COVER STORY Top 100 Superyachts 2018 Compiling the annual Top 100 Superyachts of Asia-Pacific needs a flexible approach. We include spectacular new vessels that are soon to arrive, and the biggest and best of those already here, because that is what interests high net worth readers, owners, TOP 100 agents and yards. The latest fleet is 140m to 46m. USED FOR NEW SUPERYACHT SALES WORDS BRUCE MAXWELL PHOTOS AS CREDITED Exclusive first pictures of 84m White Rabbit G during sea trials off Echo Yachts south of Perth, Western Australia. The vessel is for a very experienced Singapore family who have owned two Feadships, and still have other White Rabbits at Marina at Keppel Bay. WRG is built in aluminium, and the family has taken delivery of another 46m support vessel, Charley, which was at Singapore Yacht Show last year. © MARK STOTHARD 38 39 COVER STORY Top 100 Superyachts 2018 Royal Huisman’s 81m schooner in-build for a keen East Asia yachtsman 126m Octopus Sadly Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft with Bill Gates, passed away late 2018. Based in Seattle, two of his superyachts, the 61m Feadship Meduse and 126m Octopus Lürssen, were regulars in past Top 100s as he cruised the Pacific, North Asia and especially the Philippines, contributing to explorations, wreck searches and many marine ecology ventures. Italy’s Benetti is another long-time Asia-Pacific player, stemming Finally, our apologies to Asia-Pacific owners who have sizeable back to visits by Paulo Vitelli and Massimo Perotti in the 1980s, and superyachts from 24m to 46m. The good news is that we have decided they too are well represented in Top 100. The largest 100m+ vessel in to make this really interesting sector a separate feature in an upcoming ny Asia-Pacific owned superyacht qualifies, whether at its to Top 100 last year, “Asia-Pacific is already the next big thing for Benetti’s history will be delivered to an Australian next year from their Yacht Style in and in our many online and social media outlets. usual home port or cruising elsewhere. So do European and superyacht yards”, and it is only going to get bigger. Much bigger. Livorno yard, closely followed by two more. American owned superyachts that spend significant time in This leading Dutch yard has been active in the market for three Perini Navi super sailboats are always represented. Last year we ©2018 Bruce Maxwell, Asia-Pacific Voyages. We try our best to these waters. Some never leave. decades, and deliveries continue with vessels like 73m Hasna and 69m included two 50m+ Picchiotti motor yachts in-build by this subsidiary ensure accuracy. To comment on or update information above, AIndian Ocean destinations such as the Seychelles, Mauritius, Samaya making their marks. Australian-owned Hasna has been cruising of Perini Navi - the names are now merged - but until these designated please email [email protected] and copy Yacht Style Maldives and Sri Lanka are part of the picture, as Southeast Asia is the in French Polynesia lately. Hong Kong orders become a bit clearer, we decided to leave them out publisher Gael Burlot, [email protected]. usual next stop. But there are as yet few Indian owners, and the Middle Amels also began with custom builds Boadicea, and Ilona for again until 2019, so that other worthy vessels can appear in the interim. East is excluded, despite all lands beyond Istanbul being once known Frank Lowy, many moons hence, and their Limited Editions, which Otherwise the 140m Fincantieri Ocean Victory was in the Maldives as Asia Minor. reduce an owner’s waiting time to two years, are definitely in vogue. heading east at our deadline, after lengthy Asia-Pacific sojourns in Conversely the West Coast of the Americas is lapped by the Pacific Look at the 55m mark in following pages, and half a dozen Amels recent years, and another regular visitor, the Motor Yacht A, was cruising Ocean too. We mostly track vessels heading for French Polynesia and Limited Edition 180s appear, apart from parent yard Damen’s Support Korea and Japan. Both are Russian owned. the South Seas, New Zealand and Australia, or for Hawaii, Micronesia, Vessels scattered throughout. New Zealand billionaire Graeme Hart sold his Norwegian-built 107m Japan and the China Coast. Heesen, another well-known Dutch yard, initially sold two last year, and she is now called Andromeda, lately on the Pacific Coast of Subjective at times? Sure. When I first wrote a Top 25 Superyachts of superyachts to Malaysian owners, and has larger vessels in this year’s Mexico. His follow-up 116m Ulysses appeared in the Med this year. Asia-Pacific feature in the 1990s, the International Superyacht Society lists, while Royal Huisman’s super sailboat Twizzle is back and their Delivery of the 84m White Rabbit G by Echo Yachts of Western had only just been formed. Some vessels called superyachts back then 81m schooner for an Asian client is progressing. Australia for a very experienced Singapore owner is expected before would not pass muster today. We continue to filter out more elderly refits. Germany’s Lürssen, which builds the world’s largest superyachts, year’s end. White Rabbit E and others have based at Marina at Keppel Phinisis, traditional wooden sailing craft of Indonesia, are moved has 85m Pacific in Phuket and 76m Rocinante ex-TV crossing the North Bay, where Motor Yacht A also stayed a few years back. to their own specialist section. No realistic comparison exists between Pacific from Osaka to San Francisco. Biggest superyacht event on the horizon is the 2021 America’s Cup in these luxuriously-outfitted charter vessels and true superyacht This is the 60-90m range which Lürssen sales director Michael Auckland, New Zealand, and it is no surprise that keen contestant Ernesto construction costs and charters, except that phinisis are indeed proving Breman says is their stock in trade, but when I was invited to their first Bertarelli already has his 96m Brooke yacht Vava 11 back in Asia-Pacific popular for those seeking an ethnic experience at relatively lower rates. exclusive media tour in a decade mid-year it was obvious that a lot of waters. We are told that berths in Auckland are fully booked. Support Vessels, a fairly new concept, are kept in Top 100 because of 100m+ vessels were also in progress, including the spectacular 135m More big boat facilities appear to be urgently needed throughout the the “in tandem” trend toward explorer-style superyachts. Some such vessels Crescent, which is expected to cruise Asia-Pacific waters shortly. region, not least in Hong Kong and Singapore. Papeete in Tahiti has limited have separated from their original mother ships, and are being used in their availability, and superyachts have to compete for cruise ship wharves. A second feature on 24m to 46m vessels that didn’t make Top 100 is to follow shortly. own right, particularly in Asia-Pacific waters. Check out an extraordinary The 74m Lürssen Rocinante, formerly called TV, sailed from Osaka to surge in Amels and Damen support vessels in the pages that follow. San Francisco across the North Pacific this year. The North Pacific Release of the list was previously timed for Cannes and Monaco, from Hawaii to Micronesia and Japan has much to offer too. This 46m trimaran built at Australia’s McConaghy Yachts in Zhuhai, China, is designed by Mani Frers, and handled by Camper and Nicholsons Asia. She is due for delivery in 2020. but has been put back to the Monaco-Ft Lauderdale period, to enable a better grasp of vessels voyaging through the Suez and Panama Canals into Asia-Pacific waters at the change of seasons. Apart from the print edition, Top 100 now circulates in online, social media and PDF forms for most of the following year, and has become a widely used sales tool by agents and dealers wishing to spread knowledge of the superyacht scene in a region destined to drive the world’s economies. PDFs attach easily to email pitches, and Top 100 cropped up regularly last year in relation to all manner of superyacht-related topics. Even private papers I was commissioned to write for Holland Yachting Industry members recently are somehow being made available, and cross-referenced in google searches. Translations from English into assorted Asia-Pacific languages and characters are being introduced, which should further assist the spread of reasonably up-to-date superyacht information.The bottom line is that, as Feadship marketing director Farouk Nefzi said in an introduction 40 41 COVER STORY Top 100 Superyachts 2018 1 Ocean Victory 140m Fincantieri As the 2018 Med season drew to a close in October, an ever- increasing fleet of superyachts sailed south through the newly wider and deeper Suez Canal into Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific waters, led by the globe-girding flagship Ocean Victory, which began exploring Asia and the South Seas several years ago. Her first coral atoll calls this passage were in 2 Crescent the Maldives. Italy's 135m Lürssen Fincantieri builds Featured last issue when Yacht Style was invited on this leading German yard's first media tour cruise liners and in nearly a decade, Crescent has been kept under wraps apart from an intriguing statement that warships as well as her build name, Project Thunder, stemmed from the Taoist god Lei Gong, and that she would private yachts. spend a considerable time voyaging in Asia. The non-yard photo here was taken during early sea trials, a year out from delivery. Designer is Espen Øino, who also shaped Ocean Victory. Motor Yacht A 3 118m Blohm & Voss Built a decade back by much-acclaimed B&V, whose yards were recently absorbed into burgeoning compatriot Lürssen, she is referred to as Motor Yacht A because her Russian owner also built Sailing Yacht A 4 at Nobiskrug, another well-known German superyacht specialist.