The World's Largest Yachts 2016

Power and Poetry

Power & Motoryacht is proud to present the world’s 100 biggest yachts, Larger and more lavish than ever.

The Newcomers

4

Dilbar is the largest launch of the past year. Built by Lürssen under the project name Omar, she measures 511 feet, 9 inches.

Little is known about her. As with most superyachts of her magnitude, builders are bound by confidentiality agreements. We do know her interior is by Winch Design. 

23

Kleven 370, built at the commercial Kleven Werft shipyard in Norway, measures 380 feet, 6 inches, and is the a luxury expedition vessel with connections to 351-foot Ulysses (No. 31), launched last year at the same shipyard for New Zealander Graeme Hart. 

The rugged yacht is by Norwegian design and engineering firm Marin Teknikk, in cooperation with naval architect Kyle Dick. She is designed for lengthy trips in rough waters, while still maintaining comfort. 

33

Mistral, the 347-foot, 10-inch Lürssen with naval architecture by Lürssen and exterior styling by Espen Øino, has been delivered to her owner.

57

Lionheart, at 295 feet, 3 inches, is the largest yacht ever built at Benetti. Both Benetti and Stefano Natucci are responsible for her exterior styling. Her interior design is by Green & Mingarelli Design. 

81

Amels 272, at 272 feet, is the largest yacht in the builder’s Limited Editions series, which starts at 180 feet. All of the Limited Editions have exterior styling by Tim Heywood. The 272 model, nicknamed Grande Dame, will have accommodations for 16 guests and 27 crew. 

She has five decks, with pools on the aft main deck and forward on the sundeck. Her master suite occupies 3,229 square feet. She has a touch-and-go helipad on her foredeck, and is capable of a 17-knot top speed. —Jill Bobrow

Where They Were Built

Just Breathe

Feadship, one of the oldest and most innovative of Holland’s shipbuilders, is behind the wild propulsion machinery pictured here. Feadship calls it the Breathe Propulsion System, and teams it up with a diesel-electric power plant and an exceptionally slippery, plumb-bowed hull. Essentially, it consists of an extra-large (and therefore extra-efficient), slow-moving, inboard-shaft-driven, controllable-pitch propeller with a contrarotating pod-mounted propeller directly abaft and in the main prop’s slipstream. Under a variety of conditions (Savannah, No. 80 on the list, is the first yacht to host BPS, and will run in five separate modalities, depending on the level of efficiency demanded), the in-line propeller configuration allows the after, pod-type prop to exploit some of the energy spun into the water by the main, inboard-type prop. According to testing performed by Feadship, this arrangement improves operating efficiency by approximately 33 percent at a 12-knot cruise, and 17 percent at a top speed of 17.5 knots. Moreover, the after prop, which is fully azimuthing, can also be individually employed as a propulsor (should the main prop cease to function) or as a stern thruster while docking, a virtue that imparts great maneuverability. In spite of the seeming complexity, Feadship maintains that BPS is actually simpler than a more conventional twin-inboard setup, consisting as it does of just one large, slow-revving main engine (a 9L20 Wärtsilä diesel), one main propeller, and a giant inverter that turns it. —Capt. Bill Pike

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Chopi Chopi is an impressive yacht in her own right, but when she’s cruising with her full fleet of tenders, she’s downright imposing.

Lürssen’s Largest Yachts

See an image gallery of
some of Lürssen’s largest yachts ▶

This article originally appeared in the August 2016 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.