Indholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2021 i Yachts International

kwooton@aimmedia.com The 100-foot motoryacht my friends had chartered in Southeast Alaska was anchored in a cove with no other signs of human life. To say the solitude and the mind-warping views of high mountains rising from Chatham Strait were overwhelming is an understatement. I was on deck with my camera listening for a very human sound: that of a floatplane carrying a guide we’d hired in Juneau a couple of days before to put us on a few salmon, make our fly rods bend and keep the yacht’s chef happy. As if on cue, a red and blue de Havilland Beaver, with its noisy radial engine, rounded the point, did a flyover and dropped into the cove. The crew delivered the guide to the boat, and we began our briefing…

It is no coincidence that Italian brand Maiora chose to name its latest 115-foot (35-meter) fiberglass model after the Exumas, the string of islands in the Bahamas famous for their sapphire-blue waters and aquatic pigs. These cays are favorites of American yachtsmen, and the owner of the first Maiora 35 Exuma, Lady Nina, is a repeat customer from the United States. Maiora was a pioneer of fiberglass construction in the 1970s. Today, the brand is part of Fipa Group and in force with a new product range. Lady Nina is what Maiora calls a “special project” insofar as the yacht is customized to the owner’s family-oriented needs, and draws on the experience of sister company AB Yachts in the field of water-jet propulsion. Water jets offer various advantages over conventional…

All of us sat in the tender, looking at the steps and trying to figure out what to do. We thought we were headed ashore for a hike to the summit of Bartolome, a craggy, volcanic islet in the Galápagos archipelago. But several sea lions—each of them weighing well more than 200 pounds—were quite comfortable lounging on the stairs where our feet needed to go. Such is the typical experience during a yacht charter in the place where giant tortoises roam, blue-footed boobies abound and sea lions cavort without fear of humankind. The Galápagos are their world, not ours. These islands are a place where what the animals want and need comes first, a place where it’s still possible to see nature unfettered by civilization. The Galápagos have occupied a…

Turkey has a centuries-old boatbuilding and seafaring culture. The country’s major city, Istanbul, straddles Asia and Europe, and touches the shores of the Sea of Marmara, the Golden Horn and the Bosporus. Water transportation has always been an essential part of commerce and trade. What is new is an evolving boatbuilding ethos, one that has now produced the 263-foot (80-meter) Tatiana. Built by Bilgin Yachts, she is the largest, most environmentally friendly private yacht ever launched in Turkey. While old-world Turkish craftsmanship has long been valued, Tatiana shows that yacht design, construction know-how and technology have evolved light years from the early days of fishing caïques. Today, Turkey is firmly established as one of the top-tier superyacht building nations in the world. Tatiana is built in accordance with IMO Tier…

Three creative people. Three nationalities. Three distinctive backgrounds. They combine to lead one integrated design studio: Harrison Eidsgaard, a respected, London-based firm that works with an international clientele to design yachts that the world’s top yards build. The principals, Peder and Ewa Eidsgaard and Ben Harrison, still have a youthful, start-up verve that produces a nouveau edge. Each has a different story about arriving at this point in their careers and becoming such a complementary, cohesive unit. “I come from a long line of architects,” says Ben, who is British. “Both my grandfathers were architects, as was my father, my uncle and my cousin. I seemed fated to train as an architect.” Boating was also in his blood. Ben spent the summers of his youth on the River Dart in…

It’s worthwhile to extend your Galápagos trip and explore the beauty of Quito, Ecuador. Established in the 1500s, and 9,350 feet above sea level, Quito is one of the highest capital cities in the world. It lies in the shadow of the spectacular outlying landscape of the Andes. We visited the 4,000-acre Hacienda Zuleta, where we went horseback riding in breathtaking mountain terrain and indulged in true farm-to-table fare. For shoppers, there is a world-class outdoor market in Otavalo for alpaca wraps, sweaters, llama ponchos and Panama hats (which actually originated in Ecuador). We headed west to the Mindo Cloud Forest and experienced thrilling canopy ziplining, along with botanical parks filled with butterflies.…

Sales of explorer yachts have boomed in the past few years, largely thanks to younger, more adventurous owners wanting to cruise beyond the Mediterranean or Caribbean. This trend is only likely to increase in a post-pandemic world, but many explorer designs favor styling over substance and are no more built for long-range passagemaking than your average SUV is made for serious off-roading. A notable exception is the construction at Cantiere delle Marche in Ancona on Italy’s Adriatic coast. Just over a decade ago, the brand launched its hardy Darwin Class of steel-hulled explorers and has since carved out a niche in the market for oceangoing vessels under 500 gross tons. “We wanted to be identified from the beginning with a real pocket explorer that epitomized our shipyard, and the Darwin…

Everyone loves a lighthouse on a sunny, flat-calm day. They stand on picturesque headlands overlooking the seas as nostalgic reminders of the days before satellite navigation, when they were the only warning for ships to stay clear of treacherous shores. But there is another, less-romantic kind of lighthouse built on barren, rocky outcrops that rise vertically out of the open sea. These are the shockingly exposed tower lights, fortified strongholds designed to withstand the invasion of wind and waves rather than armies and artillery. A famous photograph clearly illustrates the dark, dangerous side of these lifesaving beacons. Taken from a helicopter in 1989 by French photographer Jean Guichard, it is of La Jument lighthouse off the island of Ushant at the southern end of the English Channel. Gale force winds…