These days the ability to carry her own “small fleet” is considered a must for a decent modern superyacht
What does this "fleet" comprise? A tender (and often more than one) and a variety of all kinds of water toys: from traditional jet skis, windsurfers and Seabobs to various submersibles. Firstly, all of them require space for storage and maintenance, and secondly, they have to be launched and retreated in a fast and easy way. For this reason, some garages are true masterpieces of engineering, and sometimes the entire yacht is built “around” her garage…
1. Octopus (126 m, Lürssen, 2003)
Number one on our list is exactly the case. In terms of complexity and scale, the laurels still belong to the garage on board the 126-metre Octopus built for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2003, which means the vessel is over 20 years old now. The Octopus was conceived as an expedition yacht with incredible capabilities, which required carrying a huge fleet, including not only tenders and toys, but also a submarine and a floatplane. All of these and a couple of helicopters could not be stored on open decks. The idea of storing them all aft was not right either, as it could affect the vessel’s stability.
In the end, designer Espen Øino thought of making a very long, 36-meter float-in garage located on the yacht’s centreline and flanked by rows of smaller hangars for different toys that are launched inside the superyacht and come out through the transom door. In fact, it’s like a marina inside a yacht.
For years everything about the Octopus was kept under wraps, but now it’s not only the owner who can appreciate her treasures: since 2021 the yacht has been available for charter.
2. Flying Fox (136 m, Lürssen, 2019)
It is only natural that the largest charter yacht in the world should have the largest arsenal of water toys for her guests. Just like Espen Øino’s Octopus, the 136-metre Flying Fox was designed with a focus on entertainment and wellness. And although today it is typical of most new superyachts, the scale of this idea’s implementation on board the Flying Fox is truly large-scale. In fact, the owner wanted this yacht to carry everything he had ever had on all his previous yachts before.
The entire aft section of 400 sq.m on two decks is dedicated to spa and water entertainment. We will tell you more about the spa next time, but as for the garage, it is a vast space capable of accommodating five tenders and all the state-of-the-art water toys: jet skis, flyboards, hoverboards, windsurfers and many more. And it is not only about the size of the garage, but the fact that you can also fuel tenders with petrol in it. It might sound rather mundane, but taking into account all the safety regulations one has to comply with, the task of implementing this on board is a real challenge and is similar to the way it is carries out on supertankers. Next to the garage, there is allegedly the most advanced dive centre ever found on board a yacht, offering absolutely everything one can imagine: from nitrox mixing systems to a decompression chamber, allowing one to dive down to 100 m. And that is not all…
The garage can also carry a submarine. To get into it, there is a special hatch, as well as a crane for launching it, as the one used for tenders is not suitable for a submarine.
3. Lady Fleur (32.65 m, X-Treme Yachts, 2022)
Designing a garage on board a large (100+ metre) superyacht is not an easy task. But it seems easier than trying to implement something impressive on board a vessel that is three times shorter. The owners of Lady Fleur (the first X-Treme Yachts X-105 unit by Dutch Holterman Shipyard) wanted to have a pool and a float-in garage.
These two features are hard to realize even separately on board a yacht that is under 33 metres, let alone both of them… In the end, the garage and the pool became one. The engine room located aft was divided into watertight sections, and built a five-metre long compartment between them with a bottom that lowers and allows it to fill with sea water.
Thus, this compartment serves both as a swimming pool and as a lift for a tender.
4. Seven Sins (52 m, Sanlorenzo, 2017)
The idea of two-in-one has been inmplemented for the first 52 Steel unit by Italian Sanlorenzo, too: the float-in garage transforms into a beach club.
Water is pumped into the tender bay, and when it’s full, the transom opens and the tender goes out, freeing space for the beach club. After this side terraces fold out on both sides, and a teak-soled section lowers from above.
The "icing on the cake" is the ceiling of the beach club, which is the transparent bottom of the pool one level up, which lets the sunlight in, creating an amazing glare interplay.
5. Nebula (68 m, Astilleros Armón, 2022)
The Nebula is a motor yacht with a catamaran hull, which is a kind of garage herself — in a sense. She is a superyacht support vessel meant for carrying tenders, water toys and other kinds of equipment, as well as additional crew. The Nebula stands out for the fact that she’s got a full-size helicopter hangar that an Airbus H145 can enter without folding its blades. This hangar serves as a “roof” for an equally remarkable garage for a tender a toys, located one level lower.
It can accommodate tow RIBs, four jet skis and quite a remarkable custom catamaran, which looks like a 12.3-metre replica of the Nebula. The tender is launched with the help of cranes with a lifting capacity of 11 tons. The retrieval is a little more difficult, as this tender is quite high and would require a really large garage, so the tender can “shrink”: its roof goes down, so the cranes can pull it into a compact storage compartment.
In general, designing such a seemingly down-to-earth thing as garage sometimes requires no less creativity than a yacht design. Particularly taking into account the fact that some tender manufacturers and owners’ imagination can go really wild. In that case, one has to come up with something extraordinary to be able to store and launch them. By the way, the most incredible tenders are going to be our topic next time.
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