owner of aquijo yacht

672 Wine Club

• Motorcycles
• Car of the Month
• Destinations
• Men’s Fashion
• Watch Collector
• Art & Collectibles
• Vacation Homes
• Celebrity Homes
• New Construction
• Home Design
• Electronics
• Fine Dining
• Benchmark Wines
• Brian Fox Art
• Chase United
• Disneyland Resort
• Gateway Bronco
• Royal Salute
• Sports & Leisure
• Health & Wellness
• Best of the Best
• The Ultimate Gift Guide

Boat of the Week: The World’s Largest Sailing Ketch Doubles as a Luxury Home on the Water

The 283-foot vessel just happened to set a record for its size. the owner was more interested in seeing the world from a bespoke lap of luxury., julia zaltzman, julia zaltzman's most recent stories.

• These Charter Yachts Let You Tag Hammerhead Sharks and Count Spirit Bears for Research
• These Luxe Villas Are the Place to Stay in This Retro-Chic Enclave on the Tuscan Coast
• The 7 Most Exciting New Superyacht Marinas in the World
• Share This Article

The 282-foot Aquijo might be the largest high-performance sailing ketch in the world, but that wasn’t the primary goal of its design. The owner’s intention was to build a fast world cruiser that could sail to the ends of the earth, but just as importantly, have huge amounts of interior space that would make the sailing superyacht feel like home anywhere.

Related Stories

• Why Mercedes-Benz Is Cutting Production of Its Flagship S-Class
• Infiniti Is Going SUV-Only After Discontinuing Its Last Sedan
• Starbucks’s New CEO Is Under Fire for His Private-Jet Commute From SoCal to Seattle

Aquijo is a boat built for escapism. “The owner wanted to go and see the world on his yacht,” Gerhard Veldsman, her captain, told Robb Report.   “We’ve been around the world once already, and returned to Holland in early 2020 to complete the boat’s five-year survey. After Covid hit, everything changed.”

The plan had been to make a refit pit stop in the Netherlands before heading through the Northwest Passage to the Pacific, and then embarking on a second world circumnavigation. That voyage has been postponed until travel restrictions ease, or at least until a time when fragile countries are less vulnerable to the pandemic. “I doubt the vaccine will be available in the small island nations as quickly as everywhere else” says Veldsman. “So we’re just sitting tight.”

The owner wanted the same amount of interior space in his sailing yacht as similar-sized motoryachts.  Courtesy Edmiston

Built in 2016, Aquijo was an unusually complex sailing yacht, a collaboration between Oceanco and Vitters. Her owner is a seasoned sailor who first chartered every large, iconic sailing vessel out there, from the 289-foot Maltese Falcon and Enigma (when named Phocea ) to Mirabella V, before embarking on a design and build of his own yacht.

“His aim was to take the best design pieces out of each of those yachts to construct Aquijo ,” says Veldsman. “That included matching Maltese Falcon in size, but adopting a large bar on the aft deck with a beer tap.”

There’s no denying that Aquijo is a beast. She has 64,500-square-feet of sails. At full pelt, she reaches speeds in excess of 20 knots which, for a 1,600 gross-ton yacht, is an impressive sight to behold. “When you have a boat of Aquijo ’s size and weight traveling fast through water, you need a team of people who understand not only the principles of sailing but also what happens below deck in terms of the hydraulics.”

Courtesy Edmiston

Features like the indoor spa pool beneath the opening skylight are one of many features that make Aquijo a liveaboard yacht.

Aquijo has a significant amount of complex hydraulic power. Vitters’s knowledge in building large custom sailing boats was a primary reason for the owner selecting that shipyard in Zwartsluis, Holland. But at 282-feet, the boat was too big for Vitters to construct at its facilities. So, Vitters built the sailing systems, and Oceanco was chosen to build the hull and superstructure.

Exterior design was by Bill Tripp, with the contemporary interior by Dölker+Voges Design. Together with the owner, the designers conceived a sailing vessel matching a comparable-sized motoryacht for interior space. “Balancing the abilities of a lightweight, high-performance sailing yacht with all the space and luxury of a motoryacht is why Aquijo is the size that she is,” says Veldsman. “We had to go big to accomplish that.”

Aquijo pairs an efficient cruising hull with lots of weight in her lifting keel, the largest of its kind ever designed. With the keel down, the draft is an impressive 38 feet. “We once cruised up the Sicilian coast in 40 knots of wind, and all the motoryachts were turning around but we were able to sail through it,” says Veldsman.

The owner took different designs from other super sailing yachts for Aquijo and added features like the bar and al-fresco dining table.  Courtesy Edmiston

Notable design features include neon headboards, extensive deck space and a private owner’s terrace that takes you from bed to balcony in two steps. The 197-foot-high crow’s nest offers the best views on board. The beach club, with Jacuzzi below a main deck skylight, is one of the owner’s favorite spaces on board, particularly in colder climates. The boat’s 300-foot masts are too tall to travel through any canals, which means navigating the Polar regions to get to different continents. Vast, remote waters like those off the coast of Patagonia, where wind speeds can reach 70-plus knots, is where Aquijo comes into her own.

This summer, Aquijo is cruising around the Mediterranean, with charters in Turkey already confirmed through Edmiston, before heading to the Caribbean for winter.

Read More On:

• Sailing Yacht
• Vitters Shipyard

More Marine

This Revamped 161-Foot Trinity Superyacht Could Be Yours for $16 Million

Rescuers Find 5 Bodies Aboard the Sunken ‘Bayesian’ Superyacht 

Tech Mogul Mike Lynch and 5 Others Are Missing After a Yacht Sinks in Italy

A Fleet of Candela’s Electric Foiling Yachts Is Rolling Out to the Red Sea in 2025

Meet the Wine Club That Thinks Differently.

Receive editor-curated reds from boutique California producers four times a year.

Give the Gift of Luxury

Latest Galleries in Marine

‘La Dea II’ Superyacht in Photos

12 Must-See Yacht Debuts at This Year’s Cannes Fest

More from our brands, ‘we did it, joe’: kamala harris’ stepdaughter ella emhoff designed her final dnc dress with viral fashion designer joe ando, ex-deion sanders assistant claims he lobbied saudi pif for buffs’ nil, ‘a pale view of hills,’ debut novel by kazuo ishiguro, now filming for japan’s bunbuku and u.k.’s number 9, saved from collapse, william blake’s former cottage to be restored with plans for a museum, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors.

Berthon Winter Collection

Latest issue

August 2024

In the August 2024 issue of Yachting World magazine: News Few finish a tempestuous Round The Island Race European rules are eased for cruising to France and Greece Olympic sailing…

Yachting World

• Digital Edition

A look on board the extraordinary 86m Aquijo, the world’s largest ketch

• Helen Fretter
• February 25, 2017

The biggest ketch-rigged yacht on the water, Aquijo is designed to push boundaries and horizons. Helen Fretter talks to her designers

The largest Bermudan rigged ketch ever launched, the 86m  Aquijo was designed by Bill Tripp and launched last year.

The build came about through a new collaboration between the two Dutch yards of Vitters and OceanCo, combining the former’s superyacht expertise with the latter’s custom motoryacht knowledge to create one of the largest sailing yachts in the world (see video of Sailing Yacht A, the world’s largest sail-assisted vessel, during early sea trials) .

The scale of Aquijo is remarkable: at 85m her LOA is considerably greater than the 60m superyacht designs Vitters is more accustomed to working on, hence she was built at OceanCo’s larger seafront site in Alblasserdam, the Netherlands. A steel hull and aluminium superstructure give a gross tonnage of 1,500.

Her twin carbon fibre masts reach 91m above the waterline, with matched main and mizzen. North 3Di sails of over 1,100 square metres each, give a total sail area of 3,247 square metres. Add in a code sail, and the canvas area tops 5,050 square metres. According to Vitters, Aquijo ’s lifting keel is the largest ever designed, at 220 tons (200 tonnes) of lead, with a minimum draught of 5.2m and maximum of 11.6m.

The yacht’s range under engine at 13 knots is 3,200 nautical miles and she has accommodation for 30 in total (12 guests, two owners, a captain, three officers and 12 additional crew).

However, her designer Bill Tripp says that it was sailing performance that drove the design. “We designed Aquijo around sailing loads and sheet loads, to keep them in a range that was controlled. She started design life as a sailboat that encompassed the machinery of a motoryacht, but she is not shaped as a motoryacht – she is easily driven.”

He adds: “Aquijo is also a sophisticated machine and brings most aspects of a 1600GT motoryacht with her. But she is for getting out there, and for going sailing. In Greece [last] summer, she would go out for an afternoon of sailing in a 35 knot Meltemi because it is so much fun to sail at 20 knots as if on rails.”

The new ChessieRacing designed by Bill Tripp is a true designer daysailer, but what is she like to sail?

Sail controls

Aquijo is designed for long distance bluewater exploration, hence limiting the air draught to fit through the Panama Canal (46m) was no longer a consideration. That freed up the design team to create one of the largest true sailing yachts ever conceived.

To make raising the enormous sail area possible, sophisticated reefing and sail handling systems have been developed. In-boom furling system allows the main and mizzen sails to be furled or unfurled in just four seconds. Custom built carbon and aluminium 40-ton winches control the sheets and halyards.

“When we go head to wind we hoist the main and the mizzen together, and I’d say on average that’s a six minute process,” says Tripp. “Then once they’re up you just bear off, and roll out the jib – 30 seconds say. And then you’re off, you have three sails up, and you’re only thinking about those three sails. It means going sailing is pretty easy.”

When sailing at this scale, manoeuvres take a degree of forward planning. “Because we have a staysail, and a heavy weather jib, we have to furl the big jib when tacking,” explains Tripp.

“Vitters organised a system that keeps just a nice amount of tension on the jib sheets furling in and out so that they are not flailing about. It’s not a dinghy tack, but it is safe and orderly. The spinnaker is on a fast furler and furls up in 30 seconds, making gybes less complex.”

Designed to function at up to 20° of heel, Aquijo ’s hull has been tested to withstand the full force of rigging and keel, including mast compression and the effects of her 200-tonne keel, in a knock-down situation. Vitters custom designed a steering system to give direct feedback of the hydrodynamic pressure on the rudders to the twin wheels to create the elusive sailing ‘feel’. There are two submarine anchors in a compartment concealed behind a flush hull closing plate.

Consistency of style

The owner’s cabin is situated on its own top deck, with a private outside area. Robert Voges, of Dølker and Voges, which designed the interior, says that the whole upper deck abaft of the wheelhouse is the owner’s area.

The sociable main deck includes the dining room and main saloon, linked to the outside deck by an inside-outside bar. The yacht’s real showcase feature is the ‘beach club’ on the lower deck, which includes a jacuzzi, sauna, hammam/Turkish bath, rainfall shower, and room for gym equipment, with an open walkway through to the transom swim platform. There is a further whirlpool spa bath on the outer deck.

A consistent aesthetic style has been adopted right throughout the yacht, according to Voges, who comments: “The brief from the owner was the whole area should look, if not the same, but be one language. All the details are the same, even in the crew area.”

Materials are luxurious; as the mast runs through two interior decks it is clad in flawless high shine stainless steel complete with integrated LED lighting – the single biggest technical challenge of the interior build according to Voges.

But it is the sea itself that provides the main focal point. Voges comments: “One of the most important things that the owners asked me for was to make everything feel open, to feel that there is not a difference between inside and outside, so you can feel the ocean.

From each position where you are sitting – dining or in the salon, or in the cabins – you can always see the water. We have planned the windows so even from the bed, you can see the water.”

Ambitious plans

Aquijo is available for charter, but the owner also has some ambitious voyages of his own in mind, not least a trip around Cape Horn.

Asked what inspires people to build a yacht of Aquijo ’s stature, designer Bill Tripp comments: “They’re not looking for the sure thing, they’re really looking for the unknown. They don’t know what it’ll be like sailing in South Georgia, or diving on a reef with hammerhead sharks at night. These are experiences they will remember all their life.

“On a boat like Aquijo it’s the use of it, and the feeling you get. It’s not about fine wines or great speaker systems, it’s about bringing you to things you wouldn’t otherwise experience.”

The global authority in superyachting

• NEWSLETTERS
• Yachts Home
• The Superyacht Directory
• Yacht Reports
• Brokerage News
• The largest yachts in the world
• The Register
• Yacht Advice
• Yacht Design
• 12m to 24m yachts
• Monaco Yacht Show
• Builder Directory
• Designer Directory
• Interior Design Directory
• Naval Architect Directory
• Yachts for sale home
• Motor yachts
• Sailing yachts
• Explorer yachts
• Classic yachts
• Sale Broker Directory
• Charter Home
• Yachts for Charter
• Charter Destinations
• Charter Broker Directory
• Destinations Home
• Mediterranean
• South Pacific
• Rest of the World
• Boat Life Home
• Owners' Experiences
• Conservation and Philanthropy
• Interiors Suppliers
• Owners' Club
• Captains' Club
• BOAT Showcase
• Boat Presents
• Events Home
• World Superyacht Awards
• Superyacht Design Festival
• Design and Innovation Awards
• Young Designer of the Year Award
• Artistry and Craft Awards
• Explorer Yachts Summit
• Ocean Talks
• The Ocean Awards
• BOAT Connect
• Between the bays
• Golf Invitational
• BOATPro Home
• Superyacht Insight
• Global Order Book
• Premium Content
• Product Features
• Testimonials
• Pricing Plan
• Tenders & Equipment

86m Vitters/Oceanco world's largest ketch Aquijo sold

The 86-metre ketch Aquijo has been sold with Robert Shepherd and Bruce Brakenhoff of Edmiston representing the seller and Gary Wright and Jonathan Zwaans of Y.CO representing the buyer.

Built of high tensile steel by the two Dutch yards Vitters and Oceanco , she was designed by US naval architect Bill Tripp and delivered in 2016. Her interior is by Dölker + Voges who worked closely with the owner's wife.

Comfortable world cruising was the design brief handed to Tripp, who also made her high-performing. On her maiden season in Greece, she hit 20.4 knots in a 30- to 40-knot wind and cruised at an average speed of 19 knots.

“The interior design is contemporary and elegant, yet fresh and natural,” said Robert Voges. “Clear and logical lines, pure materials, simplicity and remarkable attention to the details.” Wood and stainless steel are used extensively on board Aquijo . “Stainless steel is one of the noblest materials,” said Voges. “Using it in the right way allows an exciting interaction between light, reflections and interior design, creating a sophisticated and modern atmosphere.”

Aquijo boasts an owner's deck with a rear-facing bedroom. She accommodates up to 14 guests and a crew of 16. Flying 3Di North Sails, the yacht has a total sail area of 3,821 square metres and 5,051 square metres with the Code 1 up.

The 1,538GT yacht Aquijo's asking price was not disclosed.

Sign up to BOAT Briefing email

Latest news, brokerage headlines and yacht exclusives, every weekday

By signing up for BOAT newsletters, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy .

More about this yacht

Similar yachts for sale, more stories, most popular, from our partners, sponsored listings.

• Innovative solutions
• Performance & comfort
• Our team & expertise
• Operation & heritage
• Your journey
• News & events
• Werken bij Vitters

We dare to go beyond our own expertise and collaborate with other experts.

This spectacular 85 metre Fast Cruising Ketch, is the world’s largest high-performance ketch and marks Vitters Shipyard’s and Oceanco’s first cooperative effort.

Throughout all stages of this custom project, the close collaboration meant that both Vitters and Oceanco  brought in their highest level of experience, knowledge and capabilities in their individual areas of expertise to make this unique project a true combined success.

As experienced sailors, the owners’ brief called for a comfortable performing cruising yacht, suitable for long range world-wide sailing with long-time independence from shore. Three key elements defined the design and build process of the project: Safety, Comfort and Performance. Finding the right balance between these three different, and sometimes contradicting, requirements was the most challenging part of the project for all the members of the team.

Type: 

85m Fast Cruising Ketch

Design: 

Interior design: .

Dölker + Voges Design

Owner’s Representative: 

Master Yachts

Length hull overall: 

Delivery: .

Porta ipsum non lorem vestibulum, scelerisque dignissim eros ornare. Sed nisl risus, suscipit lacinia nunc et, mattis porta enim. Aliquam ornare est nec ante malesuada ultricies. Proin accumsan lorem ut nisl hendrerit, pulvinar cursus orci porta. Ut viverra metus odio, ac euismod orci imperdiet non. Aenean hendrerit ex commodo, tempus tortor sit amet, efficitur velit. Morbi maximus nisi sem, egetIn eu libero

Porta ipsum non

lorem vestibulum, scelerisque dignissim eros ornare. Sed nisl risus, suscipit lacinia nunc et, mattis porta enim. Aliquam ornare est

lorem vestibulum, scelerisque dignissim eros ornare. Sed nisl risus, suscipit lacinia nunc et,