The 147-Foot Oceans 47 Superyacht Might Make Your Megayacht Jealous
Partnerships between shipyards and designers are more common than not in the superyacht world—in fact, many owners hire yachting’s independent rock-star designers and only then ask multiple shipyards to bid on the project before making a choice. Most parties guard any information about yachts under build like top-secret information until the boat is finally unveiled years later, even then information is parceled out to the public at the owner’s discretion.
By contrast, a name-brand designer, brokerage firm and yacht builder partnering to create a new line of superyachts is uncommon, though two unusual pacts were publicly announced recently at the Monaco Yacht Show. Dutch design studio Vripack, Italy’s Wider Yachts, and a Dubai-based yacht-services firm called OceanWorld Group, released the first renderings of the 154-foot Oceans 47.
The full cinema on Oceans 47 came about by doing a smart redesign of the available interior space.
Oceans Yachts
The vessel’s profile shows clean lines, copious glass across four decks, pools, and a silver hull. The interiors are bright, filled with light and spacious—what Vripack partner and co-creative director Bart M. Bouwhuis calls “‘Practical elegance’: a timeless design, interiors that converse with natural light, and lines that convey harmony and functionality.”
Underneath these pleasing-but-vague adjectives was a more concrete goal. “Our brief was to truly revolutionize the 500-gross-tonne offering,” Bouwhuis adds. The 500 GT designator, which represents total interior volume, is the magic line for superyacht builders. Above 500 gross tonnes, a separate set of rules designed for much larger commercial vessels comes into play, making the yacht’s build more complicated and expensive for the owner.
The rear area of Oceans 47 includes open space and a swimming pool.
“It took two years of design and market studies to accomplish,” notes Bouwhuis. Essentially, the Vripack team wanted to create the equivalent experience of a 65-meter (213-foot) yacht without it appearing like everything was shoehorned into the hull.
Vripack uses the term “flow” to describe the final effect of open space and natural movement through Oceans 47, but it took extensive engineering and the creative redesign of traditional spaces to get there. The six-stateroom vessel includes three salons, excellent crew quarters, a full owner’s deck with an exceptional owner’s suite, a cigar lounge, a beach club flush with the aft deck, a gym, an elevator, and the most unlikely feature for a yacht this size: a full-sized cinema with ample headroom.
The main suite sits in the same area where a conventional pilothouse would be, creating exceptional views for the owners.
Oceans Yachts
“We optimize this vessel to be as big as the class would allow,” Bouwhuis says. “We also focused on creating a new emissions system that reduces fuel consumption. The initiative has paid off. Hull number one is now under build.
The other “Odd Couple” partnership announced at Monaco was between the historic Italian shipyard, Cantieri di Pisa, which celebrated its 65th anniversary this year, and T. Mariotti in Genoa, which typically builds much larger vessels such as cruiseships and explorer cruiseships.
The 230-foot Super Polaris 70 represents a new offering from historic yard Cantieri di Pisa and cruise ship builder T. Mariotti.
Cantieri di Pisa entered a new phase last year, with a new investor, management team and ambitious plans to reinvent itself with its Polaris, Saturno and Akhir lines and a custom division. But its biggest news is the partnership with T. Mariotti, which means that it can now play in the over 70M (230-foot) segment, with the first of its line, the Super Polaris 70 being built at the T. Mariotti’s shipyard.
“This collaboration with Cantieri di Pisa is a natural fit for us: we are combining the best of two worlds,” said Marco Ghiglione, CEO of T. Mariotti, during the press announcement. “Pisa brings the style, tradition and strength of Italian design; T. Mariotti contributes its large-scale industrial and engineering capabilities.”
The two firms are so invested in the outcome that any yacht built under the partnership will be called “Cantieri di Pisa, Powered by T. Mariotti.” Now that’s teamwork.
