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Yachting World

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The world’s biggest yachts – what’s behind the growth of the gigayacht

• Helen Fretter
• March 14, 2017

The last few years have seen launches of some of the world's largest yachts, truly gigayachts. Helen Fretter delves into the world of the gigayacht

Dwarfing not only any other yacht that happened to be on the River Eider, but even the buildings along the foreshore, the monolithic Sailing Yacht A made quite an impression when she was launched from the Nobriskrug yard in Hamburg in the autumn of 2016.

The 142m, eight-deck behemoth is the archetypal ‘gigayacht’, phenomenal not just in her dimensions but also in her radicalism.

The Philippe Starck-designed Sailing Yacht A , with her 20m freeboard, begs the question: is she even a sailing yacht? The last yacht to divide opinion, and attract the shock and awe of the non-sailing public in the same manner was Maltese Falcon , the glossy, experimental megayacht designed for Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tom Perkins.

But the Falcon was launched a decade ago, and Sailing Yacht A is just one of a crop of extraordinary gigayachts, or sailing superyachts of 80, 90 or 100m plus, to touch the water in 2016.

Besides the 142m Sailing Yacht A , another three-masted design was launched from OceanCo this autumn, the 106m  Black Pearl , which looks set to become the largest sailing yacht in the world – for a while at least. Black Pearl represents a modern evolution of the rotating Dynarig pioneered by Maltese Falcon . Meanwhile in the spring, the largest Bermudan rigged yacht ever launched, the 86m ketch Aquijo , powered through sail trials in preparation for a global adventure.

There are more in the pipeline also. Royal Huisman announced this autumn that they had been commissioned to design and build the 86m Project 400 , another three masted design, this one more conventionally rigged. A proposal for the 114m Endurance has just been unveiled, an explorer concept designed to be able to cruise unassisted for three months. There is also the 86m Komorebi , an experimental wingsail-assisted hybrid trimaran design from the French multihull experts VPLP.

Rise and rise of the gigayacht

Why the sudden flurry of these stratospherically ambitious projects? In truth, it is not that sudden – initial pitches for what ultimately became Sailing Yacht A were invited back in 2008, and pre-studies began in 2011. A decade between projects seems rather shorter when design and build takes at least five years – gigayacht owners may be exacting, but they also have to be extraordinarily patient.

The 141m four-masted Dream Symphony is currently in build out of wood in Turkey, and includes vast living accommodation, and a swimming pool that converts to become a helipad platform.

What is remarkable, though, is how rapidly the yachts have grown in size – raising the upper ceiling from 88 to over 140m in a decade. Dutch naval architecture firm Dykstra has been instrumental in many of the world’s most innovative megayachts, including Sailing Yacht A , Black Pearl , and Maltese Falcon .

Managing director Thys Nikkels comments, “Ten years ago a big boat was a very different size than a big boat is now. I can still remember when I started working in ’91 a 40-metre yacht in those days was a big boat. In the mid-90s we started to design the yacht Athena , which we thought was the biggest boat we were ever going to see in our lives, as a sailing yacht she was 80 metres on the water.”

The largest single sloop rigged yacht in the world remains Mirabella V , launched back in 2003 and since renamed (and slightly lengthened during a refit) M5 at just over 77m. Rob Doyle, who worked on the project led by Ron Holland, recalls:

“We started designing her 17 years ago now. We hit a very natural sweet spot with Mirabella and that’s why it has taken so long for other boats to suddenly go over her length and over her rig height.

“ Mirabella still has the highest ‘P’ measurement [distance from boom to top of mast] and the longest boom in the world, though there are taller masts now.

“She set a bar and we didn’t realise we’d actually set it. It came down to a ratio of the rig weight to the draught and the keel weights, and everything else to be able to carry that amount of sail and that ballast to satisfy the rules.

“We pushed technology a lot – about 16 companies went bust over Mirabella  because the jump was so massive. We were jumping from a 64m to a 75m [yacht] and that jump was like learning to fly, then going to the moon!”

Article continues below

Video of Sailing Yacht A, the world’s largest sail-assisted vessel, during early sea trials

This video footage of Sailing Yacht A shows her with her towering free-standing masts and illustrates the jaw-dropping scale of the world’s…

A look on board the extraordinary 86m Aquijo, the world’s largest ketch

The largest Bermudan rigged ketch ever launched, the 86m Aquijo was designed by Bill Tripp and launched last year. The build came…

Ken Freivokh, who was responsible for the radical styling of Maltese Falcon , also points out that after the much publicised launch of the Falcon many buyers did not want to be seen to be emulating Tom Perkins’s unique style, preferring to wait, or opt for a conservative design. After the Falcon , Freivokh’s next radical Dynarig yacht was Black Pearl , which he began work on six years ago. At 106m Black Pearl dwarfs Maltese Falcon , with a 2,700GT volume that puts her just under the key 3,000GT limit.

Surprisingly, Dykstra’s Thys Nikkels says that the Dynarigs being built today are not markedly different to the one developed for Maltese Falcon a decade ago. “In concept it is not very different. In detail there are a number of improvements that have been made.

But Maltese Falcon was – for her time – years far ahead and she proved to be very successful in sail handling and sailing, so there are not many improvements to be done. Nowadays you just have different materials you can use, or different electronics and software systems that you can use for control.”

Maltese Falcon, launched in 2006, pioneered the Dynarig concept utilised on many of the next generation of larger gigayachts.

Sail handling

Meanwhile a decade of development in superyacht rigs and sail systems, means that Aquijo ’s owner could opt for a conventional ketch rig, which can deploy over 3,000m2 of sails in around six minutes.

Sail handling routines are necessarily different – the jib is furled when tacking. “Vitters organised a nice system that keeps just a nice amount of tension on the jib sheets furling in and out so that they are not flailing about,” explains Aquijo ’s designer, Bill Tripp. “So it’s not a dinghy tack, but it is safe and orderly.

“The spinnaker is on a fast furler and furls up in 30 seconds, making gybes less complex. There is the ketch choreography of bringing the main and mizzen in, but the steering is precise and there is no need to put too much sail up for the conditions.”

Aquijo master cabin

The forces generated on yachts such as Aquijo may be enormous – mast compression can reach around 580 tons – but are no longer beyond the realms of riggers’ experience. “When we started building boats like Saudade [the 2009 45m Wally], 14 tonnes was a very big load. Once we understood racing these boats, and understood they were controllable, you can take another step.

“We were delighted when sailing Aquijo upwind in a lot of breeze that the load on the mainsheet was showing around 12 tonnes. It’s 2:1 so that’s 24 tonnes. I’m not saying that’s not a massive load, but it’s similar to what we have on Saudade ’s big sheet 1:1, and we have years of experience with handling that.” Custom built 40 ton carbon and alloy winches help manage the sheet loads.

Tripp notes that a Dynarig was never considered as an option. “What you’re really asking is do you want the ease of sailing or do you want to be able to access something exciting? And we wanted both of them.

“Sailors tend to like the more fundamental experiences, and when the technology allows them to access those more fundamental experiences, well that’s a great joy.”

Aquijo is the world’s largest ketch, with a mainsail that can be furled or unfurled in around four seconds

Finding the limit

Just how big can a sailing yacht go? Five years ago plans were unveiled for a 101m sloop, with a single 125m carbon mast, which raised a few eyebrows and discussions over whether it might be possible. Malcolm McKeon worked on the proposal and says that it was the cost, rather than technical limitations, which put the brakes on the project.

“It was an evolving process. The owner has a 50m-plus sailing superyacht, and he wanted a new yacht big enough that he could put a reasonably sized chase boat on board. He wanted an explorer type sailboat that he could go to the Pacific on, and carry all his toys with him, and not have to have a support boat.

“The design started at 65 or 70m and it just grew and grew and grew until it got to 100m, and then it basically just got too expensive.

Recent sail trials on Sailing Yacht A saw the 1,464m2 mainsail unfurled from the 27.5m carbon U-shaped boom. Incredibly she is designed to heel up to a maximum angle of 12 degrees under full sail.

“The big problem with the large sail boats is the mast price goes up by a bigger proportion to everything else so the rig price becomes a much bigger percentage of the overall build. Technically it can all be done, it’s just the value of that part becomes a much more significant part and sometimes more difficult for an owner to accept.

“If somebody came to me and said they wanted to build a boat with a 200m mast I would think well, is that really possible? Certainly rigs up to 100m and a bit more I think are possible today, but where we’re going to go after that I don’t know.”

Rob Doyle points out that sailing superyacht owners pay around a 30 per cent premium over opting for a motoryacht, yet the boats lose around a third of the equivalent interior volume. However, for him the biggest limitations are the humans onboard.

“I think we are coming to a stage where we need a new type of rig, to be honest, to be able to safely deploy these sails without killing people. I think we are getting very close to where the metal meets the flesh at the deck level where the people and the guests are hanging around.”

With the ever-increasing winch and line speeds needed to handle the huge loads, serious hand and limb injuries can happen in the blink of an eye. “There is a moral hazard there that keeps playing on my mind,” says Doyle. “We are building very dangerous machines and we have to be very careful of people.”

The newly announced Endurance concept design is a 114m four-masted explorer design with a 6,000 mile range under power.

More prosaically, the bigger your gigayacht, the bigger the challenge of just getting on and off it. “Once you are getting to a stage where you can’t get into anchorages you are in constant fear of drifting – even putting down an anchor you need a huge amount of space around you.

“So then you anchor further out into the slop and the big waves, so the owners find it difficult to get on and off the boat, and suddenly other problems can overwhelm the project,” Doyle points out. One increasingly popular solution to that particular problem is a luxury landing craft.

Too big for the Panama Canal

It might seem counter-intuitive, but it is Aquijo ’s owner’s focus on the sailing experience that has enabled the designers of the 86m ketch to push the size limits of a traditionally rigged yacht.

“ Aquijo is a sophisticated machine and brings most aspects of a 1,600GT motor yacht with her,” comments designer Bill Tripp. “But she does not aspire to helicopters or submarines, the feeling of the boat is one of use. She is for getting out there, and for going out sailing. In Greece this summer, she would go out for an afternoon of sailing in 35 knot Meltemi because it is so much fun to sail at 20 knots, as if on rails.

“We have always done sailboats that can get under the Panama Canal bridge, and the biggest we were happy to do and put under the bridge was really 46m because after that we didn’t have big enough sails for the boat.

“Then five years ago we launched A Better Place , and the owner said ‘I’ll go around, I don’t want to limit my boat because of the bridges.’ With Aquijo they said, we want to go to these places anyway, so let’s get the best sailboat we can. So suddenly, instead of having this 63m limit on the rig, that all opened up and we could start doing a sailing boat that had a gross tonnage like some of the bigger motoryachts.

“I think we’re going to see more of that. You can look at the Strait of Magellan [an alternative route to rounding Cape Horn ], as a place that’s a really long way away or a place you really want to go.”

The three-masted Black Pearl  has an angular ‘Pacman’ bow with a wave-piercing reverse sheer lower section, and extended traditional foredeck above

The wish list

Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko is keeping his Sailing Yacht A tightly wrapped under non-disclosure agreements, but a few intriguing details have been released, including magnifying windows which appear larger inside than outside, and a gimballed crow’s nest, accessible by lift, 60m high in the curved mast.

An observation pod embedded in the keel with foot-thick glass gives a mesmerising – and frankly terrifying-sounding – view of the propellers, and there’s a three-man submarine.

Gigayacht designers have come up with some imaginative solutions to meet owners’ foibles and demands. Drawings for the 101m sloop incorporated an entirely retractable hardtop to the flybridge to give the owner his requested uninterrupted view of the sails and sky.

Plans for the Japanese-influenced Komorebi design feature a live tree on the aft deck. Watersports toys are old news – now tender garages are specified to house motorbikes, amphibious quad bikes, even custom-built marinised supercars.

On Aquijo , the headline feature is the ‘beach club’ on the lower deck. “For a sailing boat it is a huge area, they have a sauna, hamman [Turkish Bath], a rainfall shower, a relaxing area, this huge whirlpool in the middle, a little pantry, and enough space for gym equipment around the pool,” explains interior designer Robert Voges.

Beach club on Aquijo.

Voges says the trickiest element on the yacht was the flawless high shine steel mast claddings which run through the interior. “It is like a piece of art. The mast was going through the main saloon and guest corridor, and we didn’t want to hide it. So we decided to make a feature out of it with seamless stainless steel cladding with integrated LED strip lights from top to bottom over two decks.”

One of the most radical projects in progress is the 141m Dream Symphony , a four-masted design currently in build in Turkey. Originally slated for launch this year, the project is progressing slowly – in part due to the fact the yacht is constructed of wood. Her design includes a large aft deck swimming pool that transforms into a raised helipad area.

This is the type of concept which seemed fantastical just a few years ago, but is now reality in the motoryachts world where designs like the 81m Alfa Nero have deployed it successfully.

“It’s a good solution because you usually have to drop down all the stanchions and any elements that are higher than the helipad itself, whereas if you lift the helipad you don’t have to lower the other elements,” explains Dream Symphony designer Ken Freivokh.

The 141m four-masted Dream Symphony

“The brief did not call for a resident helicopter that would have its own hanger – it’s just a ‘touch and go’. You don’t want to set aside space for a helicopter permanently that’s almost never there, so if you have a reasonably sized swimming pool why not use the base of a pool to just receive the helicopter, and then once the helicopter flies away you can put it back to normal operations?” Why not indeed?

No matter how grandiose your ideas, however, not even the vast volumes of a gigayacht can be entirely filled with art galleries and Reiki studios. Robert Voges explains that, like any other ship, “We have to start with all the emergency exits, the corridors, staircases . . . and from there we can work with the other areas which are left over.”

Ken Freivokh estimates that at least 20 per cent of the interior space has to be allocated to the back-of-house systems required to maintain the equivalent of a small hotel – air conditioning, waste, media, and other unglamorous elements behind the touch-screen luxury.

Edge of reason

At 12,700 GT, Sailing Yacht A has the vastest volume of all. But can she be called a sailing yacht? She carries three of the world’s largest carbon rigs – curved, unstayed, capable of rotating a maximum of 70 degrees – featuring in-boom furling that can deploy 3,747 square metres of sail area (67 per cent more than Maltese Falcon ) from a finger tip command. And yet she cannot help but look implausible.

The hull has a maximum beam of 24.8m and includes 24 shell doors.

No matter how innovative the technology on board, or how vast the expense, the elements will not bend to the will of man or millionaire. Various estimates have put her cost at $400-500million, or in the region of £320 to £400 million – to put those sort of figures in context, the bill for the London Olympics Aquatics centre came in at under £300m.

Sailing Yacht A will be ‘sail-assisted’, not wind-powered. Confounding, aggressive in her styling, she’s a yacht that has attracted scathing opinions as often as wide-eyed wonder. But what is the point of creating a gigayacht that doesn’t?

“It is a creative process with the owner,” comments Aquijo ’s designer Bill Tripp, “They have this idea that they can make something that speaks to them. They don’t write symphonies, and they’re not great painters or sculptors, but on the other hand money is vital energy, and they can create these things that wouldn’t exist otherwise.

“It’s great when someone says, ‘Life’s short, I’m just going to do this.’”

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Boat of the Week: Meet the 443-Foot ‘Sunrise,’ the World’s Largest Open Sport Gigayacht

At 443 feet, this gigayacht will be the largest day boat ever. beyond size, its wave-piercing hull and 24-knot top end are breakthroughs., michael verdon, michael verdon's most recent stories, you can now have a two-story beach club with a waterfall on your oceanco superyacht.

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Designing a 443-foot day boat sounds like an exercise in madness, or perhaps futility, if the designer ever hopes to find a buyer. But Italian designer Roberto Curto is used to breaking through established norms, even if what lies on the other side is more fantasy than working vessel.

The Genoa studio’s newest project, Sunrise, might seem like one of those impossible dreams, if it didn’t look so damned beautiful. The boat stretches from stern to bow in a gentle arc that emphasizes four football fields’ worth of exterior space, with a large but organic-looking superstructure that hugs the water, rather than jutting upwards across multiple decks towards the sky.

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“The idea was to have a big yacht that doesn’t look like a traditional wedding cake,” says Jim Evans, managing director of SuperYachtsMonaco , the agency tasked with finding a buyer for Sunrise. “Because it’s missing all those layers, it doesn’t have a huge amount of interior volume or weight. It’ll have the more traditional uses of an open day boat.”

An open design and 66-foot beam allowed the designer to create mega-pools and other supersized exterior spaces across Sunrise.  Courtesy Roberto Curto Design

“I wanted to bring the sport life to gigayachts,” adds Curto. “At the moment, there is nothing this radical.”

The concept is more than a set of drawings displaying a beautiful boat. Curto designed a wave-piercing hull for the bow that actually slides under waves when confronted with big seas, providing stability and speed in rough conditions. “It’s similar to the hulls on some submarines and military vessels,” says Curto. “I have a 34-foot boat that I designed with the same hull and it works fine, so I expect it will work on this larger scale.”

The submerged bow seems like it would actually perform in real-world conditions, thanks to the long, open forefoot on the forward end.

Besides looking cool, the wave-piercing bow actually submerges under water in big seas–similar to some naval vessels–to increase efficiency in rough conditions.  Courtesy Roberto Curto Design

In the images, Sunrise is certainly an open design, but there are no people to show how vast—giga-sized—the spaces really are. The swim platform, for instance, is about 36 feet deep and, thanks to the 66-foot beam, the aft swimming pool is a good 50 feet wide. An outdoor dining table seats 22. On the bow are another large pool, helipad, and even a jet-ski docking area. To get a sense of scale, running four laps along Sunshine’s edges would equal a mile.

The reason why the concept works is that Curto didn’t try to fill the space with dozens of small rooms across five or six decks. Some gigas feel like a maze in a massive hull. Curto, instead, kept the spaces simple, open and zen-like across the yacht.

A massive, atrium-like entrance to the interior, defined by huge glass panels, is connected to the long bow. The main salon has a sculpture shaped like a giant drop of rain splattering on the floor, with open circular panels extending through the decks above, as if it had just fallen from the sky. Round white concentric circles designed into the floor show the drop’s splatter pattern. A few lounges and tables are placed within, but otherwise the space is vast and empty.

The main salon is vast and zen-like, with a giant raindrop sculpture in its center. A hole in the decks above the drop is part of the yacht’s artistic design.  Courtesy Roberto Curto Design

On the upper deck is an observation lounge which, apart from the pilothouse, another exterior lounge area, gym, dining area and the staterooms, is pretty much the complete layout. The owner’s suite, like the main salon, is immense, with its own gym and outdoor patio. The tender garage in the lower deck is also enormous, with space for multiple boats and water toys.

The hull design gives Sunrise a top end of 24 knots; Curto is working with an engine builder to create a hybrid electric-diesel propulsion system using azipods at the stern for speed and efficiency gains.

In the end, however, the main impression is the yacht’s elegant, open design, with the subtle curves. “One thing we’ve noticed in the last five years is the growing demand for extra-luxurious exterior spaces,” says Evans. “The exterior needs to be just as exclusive as the interior.”

The deja-vu exterior design includes a second, very large swimming pool on the forward end of the yacht.  Courtesy Roberto Curto Design

Evans would like to see scaled-down versions of the yacht, perhaps 250 or 300 feet, that would have a larger potential pool of buyers. Still, he’s very happy with the design. “If I’d challenged other yacht designers in the beauty parade with a concept like this, they’d come back with something quite conventional, akin to a small cruise ship,” he says. “A lot of clients will be attracted to a design like Sunrise. They’ll really like the sporty lines and the fact that it still looks like a private yacht, despite the giga size.”

For Curto, buyer or not, Sunrise remains an exercise in creativity. “It’s really there to push the limits, to let clients see we can create something different,” he says. “We see it as innovation on the water.”

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Description

One of the most significant yachts recently completed, she is a masterpiece of luxury and technology. Boasting a sleek design paired with cutting-edge hybrid propulsion. Offering unparalleled comfort, elegance, state-of-the-art amenities and sustainable innovations. LUMINOSITY set a new standard for modern super yachts .

Tender & Toys

1x Reliant X40T Limousine tender – 11.50m × 3.65m × 2.61m; 8,470kg 

1x Reliant X40 Express craft – 11.50m × 3.65m × 2.84m; 9,298kg 

1x Reliant X40L Lander craft – 11.50m × 3.87m × 2.89m; 11,000kg 

Two retractable hydraulic boat booms, are installed amidships on starboard side, near the boarding platform.

Characteristics

Builder: Benetti 

Staterooms: 12 

Guests: 27 

Crew: 37 

Length: 107.6m (353.00ft)

Beam: 17.0m (55.09ft) 

Draft: 4.55m (14.11ft) 

Class: Lloyd’s 

Flag: Red Ensign Group 

Construction Material Hull: Steel 

Construction Material Superstructure: Aluminum 

Construction Material Deck: Teak 

Hull shape: Displacement

Cruising Speed: 10 knots 

Max Speed: 16 knots 

Range at 10 knots: 8,000+ nm 

Gross Tonnage: 5,844 GT

Exterior designer: Zaniz Jakubowski /Reymond Langton Design /Giorgio M. Cassetta 

Interior designer: Zaniz Jakubowski Design 

Designer for all external décor: Azimut Benetti Spa, Benetti Shipyard and Zaniz Jakubowski Design

Accommodation

Owner & Guests:

1 Owner’s suite on Owners Deck 

11 staterooms on Lower Deck, Main Deck, Owners Deck and Bridge Deck including one 4 berths children stateroom and one Pullman berth in Owners Deck blue guest stateroom. 

1 x Captain’s cabin on Bridge Deck 

1 x Officer cabin on Bridge Deck 

10 x double crew cabins on Lower Deck 

1 x triple crew cabin on Lower Deck 

1 x quadruple crew cabin on Lower Deck 

8 x Officer cabins on Lower Deck

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10 facts about Lürssen's 180m superyacht Azzam

Related articles, superyacht directory.

Mario Pedol, founder of Nauta Design, gives Elaine Bunting the inside view on what it was like working on one of the world’s biggest private boats.

For six years from her launch in April 2013, the superyacht Azzam stood as the world’s largest private yacht. At 180m overall, Azzam was eclipsed only in 2019 when the research and expedition vessel REV Ocean was unveiled – and then by only three metres.

To Azzam’ s owner – and exterior designer Nauta Design – size was never the ultimate goal. Instead, the objective was to create a sleek vessel with elegant, timeless lines. Originally, the superyacht was designed to be 145 metres, but in the process of optimisation it grew, and to this day, Mario Pedol, founder of Nauta Design, takes it as a great compliment when admirers say the yacht looks smaller than her size.

Nauta, famed as the studio behind some of the most graceful sailing yachts afloat, was asked to create an exterior design for Azzam . “There was already a GA [general arrangement plan of the interior layout] but they were missing the exterior design, and that was quite something,” says Pedol.

Previously, Nauta’s largest project had been 80 metre Project Light , a modern yet graceful motor yacht that drew on sailing yacht aesthetics and blended the boundaries between outdoor and indoor living. Azzam was to be different in style and intent, but Nauta was brought in to shape how the vessel would look.

“It was a challenging brief,” says Pedol. “The ship – and actually it is a ship – was due to reach 30+ knots. So one of the fundamental characteristics was the speed, quite unusual for this size, and I wanted to give a sense of that speed even in the design. Fortunately enough, the requirement of interior volume was not excessive for the length, so it did allow us to design a balanced and elegant yacht with good proportions. I’ve had many comments that, from some distance, you can’t tell she is a 180 metre yacht.”

The yacht accommodates a large, open plan main saloon, accommodation for 36 guests and up to 80 crew, complex ‘dual mode’ engine systems and the fuel required, despite having a comparatively shallow draught of just 4.3 metres.

The challenging design and engineering accounted for around a third of the four-year construction schedule, while arriving at the long, lean shape was in itself a challenge, needing detailed Finite Element Analysis to give the required longitudinal strength.

The interior style remains a closely guarded secret, but heritage was of prime importance. French designer Christophe Leoni , who had previously worked on some of the owner’s residences and palaces, brought similar styles on board, including a wealth of wood furniture intricately veneered with mother of pearl marquetry.

One of Pedol’s most vivid memories is of Azzam ’s first sea trial, when the builders, designers and engineers could finally appreciate the results of their work and calculations. “We boarded at midnight because the Lürssen yard is 60 miles upriver from the sea, and we spent the night at three knots,” he says. “At 07:00 in the morning the project manager called me and said: ‘Come and see.’ It turned out we were already travelling at 32 knots, but it didn’t feel like it. The four waterjets created a very high wake, and [to see the yacht in action], it was a very emotional moment. It was just spectacular…”

10 facts about the superyacht Azzam

1. Azzam was never conceived as the world’s largest superyacht

The design was to be high speed and accommodate a certain interior plan and number of guests, but it was originally envisaged as 145 metres overall. As the need to optimise the structure, and create space for complex engine systems, fuel and tenders developed, together with an elegant exterior sporting a long, sweeping bow and swept back stern, the design grew by another 35 metres to become a recordbreaker.

2. It took more than 4,000 people to build

Rightly thought of as a gigayacht, Azzam took four years to build at German shipyard Lürssen and is said to have cost more than US$500m. Some 4,000 people were involved in the build over four years, clocking up six million man-hours before her launch in April 2013. The builders calculated that had the yacht been built by one person, work would have had to start in 1737BC.

3. Azzam is one of the world’s fastest superyachts

The brief for Azzam was for a vessel that could travel as fast as possible to the owner’s private island off the coast of Abu Dhabi, and she can cover the journey in a matter of hours at her top speed of 33 knots.

4. Azzam is as fast as a Navy frigate and uses similar technology

Top speed is produced by two gas turbine engines and 2 x MTU diesel engines driving two Wartsila axial flow Modular waterjets and two boosters. Altogether they produce 97,000hp and consume 13 tonnes of fuel per hour at top speed.

5. There is a long range mode as well as a ‘sprint mode’

Azzam also has two conventional diesel engines for longer distance voyaging and extended range. Two 9,000kW MTU engines produce a speed of 18 knots over long distances – she could comfortably cross the Atlantic without refuelling.

6. You can practice golf on board

Guests can stay fit by using the onboard gym, pool or practising their swing in a special ‘golf training room’.

7. Over 100 people can live aboard

Azzam accommodates up to 36 guests in supreme comfort, and to look after them there is a crew of between 70 and 80 people.

8. There is a huge open plan main saloon

The large open plan main saloon measures 29 metres long by 18 metres, with no pillars to obstruct the views inside, and it is flanked by full height windows for an expansive view outside. “It was quite a challenge to make this space with no pillars,” observes Mario Pedol, adding that the beams on the ceiling had to be 1 metre in width. Making sure the huge windows were fully stormproof meant the glass had to be specially engineered in Italy and it is over 7cm thick.

9. The interior boasts a wealth of mother of pearl

The furniture on board features intricate marquetry in mother of pearl – such a wealth that it equates to a year’s worth of worldwide production

10. The chandelier doesn’t rattle

A huge amount of work was put into ensuring that the noise and vibration levels of Azzam were very low, even at full speed. Designers and engineers had to ensure the chandelier in the main salon didn’t tinkle underway. “It was difficult to know in advance how this would behave, but it was tested in every possible way with sophisticated software and set up challenging targets and it was not a problem,” says Mario Pedol.

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