World's 100 Largest Yachts 2007 #92: Polar Star

#92: POLAR STAR—206'0"

Christofer Suffeleers

This yacht, launched as Northern Star for a Canadian couple who intended her to cruise off-the-beaten-path regions, sold several months ago to Russian owners, who are offering her for charter. The yacht visited the Bahamas, St. Maarten, and Fort Lauderdale the first half of this year.

Y: 2005; B: Lrssen, Germany; N: Espen ino Naval Architects; H: steel; E: 2/1,849-hp Caterpillars

World’s 100 Largest Yachts 2007

FAST FACTS

Christofer Suffeleers

This Lloyds @ 100AI steel-hull beauty was built to ice-class standards. Generally such a designation means scantlings are heavier—that is, steel shell plating is thicker forward (1/2 to 3/4 inch versus 1/4 to 1/2 inch), frames throughout are closer together and beefier, and in the bow area especially, frame-to-plate welding tends to be continuous, not intermittent. Also, an "ice band," a reinforced strip of extra-heavy shell plating, typically circumscribes the waterline between the light and full-up draft marks. And finally, shafts and props as well as rudders (rudder heads, pintles, etc.) are more robust. Icebreakers belong to a different genre, incidentally. With cut-away, Meierform bows featuring one- to two-inch steel shell plating and monster centerline longitudinals or keelsons, they ride up on ice sheets at displacement speeds and simply crush them by dint of weight.—Capt. Bill Pike

This article originally appeared in the August 2007 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.