Usually at boat shows, the star is the newest yacht. It’s the constant talk of the docks, with brokers and press alike clamoring to be first aboard.
   There is no shortage of brand-new showstoppers here at the Antigua charter show this week, from the 198-foot CMN sisterships Slipstream and Cloud 9 to the 214-foot Feadship Trident and the 177-foot Feadship Hurricane Run. The 104-foot sailboat Liara is drawing a good bit of buzz, too, as the first hull in a new line from the builder Performance Yachts.
   And yet, as the show prepares to enter its fourth out of five days, the yacht I’m hearing the most about is the three-year-old motoryacht Samar. Every charter broker who tours the 254-footer tells me that she is unlike any other yacht they’ve ever seen, and that I should run, not walk, down the docks to take my own tour.
    So I did.
    And even my mouth dropped open.
    The photograph above is what you see when you enter the main saloon from the aft deck. I can honestly say that the last time I felt the same ambience was when I entered the Vatican Museums in Rome. It’s not just that the owner of Samar is an art collector, or that there are countless original works and antiques practically everywhere, or even that the detailing in the ceiling is a form of artwork in and of itself, but that the sheer vastness of the space is an absolute wonder.
    “The design brief for this boat was that luxury equals volume,” Capt. Bob Corcoran, formerly of the 153-foot NAYS motoryacht Argyll, told me during a private tour. “The owner is an experienced yachtsman. He has spent a month at a time on a boat, and he couldn’t wait to get off. You get onto these bigger motoryachts, and the rooms all get longer and wider, but the ceilings don’t change proportionally. This boat was designed for total volume.”
    The ceiling height on Samar’s main deck is nearly 10 feet. On the bridge deck, where the conference room is located, it’s just over 9 feet. I had to turn my camera vertically instead of horizontally, both there and in the master suite, just to get the entire height of the rooms into the photographs.
    I’ll have more for you soon in a full First Impression review of Samar, including additional photographs, my take on the yacht’s three elevators, the body dryers in the master bath, and the fact that the formal dining room has been the site of at least one official state dinner.
    In a word, though: Wow.
    More from the docks on Antigua tomorrow.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/hide comment form