood and red leather upholstery) and New York (sweet little Art Deco bar). In cabins and throughout Legend there are artificial Opti-myst fires that run on steam, for cosy nights in frozen places.
The master suite, Paris, features the muted tones of pale grey and warm woods. There’s a central bed, a little sitting room, a big bathroom and it can be joined with the suite just aft (Amsterdam). And just aft again there’s a kitchenette, where guests can help themselves to coffee in privacy. Much like Legend as a whole there’s a balance between cosiness and adventure, toughness and romance. As Wartena notes of the spa pool: “It must be great to bubble in this mega hot tub while sailing between icebergs, orcas and penguins.”
Amels’ Limited Editions concept is one of the superyacht industry’s great success stories. Each boat in the range offers a high degree of interior customisation and there’s just enough in Tim Heywood’s curving exterior lines to make a yacht feel individual, while a shared technical platform hacks time and cost off a project. And, with every repetition, the process gets smoother, the unknowns diminish.
Heywood maintained the Limited Editions signature look, which he says is “strong and functional”. “It complements the flowing lines very well, which I describe as athletically feminine,” says Heywood. “I must admit that these curves are not necessarily the easiest forms to build, but Amels rose to the challenge.”
The paint — jet black between Matterhorn white decks — gives Plvs Vltra a dose of individuality. “I also added those curving jet black highlights to echo the curve of the wing station and then reversed it in the superstructure,” he says. “That form is echoed again in the mast structure. And finally the marlin blue waterline stripe.”
The owners previously had the Limited Editions 180 yacht Step One, which was also project managed by Moran Yacht & Ship and delivered in 2012._ "The owner and his family greatly enjoyed _Step One and he decided to build a larger yacht with Amels as he was happy with the shipyard and struck up a strong rapport with sales director Rob Luijendijk," president Rob Moran adds. The Plvs Vltra project was managed for the owner by Moran Yacht & Ship.
But lifestyle needs meant the layout required a thorough rethink for Plvs Vltra. “The main requests were a large swimming pool on the main deck, two 10 metre tenders, a large master suite forward on the upper deck, a huge spa with all of the features of a top class facility, and large exterior areas to enjoy with friends and family," Moran continues.
“They want their family to be with them and they want to spend a lot more time on board”, says Andrew Winch of Winch Design, who penned the interior. “They said, ‘At this size, we don’t really want to get off’.”
In short, the owners wanted a full-time residence, not a holiday boat. That informed every aspect of the design, splitting Plvs Vltra’s accommodation into an owner’s deck, two VIPs on the main deck and three guest cabins on the lower deck, so that three generations can have their own space or come together as desired.
But as Winch puts it: “The spa was where it kicked off at the beginning.” This lower deck, amidships space incorporates a spectacular central spa pool, massage area, steam room, bar and sauna with a window on to a broad, fold-down balcony to starboard.
There’s an elaborate mosaic of a dandelion by Sottoriva on the wall of the steam room and, on the floor, mystery white and rosa egeo marbles curve out from the superyacht spa pool in a shell pattern. Above the pool there’s an artwork of gilded porcelain shells by Valeria Nascimento. All this enhances the feeling of it being a space to linger in, rather than a utilitarian area to use and then leave.
“It’s quite normal for them to go there for four or five hours,” says Winch. “They can have an oil massage on the bed and when they’ve finished have their hair done. And when they leave the spa they are ready to put a dress on and go and party. It is a sequence of functions that are all about pleasure. Each area is a passage of time.”
The superyacht balcony, with an inflatable watertight seal, is positioned high enough that even stray waves that did make it to this part of Plvs Vltra would be unlikely to worry guests — but there are prodigious drains inside, just in case.
Routeing has been thought about carefully, with a smooth-running glass-fronted lift that whisks the owners down here directly from the lobby aft of their upper deck suite. There’s also a side-boarding ladder from the main deck to the fold-down balcony that means children can spend whole days outdoors, padding from Plvs Vltra’s aft deck swimming pool, with its counter current jets for lap swimming, extensive sunpads and bar, down to the superyacht spa.
But the position of the space is arguably Plvs Vltra’s greatest asset. “It was a deliberate choice of Amels to put the beach club in the middle, or tipping point, of the ship,” says Konings. “It is the most comfortable place to be at any time at sea. So when it gets a bit rough, the Jacuzzi can stay filled and guests can actually use the spa area.” This position also leaves the aft of the boat as a purely functional garage for tenders and toys.
Another consideration towards creating a more residential feel in Plvs Vltra is the absence of long corridors — a feature usually distinctive of planes, trains and boats. Where possible, the design eschews them in favour of more useful or atmospheric spaces.
Outside the main deck VIPs, for example, the area is divided into a circular lobby with painted, lacquered blue and white panels designed by Canadian artist Peter Gorman. Just aft, there’s a small library with two armchairs. “The two windows are lined up with the two windows in the ship’s hull, so you have natural light,” says Konings.
Slanting windows flood the VIPs themselves with light while the lower deck guests get spectacular marble en suites — and the head height throughout is excellent.
It’s a highly decorative design, with intricately veined marbles, stained woods and plenty of crystal but, thanks to the blend of neutrals with soft Cote d’Azur tones of blue and yellow, the effect remains light and relaxing — and more like a house than a boat.
In Plvs Vltra’s main saloon, there are substantial pillars, hand laid with moon gold leaf, customised Italian upholstery in ivory velvet by Pozzoli of Milan, crystal-based lamps with silver leaf and silk shades by Baldi, as well as a bespoke silk and wool carpet by Winch Design with Tai Ping.
The mosaic in the main deck lobby is as much a work of art as the bronze Alexander Krivosheiw sculpture that stands over it — slivers of marble in mystery white, blue jeans, labradorite weiss, golden spider, calcite azzurra and cream Valencia in an intricate pattern by Winch Design, created by stone artisans Magma in Sicily.
Other aspects of this detailed residential effect were a particular challenge. “We have never been asked before to do chandeliers that appear to be free-hanging,” says Winch. “If you go back to Victorian yachts, they would have free-hanging chandeliers but here you can’t afford a rattle, something to be tinkling or breaking.”
The solution for these fittings, in the main and dining saloons, was fixing the hundreds of individual crystal droplets with tiny metal pins. They were penned by Winch Design and manufactured by Czech crystal specialist Preciosa.
Up in the owner’s lounge things are more relaxed, with blue-stained sycamore panelling, loungy seating in front of a concealed cinema screen and full-height windows that open on both sides, for a breeze that runs all the way through.
Forward, there’s a limited edition Parallèle piano by Hilton McConnico and aft, a backlit rock crystal bar, behind which the wall is clad in pearlised lacquer with copper brick inlays. Back again on the long aft deck there’s a dining table and bar.
The full-beam master suite forward on the upper deck has a central bed and access to the foredeck from doors either side of the windows. The palette of green, neutrals and metallics is repeated in the organic patterns of the silk and wool carpet, again by Tai Ping and Winch Design, as well as lustrous Rubelli curtains.
The most spectacular piece is a hand-painted and embroidered silk wall covering of birds on a blossoming tree, penned by Winch Design and produced by Fromental.
All of this interior refinement was achieved on a pre-agreed budget, as Moran explains: “The biggest challenge our team faced, was that the client would not accept any cost changes. We accepted this gamble and we met our promise. Andrew Winch, who is a very good designer, is not known for his frugality, but we managed to provide an exquisite interior that came within the budget. Such a task has never been previously achieved on an Andrew Winch designed yacht.”
Aft of the master cabin, a corridor was necessary to lead between his and hers en suites to the bedroom, but it has been enhanced as far as possible. “Because of the way we planned the positions of the showers, with their own windows and inboard curved walls in glass, you get light through both bathrooms and into the middle of the corridor,” says Winch.
Those en suites are as decadent as they come, with sand-etched, curved glass panels enclosing massive showers with every bell and whistle, as well as glamorous vanities with rock crystal fronts that glow in the sun.
Up on the bridge deck things are far brighter, with a much-used superyacht gym that leads out to a sprawling combined aft deck and touch-and-go helicopter pad, with an oversized elliptical sofa for watching films on the screen that drops down from above the gym door. Plvs Vltra’s sundeck has a spa pool and sunpads made ultra private by a position forward of the mast.
Heywood really went to town on the mast, with a sculptural form and decorative stainless steel touches. Other less glamorous aspects of the build have been thought through carefully, too. “We have a main stairwell and right on the back of it there is a stairwell for the crew, so the crew can service the whole ship without ever being seen by the guests,” says Konings.
A full-beam crew mess on the tank deck leaves the whole nose of the lower deck for crew accommodation, while a good-sized galley sits amidships on Plvs Vltra’s main deck.
Apart from consulting Damen Research to reduce noise and vibration through calculation and simulations, the generators are insulated in their own room — an idea taken from another Amels 74 metre, Ilona — giving better maintenance access than by boxing them in, while protecting the eardrums of those who work in Plvs Vltra’s vast engine room all day.
“It surprised everybody. The sound of vibration is phenomenal, unbelievable,” says captain Simon Truelove. “Plvs Vltra’s a big boat, she’s got a lot up top as well, but she’s got stabiliser systems that balance out. The 180 is a great boat and standing on the bridge this seems exactly the same — but actually there’s another extra 20 metres on the back of her and you’re higher up.” It’s one aspect in which the yard will be pleased to know that two of its Limited Editions can’t be told apart.
Martin Francis’s iconic creation is finally stepping into the spotlight 25 years after her launch. The designer reveals all about the birth of Enigma, her remarkable first owner, and those amazing windows...
Martin Francis has been waiting 25 years for this. Enigma’s designer was denied the opportunity to speak to any media when the yacht was launched back in 1991 and so she has remained true to her name ever since — off the radar, a little mysterious.
But now Enigma’s for sale, the shroud has been lifted and Francis is basking in this long-delayed moment in the sun. “I’m terribly emotional,” he says on board. “I’ve given so many years to this boat.”
Born Eco, renamed Katana and finally Enigma, she is still a gut-punch of a design: a long, lean destroyer dressed in silk. Technically, she’s a profound achievement. She was the first superyacht to be fitted with an underwater foil, which provides 120 tonnes of lift at the stern to help her achieve that outrageous top speed of 36 knots.
Those iconic windows are a masterstroke of design and construction. And, after all these years, Enigma’s still totally vibration-free — even when the centrally mounted gas turbine is flicked on and winds up to its max output of 18,500hp.
This boat should be fêted, up in lights, on the marquee in massive capital letters — ENIGMA. Francis, meanwhile, should be one of the most in-demand superyacht designers in the world.
Yet… Francis’s phone didn’t ring for eight years after Enigma was launched. Meanwhile, some of the exciting young designers he had incubated at his South of France studio — Espen Øino, Dan Lenard, Mark Smith and Jonny Horsfield — drifted off to conquer the world on their own.
“It doesn’t always pay to be ahead of the curve,” he says a little ruefully as we tour the yacht. But regrets? Not one. Enigma was Francis’s first motor yacht design after a career spent penning sailboats and working with the likes of Norman Foster, and the pride he feels when showing me around the boat is evident. “See the shower drains?” he motions in the master cabin’s bathroom. “I even designed those.”
It’s easy to recognise the brilliance of Enigma’s design today, but back when she was launched the reviews weren’t all glowing. Naval architects queued up to rubbish her: the bridge is on the wrong deck; the windows will break; who sticks a big appendage under the water when you’re trying to reduce drag? “The boat initially came in for an enormous amount of stick,” Francis remembers. “It was really quite vitriolic.”
Fortunately, he was working for a man who occupies a special place in the pantheon of visionary superyacht owners: Emilio Azcárraga. The Mexican billionaire was a media titan, owner of mega-brand Televisa, which ran — and still runs — TV networks and radio stations across Mexico and the US. He was, Francis says with genuine feeling, “the most amazing client I’ve ever had”.
Designer and owner became almost symbiotic, with Francis going on to design a number of projects for the Mexican, including a roof for the giant 100,000-seat Azteca Stadium in Mexico City.
Azcárraga loved the boat Francis designed so much he chose to die on it. “He had homes all over the world, but he lived the last six months of his life on board, in Miami,” says the designer. In the six years of his ownership, Azcárraga became famous for the time he spent on board, including six transatlantics.
In one memorable season, he joined the yacht in Hamburg, took it up to St Petersburg, then across to the UK, down into the Med and the Balearics, then across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal and up to Los Angeles. To assist all that passage-making, Azcárraga’s rep, the ageless George Nicholson, of the Camper & Nicholsons dynasty, bought a tanker so she could refuel mid-Atlantic.
“I found it in Denmark,” he recalls. “It was the smallest tanker that I could buy at 1,000 tonnes. We called her Eco Supporter. It would buy fuel at the best prices, then clean it so we always had a 200-tonne tank full of clean fuel. We used to send the tanker way ahead of Eco and make a rendezvous somewhere at sea.”
Nicholson also remembers the owner fondly. He sold him a 36 metre CRN, Caribe III (now Nordic Star), in 1974, kick-starting a long association. Azcárraga then went on to buy two Feadships, Azteca (now Lionwind) and Paraiso, both designed by Jon Bannenberg.
In the mid-1980s, he started thinking bigger and asked Bannenberg, Francis and the famed car designer Giorgetto Giugiaro to dream up some concepts. “The ideas and suggestions from Martin were by far the most radical and pleasing to the client,” Nicholson says.
But Francis recalls the process of settling on a final design being slightly tortuous. Initially Azcárraga asked for something akin to Azteca, the 1983 Feadship designed by Bannenberg in his faceted, militaristic style, but he wasn’t happy with the proposals he was getting back.
Frustrated, Francis says he stormed back into the office one day and said: “Throw everything he said out of the window. We’re going to make it long and with everything curved.” So conceived was the legend.
Those windows are the first thing you notice. The idea came from curved Parisian windows, which are designed to limit internal reflections. Their installation on Enigma didn’t serve any practical purpose — it’s all about style — but the effect they have on the view from inside is dramatic. All the glazing was made by Flachglas in Germany and caused a few palpitations when first proposed.
“At that stage we did not know if the hull and superstructure would be really stiff, and were afraid that these large and special windows would crack,” recalls Nicholson. To date, in 25 years, only two panes have.
“It was a work of art to get them right,” says Francis, not least because the Lloyd’s surveyors weren’t big fans, thinking the frames fronting the bridge wouldn’t be able to take the force of a big wave — a problem on slender boats like Enigma, which tend to be wet.
They demanded Francis design some removable mullions that are supposed to be slotted into place to strengthen the screen in a big sea. “We’ve still got them,” says Enigma’s captain, Stuart Lees. “We never use them.” The 19mm toughened glass has withstood it all — helped by a locker-cum-wave breaker on the bow.
The positioning of the bridge on the main deck was the main thing that riled rival designers when Enigma first appeared, with one even suggesting that placing a wheelhouse at this level should be illegal. The original plans had it higher but Azcárraga wanted the best views for himself.
“He said, ‘but that’s the best place. I want to be there. The pilot of my plane never looks out of the window. I don’t see why the captain needs to’,” remembers Francis. “And that was that. He had spoken.”
The current skipper says he has no complaints about the positioning, and often finds himself piling on the power when the water starts hitting the screens. “Sometimes, when it gets rough and the sea is picking up, especially if we’re heading straight into it, we’ll go faster and it just lifts the bow a bit and it almost wave-pierces through, so where you’re actually pitching quite heavily at 15 knots, at 25 knots you’re wave-piercing through it and you pull yourself out of bad weather.”
When it comes to Enigma’s power, Francis loves one particular story. “On one of the first sea trials, we were having a problem with the gas turbine. We got it sorted out around lunchtime. We were off Palma and Azcárraga said: ‘Captain, let’s go to Porto Cervo’.
“The mistral had been blowing so we set off in a swell and had a Mexican lunch at about three and a siesta, and then watched a few movies, and a late dinner, and at midnight we were in Porto Cervo. There’s nothing out there that will do that. Nothing. Twenty-five years later there’s nothing that will do that.”
Speed was central to the brief from the start, Nicholson says. The engines chosen for the job were heavy-duty Deutz lumps, outputting 5,000hp. They were coupled to Kamewa waterjets, since Azcárraga loved nosing into deserted — and often poorly charted — anchorages, and had damaged props in the past.
The two diesels will get Enigma up to nearly 20 knots, but the punch to top speed is provided by the central General Electric gas turbine. “It was the first production turbine for civilian use,” says Nicholson. “I had to sign an official secrets paper in order to buy it. The Aga Khan bought the next three engines for his transatlantic record-breaker, Destriero.”
All that muscle comes at a cost — Enigma is a thirsty ship at speed. At her 36 knot top end, she’s burning 5,000 litres an hour. In 48 hours at full pace she can empty her 240,000 litre fuel tank. “I know because we’ve done it several times,” says Captain Lees.
Drop back to her cruising speed of 18 knots and Enigma’s range extends to about 2,200 nautical miles. Her efficiency is helped by a piece of revolutionary hydrodynamic hardware — a large underwater wing that sits slightly aft of the transom jets and attaches to the hull with two struts.
It took 11 tank-testing campaigns to settle on a final design for the hull and foil, which not only prevents the stern from “squatting” at speed, it also limits Enigma’s trim, which varies just 1.5 degrees from zero to 36 knots.
It was originally thought hanging so much steel off the boat would have drag penalties at low speed, but in fact it was found that at 18 knots efficiency improved by almost 20 per cent. “The foil wasn’t in the original spec,” says Francis, “but when they saw how much performance it gave them, they couldn’t afford not to put it on.”
What was in the spec from the get-go was the Maule amphibious seaplane, which was stowed on the expansive aft deck. Azcárraga had lost a number of friends in helicopter accidents and so the plane was the only choice — and quite a challenge to incorporate into the design. It could be stored on board without folding the wings and was powerful enough to take off and land in the boat’s length.
The plane was ditched by Enigma’s second owner, Larry Ellison, who turned the aft deck into a basketball court. He also added a glass-enclosed superyacht gym on the main deck aft, a new exterior stair to the upper deck and a spa pool on the top deck’s wing station.
Plug-in controls (now removed) meant the yacht could be controlled from this level and legend has it the former captain used to moor the boat while having a soak. Zero-speed stabilisers, meanwhile, were added in 2009.
The layout has been fiddled with rather than ripped up by the three successive owners — an upper deck dining room is now a saloon, for instance, while the position of the bed in the owner's cabin has changed a few times. Each time someone has wanted to change Enigma, they’ve called in Francis. He designed her interior originally with François Zuretti, working on his very first yacht.
A beam of 11.2 metres is modest for a 74.5 metre yacht, yet you don’t feel too pinched on Enigma’s main deck. High central topsides mean the guest accommodation enjoys the full beam, and large windows give a real immediacy to the view.
The upper deck is the owner’s enclave and can be isolated from guests with a partition door. Another door on the deck above means the owner can turn the forward part of both decks into an exclusive duplex.
Sitting in that sundeck saloon, looking out at the world through those convex windows is a unique experience, doubly so because they’ve never been copied. In an industry sometimes notorious for producing “just another big white boat”, Enigma stands truly alone.
The only coverage Azcárraga would allow about the yacht all those years ago was an article in the February 1992 issue of this magazine, about her incredible performance.
“Eco is one of those very special superyacht projects where the designers and builders have been encouraged to redefine the boundaries of their trade; to explore the limits of their ideas and to push the frontiers of technology and engineering,” we wrote.
Were Enigma launched tomorrow, those words would still apply — and might still in another 25 years. She is an icon, a great, a hall-of-famer and, after a quarter of a century, unmasked.
