Category: General

The new 163-foot Casino Royale, unveiled in July, pushed the Christensen shipyard to its limits. “The boat’s owners have thirty-plus years of experience building different yachts,” said Joe Foggia, Christensen president. “Their requests pushed us in many new creative directions.”

Casino Royale’s 6,900 square feet of interior space is a masterpiece of interwoven wood and stone, with Sapele mahogany raised-panel joinery and custom marble and granite work defining the salon and dining areas. The master stateroom also has the beautiful woodwork with intricate marble wainscoting. The spiral staircase of the entryway features sexy Bond-girl silhouettes etched into frosted panes of glass, and an intricately carved sculpture of a roulette wheel, made of petrified wood and stone, completes the Bond motif.  The yacht, which has a transatlantic range of 4,500 miles, will be on display at this year’s Fort Lauderdale, Florida, boat show. (www.christensenyachts.com)

—Michael Verdon

Haute couture will soon become part of one of the racing world’s most famous luxury yachts:  Bespoke yacht broker Weyves Yachts has sealed a partnership with fashion and perfume designer Thierry Mugler to create a custom interior for the world’s fastest yacht. The 112-foot Gentry Eagle, built by racing legend Tom Gentry, broke the record for fastest transatlantic crossing in 1989, shattering the previous record by Virgin tycoon Richard Branson.

The Gentry Eagle design project is one of several upcoming ventures between Weyves Yachts and Agent de Luxe, a fashion-design agency run by Donald Potard, who spent 25 years as president of Jean Paul Gaultier. Enlisting a fashion designer to redesign a yacht is not a standard decorating move, but Potard believes it is the sign of a new generation. “Fashion designers are more than just clothing designers today,” says Potard, “they influence a lifestyle.”

“Yacht owners are using their vessels as places to entertain, and they want to express their personal style,” Potard said. Mugler’s redesign will stay true to the original owner’s sense of style but will incorporate Mugler’s uniquely glamorous touch. “Crystal, chandeliers, metals―the interior will have a distinctly ‘Mugler-esque’ feel,” Potard said. Mugler drew inspiration from films like Barbarella and the Star Trek series to create the futuristic interior as an homage to Gentry’s favorite films.

The million redesign is expected to be completed by October 2009, and the yacht is estimated to sell for about million. (na@weyvesyachts.com).

—Alexandra Foster

The first DeBirs 100 Sports Yacht, launched at Cannes in early September, gained instant fanfare for the shipyard based in Alexandria, Egypt. The DeBirs name is actually a highly respected Dutch yard that was reestablished by a group of European yacht designers and American executives from the aviation industry. The plan was to introduce advanced aviation engineering to the yacht-building world, while also taking advantage of Alexandria’s skilled, but relatively inexpensive pool of boatbuilders.

The yacht is an engineering and aesthetic triumph for DeBirs, which has focused on smaller, more traditional-looking motoryachts. The profile has a sleek, Eurostyle look, reminiscent of sportyachts like Azimut S103 or the Riva 90 Duchessa. The Italtecnica/Arrabito-designed hull tops out at 28 knots with twin 2000-hp MTU engines. It’s also about 30 percent lower in price than similar style boats.

The modern interior, designed by Egg and Dart of Munich, also includes a voluminous space defined by light-colored woods, fabrics, and contemporary furnishings. The first 100 have a full-beam master stateroom, with vertical hullside windows that offer tremendous light, along with four other roomy, bright guest cabins. The 100 also has a mini-flybridge that does not compromise the sleek profile but provides extra space for socializing. It’s an impressive launch for a young yard that promises to carry on DeBirs’ good name.

—Michael Verdon

Among several rare features on this yacht, the one drawing the most attention from buyers is the private balcony off the starboard side of the master cabin on the main deck. Sliding glass doors let in abundant natural light and, when open, allow for a breeze inside the master suite that is far more comforting than anything a porthole might deliver.

The yacht’s interior, styled by the Nuvolari-Lenard design house and Alberto Pinto, evokes the sea with furniture details that resemble pieces of staghorn coral.  The opulent master suite includes an office, a dressing area, a bathroom with a steam shower and hot tub, and a private outdoor patio with a second hot tub.

The Austal shipyard in Western Australia builds a number of ferries, combat vessels, and patrol boats. Predictably, its 193-foot, fiberglass-composite Austal Outback is a sturdy craft and fast as well, with a top speed of 23 mph.

Go-anywhere, do-anything, expedition-style motor yachts are available for charter, but few cruise beyond the Mediterranean and Caribbean seas. An exception is the 111-foot Alloy VvS1, which you can charter in South Pacific locales such as Tahiti, Tonga, and New Zealand.

The Feadship F45 Vantage semicustom series was launched to offer a more competitively priced option than the Dutch builder’s fully custom designs in the same size range. Space is hull number one, and two more of the 146-footers already have been sold.

The Overmarine Mangusta 165 Open sits at the top of the Mangusta line, whose range begins at 72 feet, and has the same sleek, sexy styling as her smaller siblings. Powered by triple 16V4000 MTU engines, she can reach 43 mph—an astonishing speed for a 165-foot yacht.

The 37.5-foot Sea Ray 350 Sundancer is available with Mercury MerCruiser’s Axius, a docking system that the company debuted last year for its smaller, sterndrive-powered boats.