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ENERGY yacht NOT for charter*

77.8m  /  255'3 | amels | 2022.

Owner & Guests

• Previous Yacht

Special Features:

• Impressive 5,000nm range
• Built in 2022
• Swimming pool
• Lloyds Register ✠ 100A1 SSC Yacht, Mono, G6 ✠ LMC UMS classification
• Interior design from Zuretti

The 77.8m/255'3" motor yacht 'Energy' was built by Amels in the Netherlands. Her interior is styled by French designer design house Zuretti and she was delivered to her owner in June 2022. This luxury vessel's exterior design is the work of Espen Oeino.

Guest Accommodation

Energy has been designed to comfortably accommodate up to 14 guests in 7 suites. She is also capable of carrying up to 27 crew onboard to ensure a relaxed luxury yacht experience.

Onboard Comfort & Entertainment

Her features include beauty salon, underwater lights, beach club, deck jacuzzi, WiFi and air conditioning.

Range & Performance

Energy is built with a steel hull and aluminium superstructure, with teak decks. Powered by twin diesel MTU (16V 4000 M73L) 3,046hp engines, she comfortably cruises at 12 knots, reaches a maximum speed of 17 knots with a range of up to 5,000 nautical miles at 13 knots. She was built to Lloyds Register ✠ 100A1 SSC Yacht, Mono, G6 ✠ LMC UMS classification society rules.

*Charter Energy Motor Yacht

Motor yacht Energy is currently not believed to be available for private Charter. To view similar yachts for charter , or contact your Yacht Charter Broker for information about renting a luxury charter yacht.

Energy Yacht Owner, Captain or marketing company

'Yacht Charter Fleet' is a free information service, if your yacht is available for charter please contact us with details and photos and we will update our records.

Energy Photos

Energy Awards & Nominations

• Boat International Design & Innovation Awards 2023 Outstanding Exterior Motor Yacht Design - 60m and above Finalist
• Boat International Design & Innovation Awards 2023 Best Interior Design Motor Yachts 500GT and Above Finalist
• The World Superyacht Awards 2023 Displacement Motor Yachts 1500GT and above Nomination
• International Superyacht Society Awards 2023 Best in Motor 1500-3000 GT Finalist

NOTE to U.S. Customs & Border Protection

Specification

M/Y Energy

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• Digital edition

Renewable energy afloat: the latest tech

• Sam Fortescue
• May 5, 2021

Sam Fortescue examines how renewable energy afloat is benefitting from technical developments in other sectors

Oceanvolt's electric drives feature a clean display that can tell you exactly how much electricity the system is consuming under power or generating under sail. Credit: Richard Langdon/Ocean Images

As the rest of the world grapples with decarbonisation, the sailing community is benefitting from the various technical developments made in other sectors, and now has more options to use renewable energy afloat.

It is now simpler to harvest and store power on board than ever before – no bad thing when you consider how many power-hungry gadgets fill a modern cruising yacht.

From Nespresso machines to electric winches, sailing consumers are reaping the rewards of the efficient electricity generation.

The core of renewable energy generation for boats remains wind, solar and hydrogeneration, but the last two of these are developing rapidly.

Meanwhile hydrogen is continuing to make inroads into the sailing market.

Jimmy Cornell’s Outremer 4.Zero has covered 1,500 miles from Tenerife to La Grande Motte using renewable energy, but the multihull’s hydro and solar capacity needs to increase before he can take it around the world. Credit: Gilles Foucras

It all comes down to how much power you need: a kilowatt-hour over the day to run the fridge and electronics (83Ah), or 50 times that for induction cooking, air-con and even electric propulsion.

Wind remains an important part of the mix, capable of adding up to 500Wh on a blustery day, but here the technology is more mature.

There may be small incremental improvements – quieter blades or more efficient power transfer.

‘There is not going to be a silver bullet in respect of renewable generation on yachts because the physics tell us that the existing technology is already very efficient,’ says Peter Anderson, MD of Eclectic Energy.

The D400 converts an industry-leading 36% of the kinetic energy in a 12-knot wind stream into electricity

Sam Fortescue is a freelance marine journalist and former magazine editor who sails a Sadler 34, which has taken his family from the Caribbean to the Baltic

‘For example, our D400 wind generator converts 36% of the kinetic energy in a 12-knot wind stream into electricity. The theoretical maximum (Betz Limit) is 59%, and the latest multi-megawatt commercial turbines achieve around 40% efficiency due to their scale.’

Nonetheless, he believes that a yacht can cruise entirely independently of fossil fuel, and he’s far from alone.

Jimmy Cornell’s Elcano Challenge aims to prove just that , aboard an electrically-powered Outremer catamaran.

True, he has just put the round-the-world voyage on hold, because the regenerating prop could not keep up with demand.

But he thinks the answer is to beef up hydro and solar capacity while trimming power use on board.

‘I am determined to continue my zero-emissions project once certain changes have been made,’ he says.

Solar panels have been with us for decades, and as the technology has matured, so they can produce more power from the same footprint.

Even a small panel putting out a few watts is enough to keep a lead-acid battery bank trickle charging when the boat’s on a swinging mooring. But some have already gone much further than that.

Renewable energy: solar developments

Catamaran builders, in particular, have been trying to capitalise on the extensive deck area of their boats by fitting solar panels.

Silent Yachts is ahead of the curve on this, with a 55ft cat whose 49m2 coachroof and hardtop are carpeted with 10kW of panels.

On a sunny Mediterranean day, that provides enough electricity to run all the boat’s systems and leave plenty for a few hours of electric propulsion.

Luxury cat brand Sunreef has developed cells that can be built into the actual fabric of the boat.

Solar cells, built into the structure of luxury Sunreef multihulls, vastly increase the solar power potential

‘They can be easily mounted anywhere on the yacht’s surfaces, including the hulls, mast, superstructure, bimini roof or bow terrace, vastly increasing the amount of solar power,’ says the brand’s Sara Smuczynska.

‘Sunreef Yachts is also the first company to develop a system to recover heat from the panels to heat up the yacht’s boiler.’

With panels in the topsides, decks and coachroof, up to 13kW can be installed on a Sunreef 50.

Monohulls are a different story. Gantries, guard wires and coachroofs can support panels of a few hundred watts – enough for basic systems.

But if you want to generate serious solar power for more ambitious green goals, then you need to think laterally.

That’s what Frenchman Alain Janet did when he launched SolarCloth – a business that sticks solar cells to your sails.

SolarCloth cells on the mainsail of the Spirit 44E produce 560W on a sunny day. Credit: Sam Fortescue

The advantage to this is obvious: the sails offer the largest surface area and their near-vertical alignment can suit the angle at which sunlight falls on them.

The cells are based on proven copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) technology, capable of around 17% efficiency and very flexible.

Simply glued to the sailcloth in positions that won’t chafe on the spreaders under any reefing conditions, they are robust enough to withstand flogging, folding and all manner of abuse, as demonstrated during the 2016-17 Vendée Globe race by skipper Conrad Colman.

More recently, Spirit Yachts integrated the technology into its beautiful 44E performance cruiser , launched last autumn.

The Spirit 44E under sail. Credit: Richard Langdon/Ocean Images

On the Spirit, the cells were arranged in panels 30cm high and about 2m wide on either side of the mainsail, producing 560W on a sunny day.

Dr Vincent Argiro, who commissioned that boat, wanted a fast, energy-efficient design.

‘The stretch goal for the 44E was near total energy self-sufficiency,’ he says.

‘I envision plugging into shore power to be a rare event.’

Janet acknowledges the junction boxes and wires needed to connect the sail to the deck are clunky, but he is developing a sleeker solution.

Meanwhile, a new partnership with One Sails to produce the so-called PowerSails will give the idea fresh impetus and broader distribution.

Continues below…

Sailing with solar power: A practical guide

The latest solar technology makes self-sufficient cruising much more achievable. Duncan Kent gives the lowdown on everything you need to…

How lithium batteries are changing onboard power

Duncan Kent investigates the technology used in lithium batteries and explains what to consider in matching them with a management…

Electric yacht: What are the options for going electric?

Electric and hybrid yachts are growing in popularity; we outline the current options for those making the switch

Would you switch to electric propulsion?

Would you make the switch? We ask two sailors who have looked at how the real-world numbers stack up on…

Janet says a PowerSail costs 50-60% more than a standard sail, while the same technology has also been used to add photovoltaics to biminis and awnings on cruising boats.

All this is based on silicon technology, where the record efficiency for an expensive six-junction cell is 39.2% in natural light.

But further down the line, emerging Perovskite technology could make photovoltaics lighter, cheaper and applicable to any surface by painting or printing.

Researchers at Imperial College, Cambridge University and China’s Soochow University calculate that it has the potential to eclipse silicon with up to 60% efficiency, once the issue of durability has been cracked.

Luca Bondi, technical director of Italian solar panel producer Solbian, says the future lies in the combination of silicon and Perovskite in the same cell.

‘Tandem cells made by crystalline silicon and Perovskite raised close to 30% efficiency,’ he says.

‘The increase in efficiency is important but not disruptive, thus I think we cannot say that we have a big step imminent, but an improvement of the already good existing solar cells.’

For those who dislike the look of solar panels, there is another option.

A printable film has been developed which is stuck on top of the solar panel to disguise it.

Finishes range from monotones that match your paint to a teak-effect that would allow you to add solar panels to decks.

Solbian supplies its monocrystalline panels with this so-called iSP mask, and Bondi says that it does very little to reduce their 24% efficiency.

www.onesails.com/uk www.solbian.eu

Hydro power on board

Sails are the most abundant generators of renewable energy on board, propelling tonnes of yacht at a brisk pace.

Converting just a fraction of the boat’s kinetic energy into electricity can yield plenty of power for the loss of less than one quarter of a knot.

Broadly speaking, there are two approaches.

The first is the well-established principle of hydrogeneration, where you lower a dedicated propeller into the sea that is turned by the passing water and used to drive an alternator.

Products in this space are typically mounted on the transom and deployed using a lanyard to generate power.

Custom deck mount for a Sail-Gen hydrogenerator

They include the Watt & Sea, which comes in 300W and 600W units, Eclectic Energy’s SailGen and Italy’s 600W Swi-Tec.

More recently, regeneration has emerged as an alternative. It harnesses the same principle but uses your auxiliary propeller to generate the power, so no need for a bulky transom unit or the braking effect of a second prop in the water.

There are retrofit options available from the likes of Holland’s Bell Marine, but it is relatively expensive to install, so the more common option at the moment is to fit a new hybrid propulsion system – either diesel-electric or battery-electric.

If your engine needs replacing it’s worth considering.

However you configure it, hydro can be a very efficient way to generate power, especially at scale.

A dedicated propeller of a hydrogenerator is optimised in pitch and diameter for maximum torque

The 350ft Dynarig yacht Black Pearl is able to sail across the Atlantic without burning any fossil fuel – its twin props regenerate hundreds of kW of power.

Cruising yachts, on the other hand, will struggle to generate even a kW, and typical output at five knots doesn’t exceed 100W.

This is because the power out is a cubic function of boat speed, linked to water past the prop, so even a small speed increase hugely increases yield.

Nudge up just a little to seven or eight knots and you can get a more manly 300W from regeneration.

Dedicated hydrogenerators are more efficient because their props are pitched and sized according to your boat’s cruising speed.

With regeneration, your main prop will be optimised just for propulsion. Only a variable pitch prop can excel at both tasks.

Under sail in regeneration mode, the three-masted Black Pearl is capable of crossing the Atlantic without burning any fossil fuel. Credit: Tom Van Oosanen

That is what Finland’s Oceanvolt has achieved with the Servoprop – whose pitch adjusts electronically in real time to extract the greatest possible power from regeneration.

The team behind it claims that it can boost electricity output nearly threefold compared to a fixed prop.

Indeed, at seven to eight knots it produced 1kW of power.

There again, at five knots, output falls to around 200W.

It all depends on how much power you need.

For house loads, 200-300W should be more than enough, but for electric propulsion you’ll need far more.

Servoprop comes as a complete saildrive system with the option of either a 15kW or a 10kW motor.

But electric propulsion rival Torqeedo is sceptical about variable pitch systems on small motors.

‘It’s not possible to get much more than 300-400W because the physics makes it tough to adapt the pitch of the prop and to take care of the waves,’ says sales director Phillip Goethe.

‘When your speed through the water is changing often – from stalled to surfing, it is very hard to have the optimum pitch.’

Instead, Torqeedo’s notion is to spec a fixed-pitch propeller that strikes a compromise between propulsion and regeneration.

‘Perhaps you lose 2% [in propulsion], but gain two digits in hydrogeneration efficiency,’ says Goethe.

‘But for cruising applications, it doesn’t need to be optimised for propulsion above seven knots.’

Oceanvolt 15SP: from €46,660 ex-VAT www.oceanvolt.com Torqeedo: www.torqeedo.com Hybrid Marine: from £14,980 ex-VAT for a 30hp engine and 10kW motor. www.hybrid-marine.co.uk

The cost of hydrogenerators

Watt & Sea: £3,504.10 (300W) www.wattandsea.com SailGen: £2,464.69 www.eclectic-energy.co.uk Swi-Tec: £3,080 www.swi-tec.com

Hybrid options for renewable energy onboard

Isle of Wight-based Hybrid Marine specialises in diesel-electric parallel hybrid systems built around new Beta and Yanmar engines.

They can take advantage of regeneration and allow limited manoeuvring using the electric motor, with the diesel for longer passages.

Hybrid Marine specialises in diesel-electric parallel hybrid systems

‘Retrofits are tricky. It takes a lot of work to reliably convert an engine and means it has to be removed to make the conversion. Accumulated costs work out close to a new system,’ says MD Graeme Hawksley.

Hydrogen propulsion

Hydrogen fuel cells can be used either to provide small amounts of electricity to charge a battery, or at larger scale to power an electric drivetrain.

Either way, they can be emissions-free if they use hydrogen produced using renewable energy.

Hydrogen is attractive because it is three times as energy dense as diesel, but being a gas in ambient conditions, it must be stored under tremendous pressure – up to 350 bar on boats, requiring voluminous storage cylinders.

Efoy leads the market for marinised low-power fuel cells, with a 40W and 75W unit available.

Phil Sharp with the Genevos hydrogen power module

It burns methanol supplied in 5lt and 10lt ‘cartridges’ that are available from distributors across Europe.

You can simply clip the output wires to a suitable charging point on your battery system, but for optimum efficiency, Efoy also supplies its own Lithium batteries in 70 and 105aH capacities.

Though Efoy doesn’t quantify the benefit, it describes this combination of fuel cell and battery as ‘particularly efficient’ by avoiding unnecessary charging cycles.

A 10lt canister yields just over 11.1kWh of usable power – enough for four weeks of typical use, according to Efoy.

Beyond that there is a bit of a void in the market until you reach a power output of 15kW, where the purpose is to supply an electric motor for propulsion, as well as covering the boat’s domestic load.

French company Genevos has already started selling a 15kW fuel cell tested by singlehanded racer Phil Sharp during a Solitaire du Figaro campaign.

‘We’re going to see quite a lot of private projects as retrofits in coming years, and by 2025, there’ll be production boats with hydrogen energy systems,’ he says.

That’s despite typical costs of around €100,000 to supply and install a system.

French firm EOD is developing plans for futuristic looking floating hydrogen fuel stations that actually generate H2 from seawater

Rival Energy Observer Developments (EOD) is designing fuel cells in the 60kW to 1MW range for larger vessels.

It stems from a project that demonstrated how solar and wind power could be harnessed to make hydrogen from seawater on a round-the-world prototype.

Other than the sheer cost, the current stumbling block is that hydrogen gas is not yet widely available in ports or marinas.

‘However, we’re going to see much wider access to hydrogen in five years’ time,’ promises Sharp.

EOD is developing futuristic-looking hydrogen fuelling stations that float in a corner of the marina and generate hydrogen from seawater using green mains electricity.

And British firm Fuel Cell Systems says its first marina hydrogen pumps should be installed in the south of France this summer.

‘Although the UK will be very slow to pick it up in my experience,’ cautions CEO Tom Sperrey.

Efoy Fuel Cell 80: £2,195 Efoy 5lt methanol £37.80 Efoy 10lt methanol £53.40

www.fuelcellsystems.co.uk

Battery tech

Lithium is still the performance choice for storing renewable energy on board.

Advances in chemistry and design driven by the automotive sector are making it possible to store more energy in the same footprint.

So the capacity of the BMW i3 battery that Torqeedo offers has risen from 30kWh to 40kWh over five years.

Oceanvolt lithium batteries on a Feeling 32

Promising technologies have been demonstrated in the lab. California’s QuantumScope has developed a stable battery that uses solid lithium as the anode, and offers four times the energy density of current lithium batteries plus lightning-fast recharge speeds.

Other approaches use graphene, salt, aluminium and even ceramic, as well as solid electrolytes.

‘The technological development of batteries is really fast,’ says Oceanvolt’s head of R&D Marko Mäki.

‘We believe that in the future, the combination of battery price, capacity and safety will only improve.’

Expect performance gains of 5-10% per year.

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ENERGY is a 77.8 m Motor Yacht, built in Netherlands by Amels and delivered in 2022.

Her top speed is 17.0 kn and she boasts a maximum range of 5000.0 nm when navigating at cruising speed, with power coming from a MTU engine. She can accommodate up to 14 guests in 7 staterooms, with 29 crew members. She has a gross tonnage of 2885.0 GT and a 14.0 m beam.

She was designed by Espen Oeino International , who has designed 66 other superyachts in the BOAT Pro database.

The naval architecture was developed by Amels , who has architected 70 other superyachts in the BOAT Pro database, and the interior of the yacht was designed by Francois Zuretti , who has 204 other superyacht interiors designed in the BOAT Pro database - she is built with a Teak deck, a Steel hull, and Aluminium superstructure.

ENERGY is in the top 5% by LOA in the world. She is one of 115 motor yachts in the 70-80m size range, and, compared to similarly sized motor yachts, her volume is 1113.52 GT above the average.

ENERGY is currently sailing under the Cayman Islands flag, the 2nd most popular flag state for superyachts with a total of 1360 yachts registered. She is currently located at the superyacht marina Port Hercule de Monaco, in Monaco, where she has been located for 5 days. For more information regarding ENERGY's movements, find out more about BOAT Pro AIS .

Specifications

• Name: ENERGY
• Yacht Type: Motor Yacht
• Yacht Subtype: Displacement
• Builder: Amels
• Naval Architect: Amels
• Exterior Designer: Espen Oeino International
• Interior Designer: Francois Zuretti

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Private planes, mansions and superyachts: What gives billionaires like Musk and Abramovich such a massive carbon footprint

Distinguished Professor and Provost's Professor of Anthropology; Director of the Open Anthropology Institute, Indiana University

Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology, Indiana University

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The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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• Bahasa Indonesia

Tesla’s Elon Musk and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos have been vying for the world’s richest person ranking all year after the former’s wealth soared a staggering US$160 billion in 2020, putting him briefly in the top spot .

Musk isn’t alone in seeing a significant increase in wealth during a year of pandemic, recession and death. Altogether, the world’s billionaires saw their wealth surge over $1.9 trillion in 2020, according to Forbes.

Those are astronomical numbers, and it’s hard to get one’s head around them without some context. As anthropologists who study energy and consumer culture, we wanted to examine how all that wealth translated into consumption and the resulting carbon footprint.

Walking in a billionaire’s shoes

We found that billionaires have carbon footprints that can be thousands of times higher than those of average Americans.

The wealthy own yachts, planes and multiple mansions, all of which contribute greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. For example, a superyacht with a permanent crew, helicopter pad, submarines and pools emits about 7,020 tons of CO2 a year, according to our calculations, making it by the far worst asset to own from an environmental standpoint. Transportation and real estate make up the lion’s share of most people’s carbon footprint, so we focused on calculating those categories for each billionaire.

To pick a sample of billionaires, we started with the 2020 Forbes List of 2,095 billionaires. A random or representatives sample of billionaire carbon footprints is impossible because most wealthy people shy away from publicity , so we had to focus on those whose consumption is public knowledge. This excluded most of the superrich in Asia and the Middle East .

We combed 82 databases of public records to document billionaires’ houses, vehicles, aircraft and yachts. After an exhaustive search, we started with 20 well-known billionaires whose possessions we were able to ascertain, while trying to include some diversity in gender and geography. We have submitted our paper for peer review but plan to continue adding to our list.

We then used a wide range of sources, such as the U.S. Energy Information Administration and Carbon Footprint , to estimate the annual CO2 emissions of each house, aircraft, vehicle and yacht. In some cases we had to estimate the size of houses from satellite images or photos and the use of private aircraft and yachts by searching the popular press and drawing on other studies . Our results are based on analyzing typical use of each asset given its size and everything else we could learn.

We did not try to calculate each asset’s “ embodied carbon ” emissions – that is, how much CO2 is burned throughout the supply chain in making the product – or the emissions produced by their family, household employees or entourage. We also didn’t include the emissions of companies of which they own part or all, because that would have added another significant degree of complexity. For example, we didn’t calculate the emissions of Tesla or Amazon when calculating Musk’s or Bezos’ footprints.

In other words, these are all likely conservative estimates of how much they emit.

Your carbon footprint

To get a sense of perspective, let’s start with the carbon footprint of the average person.

Residents of the U.S., including billionaires, emitted about 15 tons of CO2 per person in 2018. The global average footprint is smaller, at just about 5 tons per person.

In contrast, the 20 people in our sample contributed an average of about 8,190 tons of CO2 in 2018. But some produced far more greenhouse gases than others.

The jet-setting billionaire

Roman Abramovich, who made most of his $19 billion fortune trading oil and gas, was the biggest polluter on our list. Outside of Russia, he is probably best known as the headline-grabbing owner of London’s Chelsea Football Club.

Abramovich cruises the Mediterranean in his superyacht, named the Eclipse , which at 162.5 meters bow to stern is the second-biggest in the world, rivaling some cruise ships. And he hops the globe on a custom-designed Boeing 767 , which boasts a 30-seat dining room. He takes shorter trips in his Gulfstream G650 jet, one of his two helicopters or the submarine on his yacht.

He maintains homes in many countries, including a mansion in London’s Kensington Park Gardens, a chateau in Cap D’Antibes in France and a 28-hectare estate in St. Barts that once belonged to David Rockefeller . In 2018, he left the U.K. and settled in Israel , where he became a dual citizen and bought a home in 2020 for $64.5 million.

We estimate that he was responsible for at least 33,859 metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2018 – more than two-thirds from his yacht, which is always ready to use at a moment’s notice year-round.

Massive mansions and private jets

Bill Gates, currently the world’s fourth-richest person with $124 billion, is a “modest” polluter – by billionaire standards – and is typical of those who may not own a giant yacht but make up for it with private jets.

Co-founder of Microsoft, he retired in 2020 to manage the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest charity, with an endowment of $50 billion.

In the 1990s, Gates built Xanadu – named after the vast fictional estate in Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” – at a cost of $127 million in Medina, Washington. The giant home covers 6,131 square meters, with a 23-car garage, a 20-person cinema and 24 bathrooms. He also owns at least five other dwellings in Southern California, the San Juan Islands in Washington state, North Salem, New York, and New York City, as well as a horse farm , four private jets, a seaplane and “a collection” of helicopters .

We estimated his annual footprint at 7,493 metric tons of carbon, mostly from a lot of flying.

The environmentally minded tech CEO

South African-born Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, has a surprisingly low carbon footprint despite being the world’s second-richest person, with $177 billion – and he seems intent on setting an example for other billionaires .

He doesn’t own a superyacht and says he doesn’t even take vacations .

We calculated a relatively modest carbon footprint for him in 2018, thanks to his eight houses and one private jet. This year, his carbon footprint would be even lower because in 2020 he sold all of his houses and promised to divest the rest of his worldly possessions .

While his personal carbon footprint is still hundreds of times higher than that of an average person, he demonstrates that the superrich still have choices to make and can indeed lower their environmental impact if they so choose.

His estimated footprint from the assets we looked at was 2,084 tons in 2018.

The value of naming and shaming

The aim of our ongoing research is to get people to think about the environmental burden of wealth.

While plenty of research has shown that rich countries and wealthy people produce far more than their share of greenhouse gas emissions, these studies can feel abstract and academic, making it harder to change this behavior.

[ Like what you’ve read? Want more? Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter .]

We believe “shaming” – for lack of a better word – superrich people for their energy-intensive spending habits can have an important impact, revealing them as models of overconsumption that people shouldn’t emulate.

Newspapers, cities and local residents made an impact during the California droughts of 2014 and 2015 by “drought shaming” celebrities and others who were wasting water, seen in their continually green lawns . And the Swedes came up with a new term – “ flygskam ” or flying shame – to raise awareness about the climate impact of air travel.

Climate experts say that to have any hope of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, countries must cut their emissions in half by 2030 and eliminate them by 2050.

Asking average Americans to adopt less carbon-intensive lifestyles to achieve this goal can be galling and ineffective when it would take about 550 of their lifetimes to equal the carbon footprint of the average billionaire on our list.

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Superyachts aim to go green — but at what cost?

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Victor Mallet

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

It is hard to think of a more visible manifestation of great wealth and excessive consumption than a superyacht, as Russian oligarchs have discovered to their cost, following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

As western governments began detaining these very obvious luxury assets at harbours and shipyards around the world in successive rounds of economic sanctions aimed at Moscow, the targeted billionaires directed crews to steer the vessels to safe havens such as the Maldives in the Indian Ocean or Turkey in the Mediterranean. Roman Abramovich’s 163-metre Eclipse, one of the world’s largest superyachts and estimated to cost more than $1bn, found refuge in the Turkish port of Marmaris.

Long before the latest Ukraine war, however, the superyacht industry faced a problem unrelated to any support the ships’ wealthy owners may have provided to warmongering authoritarian regimes: their impact on the environment and the impression they gave that the rich could not care less about climate change.

Most superyachts — typically defined as a leisure vessel more than 30 metres or 100ft in length — are essentially motor vessels like small cruise liners, catering to proprietors or charterers and a few pampered guests. The biggest have helicopter pads, swimming pools and gyms as well as luxury suites. Some even have mini-submarines.

Very few are sailing yachts, and most of them consume vast quantities of diesel. Only now are manufacturers starting to develop new technologies such as hydrogen-powered electric propulsion that will cut emissions.

In the meantime, building the boats, operating them and, eventually, scrapping them all have a damaging effect on the environment. The same is true of aircraft and cars, but the very visibility of superyachts in tourist hotspots, makes their ecological footprint an increasingly sensitive topic. The global fleet has grown more than sixfold since 1985 to reach more than 5,200, according to Superyacht Times . And the fleet cruises the world’s vulnerable oceans.

“For sure, now it’s really high up the agenda — there’s been a fundamental shift,” says Monaco-based superyacht designer Espen Oeino, who reckons it is only in the past few years that most proprietors have really started to pay attention to yacht emissions. Clients ask him what can be done to reduce energy consumption onboard, both for propulsion and for the so-called “hotel load” of air-conditioning and other services, and even how to build the boat in the first place in a responsible way.

Rob Doyle, another naval architect who designs superyachts and is based in Kinsale in Ireland, agrees that more owners are beginning to take notice of the need to reduce carbon emissions and protect the environment, though many are still concerned about the cost. “There is still a huge amount of greenwashing,” he says. “You look at the magazines and you’ll never see a bad superyacht.”

And bad they often are. Research by anthropologists Beatriz Barros and Richard Wilk of Indiana University into the carbon footprints of the super-rich found that yachts contributed an outsized share of the carbon emissions of the billionaires who own them — far more than their private jets or mansions.

For former Chelsea Football Club owner Abramovich, for example, of the 31,200 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent he is calculated to have emitted in 2018, no less than 22,400 tonnes came from his yachts. Yacht emissions for Bernard Arnault, owner of LVMH and France’s richest man, accounted for nearly 9,000 tonnes of his total of 10,400 tonnes.

There are other ways for the wealthy to be embarrassed by their superyachts. Dutch shipyard Oceanco is facing resistance from angry locals after asking the city of Rotterdam to temporarily dismantle the old Koningshaven Bridge so that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s new three-masted vessel — this one is a sailing yacht costing hundreds of millions of dollars — can reach the port and the open sea.

But the impact on the climate is still the environmental whale in the room for yacht owners, builders and designers: Bill Gates and Elon Musk are both big carbon emitters, but their 2018 numbers were much lower than those of their fellow billionaires because they did not have yachts, the Barros-Wilk paper showed.

The accelerating effort to green superyachts reflects similar moves in the aircraft and vehicle industries to adopt new technologies and systems that help to reduce or eliminate carbon emissions and other pollution.

For superyacht designers and builders, the process starts with the shape of the hull or hulls, because there are few things so wasteful of energy as pushing a heavy metal or composite vessel through a fluid as dense as water. For both Oeino and Doyle, this search for what Oeino calls the “geometry of an easily driven hull” means looking at multihulls (catamarans or trimarans) for the next generation of big yachts, because they are designed to skim along the surface of the sea rather than laboriously plough through it, even if there are obvious constraints on weight and what you can do with the interior space.

Next, propulsion. There are already diesel-electric boats in service, which use diesel generators running at optimum revolutions (more economical, less polluting) to power electric motors, and, in future, the idea is to run the electric motors with the output from hydrogen fuel cells.

Then there is the electricity needed for the yacht’s hotel load, principally air-conditioning and the making of fresh water from seawater, but also lights and other electrical systems. Solar panels can produce some power but rarely enough even to run a present-day superyacht at anchor, so to charge batteries and run the boat, some other form of carbon-free electricity generation is needed to replace the diesel generators widely in use today.

For Barros and Wilk, none of this can justify owning any kind of superyacht. They write: “While many billionaires have taken pro-environmental actions in their personal lives or their corporate connections or donate money to climate change organisations and purchase carbon offsets, none of these actions actually ‘cancels out’ their total emissions. A 90-metre yacht can be touted as energy efficient or environmentally friendly but, as critics of ‘eco-chic’ point out, it is still a huge waste of resources, a frivolous luxury in a warming world.”

But the industry is trying. Doyle’s answer, developed by his own firm and Van Geest Design, is Domus (“home” in Latin), a project for a 40-metre sailing trimaran described as “the first truly zero-emission yacht” over 750 gross tonnes, which would generate electricity to charge its batteries from solar panels, hydrogen fuel cells and its own propellers acting as dynamos when the boat is sailing.

“It came out of a conversation we had with a client,” says Doyle. “We proposed this project with fuel cells, and regenerative sailing. It’s silent . . . people just want to listen to the water and the wind coming across and not have the hum of generators or the whiff of diesel.”

People just want to listen to the water and the wind coming across and not have the hum of generators or the whiff of diesel Rob Doyle, yacht designer

Hydrogen propulsion is in its infancy for mass transport. The gas is difficult to store, though it can be made from methanol, and there is, as yet, no distribution network for the fuel. But the interest in hydrogen is just one sign of how the yacht industry is hunting for ways to lower emissions in the years ahead as the pressure from regulators — and public opinion — increases.

Oeino notes that in some places, including the World Heritage Site fjords such as Geirangerfjord in his native Norway, rules limiting emissions are already in place and becoming stricter, and will help to force the pace of the greening of ships and yachts.

The first systems for big yachts to be fully powered by renewables are likely to be the tenders, the smaller boats that ferry people to and from the shore, which are already starting to shift to electric propulsion, and the equipment that contributes to the hotel load when the ship is stationary. Hotel loads can, in any case, be reduced by sensible design and operation, given that indoor superyacht spaces are heavily air-conditioned all the time despite owners and guests spending a huge amount of their time outside, on deck.

Transocean travel with zero emissions is a much bigger ask, says Oeino. “A lot of stuff is already being implemented, but the full electric big yacht with zero emissions is still not a reality,” he explains, because it is impossible to store or produce enough energy onboard.

“It will be a combination of things that will bring us all to lower emissions and eventually zero emissions.” 

‘Yachts for science’ can be a breakthrough for explorers

For yacht owners who feel guilty not only about their environmental footprint but also about how little they use their expensive boats, Rosie O’Donnell has the perfect solution: Yachts for Science .

YFS, which its co-ordinator O’Donnell describes as “a dating agency, almost like a Tinder for the sea”, is a platform to match idle yachts and their crews with scientists in search of a vessel that can reach remote areas and allow them to research everything from coral reefs and manta rays to great white sharks. In some cases, the owners and their families like to be on board for the ride.

“It’s for people who want to be a bit philanthropic so they have got something more to talk about than sitting on the back of their boat in St Tropez drinking cocktails,” says O’Donnell. “It’s about making the ownership more worthwhile.”

The idea of YFS fits with the trend among yachtowners to commission robust so-called expedition or explorer yachts that can travel long distances, to the Antarctic for example, rather than being satisfied with something that will buzz at high speeds around the resorts of the Mediterranean or the Caribbean.

“The yachting industry is always looking for ways to reinvent itself,” says Dominic Byrne of Arksen Marine , a builder that backs YFS and is building a new range of high-tech motor yachts. “People are looking to go further afield, and they are looking to do it in an eco-friendly way as much as possible.”

This article is part of FT Wealth , a section providing in-depth coverage of philanthropy, entrepreneurs, family offices, as well as alternative and impact investment

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International Edition

Start of an amazing journey

Delivered in July 2022, ENERGY features a stunning exterior design by Espen Øino whose team was also appointed to develop the General Arrangement. Zuretti Interior Designers are the studio behind the custom interiors. This Amels Full Custom benefits from a number of standout features including a large open top deck, large aft pool and very wide side decks that can be utilised as private guest balconies.

ENERGY afloat

During a private event held at our shipyard, in the presence of the Owner’s team and the designers involved in the project, as well as the Amels build team, the watertight locks were opened for the first time and ENERGY touched the water.

Andrew Tree

Owner’s representative.

‘This truly custom yacht, with stunning design both inside and out, could only be achieved with the greatest collaboration, having the very best of European design and the highest quality of construction and management. It has been a pleasure to represent the Owner throughout this prestigious build process.’

The art of yacht building

ENERGY is an Amels Full Custom yacht, a one-off built to the Owner’s unique requirements. Learn about our custom-building heritage and our Full Custom builds today.

Yachting World

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The future of yachting: Smart technology for your next yacht

• Toby Hodges
• May 14, 2020

Could hydrogen-powered yachts be built from rocks or plants in the next decade? Toby Hodges investigates yachting’s eco future

It’s becoming abundantly clear that to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets set out in the 2016 Paris Agreement, we’ll need to adopt some radical changes in all lifestyles. Thankfully sailing is, by its very nature, a green activity. In fact, if you wanted to live as carbon neutral a lifestyle as possible, move onto a yacht and go sailing! But for how much longer will we be able to buy glass reinforced plastic boats, powered by diesel engines ?

When you consider the energy, materials and waste in composite boatbuilding, it can paint an ugly picture. Ironically, the best way forward might be to revert back to building wooden yachts with hemp ropes and cotton sails, but that is perhaps not the most practical answer to supplying today’s global boating demands.

However, researching this feature has filled me with optimism. There are brilliant minds working in the marine industry and many fascinating solutions for alternative materials and power sources. So how might eco-tech change boatbuilding in the next ten years and what will your next yacht look like?

This hydrogen electric cat is midway through build at Daedalus in North Carolina

The simple solution

Technology will continue to make yachts ever simpler to operate. The ability to go daysailing easily will be critical for an increasingly time-poor generation, while powerboaters drawn to the eco credentials of sailing will seek an intuitive format, in yachts that are easy to rig, dock and manage.

Boatbuilders are progressively incorporating greener propulsion and sustainable power sources, and are turning to natural and recyclable materials. Whether they are regulated to do so or not, this is a logical step to take, especially if we, the buyers, demand a more ethical product.

In the next decade we’ll certainly see a marked increase in the use of 3D printing in boatbuilding. Already employed for custom parts, this technology could be used to build hulls and decks – printed structures with natural fibre skins surrounding them could eliminate the need for wasteful moulds.

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There are already bodies in place concentrating on the reduction of waste and energy use in boatbuilding, while promoting recycled and low-impact materials. 11th Hour Racing is doing commendable work here. The common boatbuilding technique of using hand laid-up polyester certainly looks increasingly endangered.

Search for speed

The most effective way to minimise your carbon footprint afloat is to sail, so there is a strong argument for choosing performance yachts , which can harness the wind more efficiently. Large yachts and catamarans have an advantage too as they provide the deck space to host numerous solar panels and the speed to incorporate regenerative propulsion.

During its research for the Outremer 4E project, and new 55, Grand Large Yachting found that the usage of a yacht accounts for a much higher carbon footprint than its build. If you are able to sail in five knots of wind, then you can sail 95% of time in the Mediterranean, it says (data from western Med June-September).

Outremer’s 4E prototype will be used by cruising guru Jimmy Cornell for his next circumnavigation

To achieve this performance requires minimising weight, but what are the best alternatives to using the traditional high strength-to-weight ratio synthetic fibres such as glass and carbon?

Basalt fibre has long shown promise and is being used by new French catamaran brand Windelo to build its hulls, with PET (recycled plastic bottles) cores. Basalt is transformed from volcanic rock (with minimal CO 2 emissions), so the fibres are particularly resistant to heat and are recyclable.

However, it is the fibres from plants that could offer the most potential for boatbuilding. Flax in particular, the plant from which linen is derived, looks like becoming one of the most effective alternatives for use in high-strength composite applications.

Natural promise: Linen fibres are derived from quick-growing flax plants

Boats from plants?

The flax-based products of Swiss company Bcomp have already been used effectively in motorsport bodywork and snow skis for their combination of stiffness and vibration damping.

Paul Riley, a composites expert now marketing Bcomp products for marine use, says that flax is lighter than glass fibres, with similar stiffness and significantly lower cost than carbon fibres, yet with up to 75% CO 2 savings. “I think we’ll see this coming into mainstream yachting in the next two to three years,” he says. “Manufacturers need to take a stand and switch to less environmentally impactful materials, which will also provide improved health and safety for their workers.”

Flax grows from seed to crop in eight weeks, rarely needs irrigation, and chemicals are not required. Thus far it has been used by German yard Greenboats, including on the 2016-built GreenBente 24, and superyacht builders Baltic Yachts. News that Gurit, global leader in composite material supply, will be the worldwide distributor for Bcomp, could lead to a broad adoption by marine manufacturers.

A Tesla Model S electric race car clothed in Bcomp flax composite bodywork

Visitors to the Düsseldorf Boat Show this year may have seen the potential of this fibre on the Greenboats stand. Its Judel/Vrolijk-designed Flax 27 daysailer became a test-bed for numerous natural and recycled materials. The hull is made from flax and bio resin with a PET core, the deck from cork.

Greenboats’ founder Friedrich Deimann told me how frustrated he became with using composite materials, especially coming from a wooden boatbuilding background. “It takes five times as much energy to produce glassfibre than linen fibre,” Deimann reports, showing me the plants from which he built his beautiful clear-coated daysailer.

Greenboats has been using Flax or Natural Fibre Composites (NFC) since 2010. And it minimises the use of moulds by using a stitch-and-glue technique to build panels. Deimann’s company shows what is possible, but he admits a lack of trained personnel and the costs of small-scale production are the current issues.

The Greenboats Flax 27 daysailer has a hull made of linen fibre and bio resin with a core of recycled plastic bottles

Another is resin control. “You can’t use hand lay-up with flax because it’s a natural material, and without compression the fibres can absorb a lot of resin,” says Deimann. “By vacuum-infusing the resin, you compress and control it.” Vacuum-infusing resin brings its own environmental issues because the plastic used in the bagging process creates a significant amount of landfill. Some boatbuilders have already found a clever solution here in reusable silicone bags.

But the resin itself still remains an issue for chemists to solve. Pure bio resins exist already, but for the high-performance epoxies required in boatbuilding the natural content might only be around 30%. Entropy resins, bio-epoxies used in marine, snow and surfboards for example, are manufactured by replacing petroleum-based carbon with renewable plant-based carbon – by-products from the agricultural industry.

Recyclable boats

Elsewhere, yards have been forging ahead with various technologies that offer a cleaner end of life potential. The hull of the mini 6.50 raceboat Arkema 3 was made from a recyclable thermoplastic composite using Elium acrylic resin, for example, which can be ground down and reused to manufacture new parts. And many RS dinghy hulls are made from rotomoulded and recyclable polyethylene.

Meanwhile, the benefits of using high-tech timber construction are clear for all to see thanks to Spirit Yachts . Its strip-planked technique makes for a very stiff, lightweight structure, with hulls made from largely renewable materials. Indeed, the beautiful new Spirit 111 flagship is being labelled as one of the most environmentally friendly superyachts ever.

Managing director Nigel Stuart has instigated a network of green initiatives at the Ipswich yard and in its yachts. The Spirit 111 includes energy-saving appliances throughout, including ultra-efficient hydraulics and genset, and a regenerative propulsion system for its Torqeedo electric drive.

And it is this latter element – power – that will surely be the primary focus for making cruising yachts greener in the coming decade.

Going electric

Torqeedo and Oceanvolt have led this drive so far, with Volvo Penta now ramping up its electromobility technology. And although Torqeedo has already delivered 100,000 electric drives, this represents only a small fraction of the market, according to CEO Dr Christoph Ballin.

“So far, only about 1.3% of marine propulsion systems are electric… we need to put the foot down and do more,” he states. Over the next decade, Ballin sees serial hybrid power as the optimum solution for yachts, systems that involve a large battery bank with a mix of solar and hydro power generation. This reduces the CO 2 footprint by around 90%, but with the safety net of a ‘diesel range extender’ – a compact generator, says Ballin.

Moonwave is a Gunboat 60 recently refitted with the latest generation of Torqeedo’s Deep Blue electric drive system

Such a system caters for normal sailing and living requirements using only battery power. “The role of the generator is reduced from providing everyday energy for living on board (heating, cooking, washing, aircon) to emergency use, if you will. And the role of the combustion engine for driving the boat is completely eliminated.”

But what about hydrogeneration? Combined with enough solar panels, surely this will enable us to dispense with fossil fuels on board altogether? “I fully agree, hydrogeneration in terms of using the propeller to create power under sail is one thing that is here to stay,” Ballin believes.

ZF steerable saildrives are being integrated with Torqeedo systems for hydrogeneration

But it is dependent on the speed and size of the vessel. He points out that if you have a fast boat you can generate all the electricity you need while sailing: “We have a customer with Gunboat 60 which generates 10-15kW”.

Battery storage

“The limitation here,” points out Ballin, “is how much energy you can store in a battery, because of the energy density that batteries offer.” Torqeedo’s Deep Blue technology and use of BMW’s i3 high voltage lithium-ion batteries gives it an edge on competitors.

But is the reliance on lithium boat batteries as a ‘clean’ source of energy storage simply solving one problem by adding another? The questionable mining ethics surrounding the cobalt used in many lithium batteries has been widely reported and the question of battery recycling still remains unanswered.

Ballin foresees supply chains becoming more ethical from a human rights standpoint. He explains that BMW is now controlling the entire supply chain for its batteries, including sourcing the raw materials, to avoid inhumane working conditions.

This makes for another whole topic, as does the recycling issue, to which Ballin alludes to the potential for a second life for marine batteries in powerwalls and energy storage before they go into any recycling for cobalt extraction.

“We are in front of the largest mobility revolution since the introduction of combustion engines,” Ballin states. “We have to live with the fact that the stages in this transformation programme are all imperfect – and will be for more than ten years.”

Looking ahead, Ballin sees three key scenarios for what is possible for climate neutrality on boats: battery electric vehicles; hydrogen-power; and synthetic fuels. “The rule for sailors I think will be that wherever battery electric vehicles are feasible those are the preferred ways to go forward.

“If battery electric vehicles do not give you enough power, which is almost always the case for oceangoing vessels, then you can go to hydrogen for example… It will become mainstream to have a climate-neutral range extender.”

Hydrogen power

So could hydrogen be the holy grail of energy for yachts? Hydrogen fuel cells work by converting hydrogen (from seawater) to positive and negative electron charges. So far this process has been used as an energy source only by a few pioneering vessels, including Energy Observer , the first energy autonomous hydrogen boat to circumnavigate. And Race for Water , a solar and kite-powered multihull carrying a conservative amount of hydrogen (200kg) in 25 bottles, is currently three quarters of the way round the world.

Solo racing sailor Phil Sharp has been demonstrating a hydrogen fuel cell in place of a diesel engine to generate power aboard his Class 40 OceansLab . He believes larger scale commercial shipping and marine craft can adopt the technology to reduce their carbon emissions to zero.

For leisure yachts, however, hydrogen fuel cells are not yet economically feasible. Torqeedo’s Ballin explains the practical limitations: “The energy density of hydrogen per kg is a lot better than petrol or diesel, but the volumetric energy density is about 1/13th of diesel.” This means much larger fuel tanks are necessary – although these volumes can be reduced under pressure.

That helps to explain why hydrogen has been adopted by only a handful of (large) yachts thus far. A pioneer of the technology is Daedalus Yachts, which is midway through building the first hydrogen-powered superyacht. “Over the past two years we have conceived and developed not only a complete hydrogen electric marine propulsion system but also a clean energy micro grid with the only emissions being oxygen and pure water,” says Daedalus’s founder Michael Reardon.

The overview of the Daedalus renewable energy and power system

The 88ft catamaran is being built to full commercial survey for world cruising for visionary Stephan Muff, who created the technology for Google Maps. The Daedalus electrolyser (which converts water to hydrogen) is the same as has been used in US spaceships and NATO submarines, so the North Carolina company is quietly confident it’s onto a reliable power source.

For the shorter term however, sailors should look to solar and battery technology, where we can assume continued improvements in efficiency and capacity for reduced costs. Building photovoltaic cells into biminis, decks, masts, and sails is already feasible.

Using sail power alone whenever possible is an obvious objective. But it’s the sailcloth itself that is arguably the most disposable component, particularly aboard racing yachts. Laminate sails with a Mylar membrane can’t be recycled, so many used sails go to landfill, or are abandoned in sheds and shipping containers.

OneSails 4T Forte membranes are recyclable sails that use STR stripes, a high modulus fibre produced by compaction of polymer to create a flat ribbon

Polyester/Dacron sails are largely thermoplastic so can be melted and reformed (although typically coatings such as melamine render this highly problematic). However, other than turning them into bags and accessories, what are the options for sails with synthetic fibres, high modulus yarns, which are notoriously difficult to chop up and repurpose?

OneSails has been ahead of the game here with its 4T technology. It uses a recyclable base polymer and replaces the glues and resins with heat fusion. The result is a composite single structure sail, which uses a low-stretch technology to avoid Mylar or taffeta, for a completely recyclable sail. “This technology is the only genuine sailmaking system that offers the opportunity for sailors to recycle ‘end of life’ sails,” says OneSails UK’s John Parker.

North Sails’ 3Di products also avoid Mylar film and the company is working to recover raw material from used sails to turn it back into polyester fibres. North’s commercial director Tom Davis, who has overseen its cloth business for the last 20 years, sees two key areas of development with greener sails. Firstly with the raw materials: “I will be very surprised in the next few years if materials going into sails aren’t substantially bio-based.”

With its partner, Steelhead Composites, Daedalus has built the world’s only certified hydrogen containment vessel

And secondly, with what he terms the ‘back end’: “A very high percentage of the total acreage of sailcloth in all areas will be repurposed/recycled.” Again, he sees the quickest changes happening with polyester and reports that North is already using recycled PET films, which are chemically indistinguishable from oil-based film.

Davis has been impressed by the speed of the technology in these areas. “In the sailcloth/making business, we’re not big enough to be producing new yarn or filaments – that’s really a petrochemical level business. But we are the beneficiaries of the technologies those companies develop.”

So in the case of high modulus yarn products, North is working with a company that is producing a bio source for the monomers that become polymers and then become high performance yarn and fibre. “So instead of pumping oil out of the ground and converting it to plastic, they’re starting with trees and ending up with very high performance plastics,” Davis explains.

Positive thinking

It goes without saying that future yachts should be well insulated, durable and with very low energy loss and consumption. Battery banks and renewable regeneration will mean there’s little requirement for fossil fuels. Water filtration in and out of the boat is increasingly important. For those who spend long periods aboard, the growing energy efficiency of watermakers means there is simply no call to ship bottled water. Self-sufficiency rules.

The dissolving print your anchor leaves in the sand should be the only evidence a yacht ever leaves behind! I’m confident the next decade will bring a tidal wave of innovation in the marine sector. And with the right collective mindset, the future is indeed bright – it’s exciting and it’s green.

First published in the April 2020 edition of Yachting World.

World’s first energy autonomous motor yacht concept by H2-Yachts

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Written by Zuzana Bednarova

H2-Yachts, a division of the Switzerland-based H2-Industries AG, is delighted to present the world’s first energy autonomous Superyacht that can achieve more than 6,000 nm at 10 knots. No more costs for Diesel and no more polluting the planet. F unctionality with harmonious and clean forms were the main objectives, when developing the highly innovative 62m H2 yacht design. The yacht will become available for charter in 2016.

New 62m H2 Yacht Design - World’s first energy autonomous Superyacht

The propulsion system of the 62m H2 superyacht concept is fully electric with a liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) as the energy storage and a minimum effort on maintenance for all systems. Michael Stusch made the Naval Architecture in the Mallorca based office. He has been working on the concept and idea for more than 2 years.

To combine the solar panels and the wind turbine in a modern clean hull and superstructure design with lines orientated on the automobile industry and in conjunction with a maritime functionality and a luxurious interior, which is standard on the 62m H2 yacht, was the goal Michael Stusch explained. He himself has over 20 years maritime experience as a captain and has been living on his own yacht for a long time. He is an engineer and responsible for the Naval Architecture and idea; he developed the exterior and interior design together with the Graz/Austria based design team “ motion code: blue ”.

62m H2 Mega Yacht Concept - view from above

The straight, vertical bow and the explorer form of the 62m H2 mega yacht concept, which enable a 480m² beach club with 2 pools in 2 decks and a 70m² fold-out bathing platform, were given facts for the design as well as floor-to-ceiling windows in as many as possible decks. The sea view in the main deck, where the saloon and the open kitchen/bar is located, is allowed by a sheer bulwark and in the upper deck, which is entirely reserved for the owner by floor-to-ceiling windows. The upper deck has a bow and stern terrace and a spa with sauna, steam bath and whirl pool. The bed room is wide open to the stern terrace and a bar right next inside to the sliding door gives the owner the feeling to sit outside.

The bridge deck is used in the aft part as a dining room with a 20 people dining table, a bar and a wood fire pig roast as well as a wood fire Pizza oven. The sea view from the bar is only limited by a 50cm high couch which covers the outside major design line coming from the bow, ending at the stern of the upper deck.

62m H2 Superyacht Design - aft view

Another distinctive feature of the 62m H2 yacht design is the sky lounge with a retractable roof that can be closed in 30 seconds in case of upcoming rain.

A waterfall is running over both pools starting at the whirl pool from the owner’s deck, hitting the main deck pool right behind the in-pool-bar-chairs and ending in the lower deck pool.

The tender housing with two customized tenders (11 meter and 7 meter) and an SUV car are located recessed underneath the lower beach club around the pool.

62m H2 Motor Yacht Concept - lower deck beach club

The fold-out side flaps let the lower beach club “grow” and are used as docking platforms for the tenders and other water toys. The outside balconies aft the side flaps can be used for fishing during cruising and on the starboard side another bar is located.

The 7.5 meter high bow sailes the 62m H2 yacht much better in heavy sea and enables more tenders, jet skis or small helicopter housing. The terrace aft to it is entirely reserved for the 2nd owner and can be blocked by hidden sliding doors for total privacy in another whirl pool where a waterfall “falls” in. Stairs on port and starboard side give access to the expandable heli platform with a 7 meter diameter heli pad for “touch and go”.

62m H2 Mega Yacht Concept - bar and show cooking

Due to the fact that the entire technique is based in the tank deck the lower deck can be used for VIP cabins and crew. The owner can choose between 6 VIP and 6 crew cabins or any combination of it.

Beside the electrical Voith-Schneider Propellers for silent cruising with full stabilization and dynamic positioning the tank deck is equipped with all necessary yacht equipment and a crew mess with a pantry for 3 chefs cooking and a bar/dining room for the entire crew.

62m H2 Yacht Design - dining area

The rest of the space is used for the 120,000 liter “Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carrier”-tanks. This “fuel” is liquid under normal pressure and normal temperature and non explosive; it will be burned in fuel cells to produce up to 1 Megawatt electrical power to run the engines and all other electrical consumers on board of the 62-meter H2 yacht.

62m H2 Superyacht Design - private owners spa

The breath-taking 62m H2 yacht tops up on anchor over 860m² solar panels and a wind turbine, which makes the vessel energy autonomous with a reach of over 6,000 nm.

Please contact CharterWorld - the luxury yacht charter specialist - for more on superyacht news item "World’s first energy autonomous motor yacht concept by H2-Yachts ".

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From Private Jets to Superyachts, Here’s the Climate Impact of the Rich and Famous

A s Americans bear the brunt of heat waves, a multi-year drought, and devastating floods, celebrities are being criticized for their exorbitant lifestyles and apparent disregard for the ongoing climate crisis.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Monday that entertainers including Kim Kardashian and Sylvester Stallone were among the more than 2,000 people the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District issued “notices of exceedance” to, alerting homeowners that they used more than 150% of their monthly water budget at least four times since a drought emergency was declared just last year.

And a recent report by Yard, a UK-based sustainability marketing agency, analyzed flight data of the celebrities with the worst private jet emissions. Taylor Swift topped the list at more than 170 flights since January, totalling up to 15.9 days in the air, and 8,293.54 metric tons of CO2 emissions—that’s equivalent to all the emissions from the energy used by over 1,000 homes in the U.S. for a year.

Swift’s representatives, and that of other celebrities, have since denied the claims, saying their jets have been loaned out to others, or that the individuals in question do not own them. And Stallone’s attorney said that the water situation was being “mischaracterized,” as Stallone was trying to ensure that he could keep the more than 500 mature trees on the property alive.

In light of this, environmentalists have been calling for stronger restrictions on such wasteful habits as private air and sea journeys—which thanks in part to pandemic travel restrictions have become increasingly popular. Canada, for example, recently announced it will be implementing a new 10% tax on luxury aircrafts and yachts effective Sep. 1, which in part aims to clamp down on the climate impact of these activities.

Here’s what to know about the climate impact of the uber-rich’s favorite forms of luxury travel.

What’s the climate impact of a private jet?

Aviation produces just under one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually, accounting for 2.5% of global CO2 pollution.

But while aviation remains a great contributor to the climate crisis, a small number of people are responsible for a large bulk of the impact. In the U.K., surveys in 2013 and 2014 found that just 15% of adults were responsible for 70% of the flights. And according to the clean transport campaign group Transport & Environment , 10% of all flights that departed France in 2019 were private aircrafts.

Read more: Matt Damon Wants You to Care About Water

This is compared to a January Gallup Poll which found that the average American took 1.4 air trips in the past 12 months, with 62% making no trips at all.

The average person produces about 7 metric ton of CO2 annually. Meanwhile, celebrities have emitted an average of more than 3,300 metric tons from their private jets alone so far this year, according to Yard .

In fact, according to @CelebrityJets, a Twitter account that uses data to track celebrities’ private jets, former boxer Floyd Mayweather and celebrity Kylie Jenner have used their planes to take flights under 20 minutes long, for trips that would only take a few hours by car. For comparison, one of Mayweather’s 10-minute flights produced one ton of CO2 , whereas the EPA reports that the typical car will emit 4.6 tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Experts like Colin Murphy, deputy director of the Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy at the University of California at Davis, told the Washington Post it’s important to look at the frequency of these short trips, and how often these planes carry little to no people.

“They’re doing it in a generally less efficient way than if they were sitting in a coach seat in a 777 or any one of the conventional commercial airliners,” said Murphy. “What you’re doing is you’re burning many hundreds or thousands of gallons of jet fuel to save a carload of people or a couple of carloads of people a few hours.”

What’s the climate impact of a superyacht?

Superyachts can bear a similar burden on the planet, as professors from Indiana University called it “by far the worst asset to own from an environmental standpoint,” in an interview with DW .

An analysis of the top 20 billionaires in the world found that they emitted an average of 8,000 metric tons of CO2 in 2018, of which two-thirds is caused by superyachts. The yacht owned by Roman Abramovich, the billionaire who built a fortune off of trading gas and oil, for example, was responsible for 22,440 metric tons of carbon emissions that year—the same as the emissions released by over 4,800 gasoline cars driving for a year in the U.S.

Read more: To Survive Severe Drought This Summer, California Should Learn From Cape Town’s Water Crisis

Although many experts have pointed to the negative impact these boats can have on the climate, advocates say that not enough is being done. In January, Transport & Environment released a report looking at the exemptions in the European Commission’s Green Deal. Despite measures that would seek to reduce the carbon footprint of the maritime sector, ships over 5,000 gross tonnage and yachts were excluded.

How has the pandemic impacted these activities?

While the pandemic caused a wave of remote work that isolated and devastated many, wealth inequality rose as the world’s 500 richest people collectively saw their wealth increase by more than $800 billion from January to October 2020—the height of the pandemic.

Many of the ultra-wealthy sought to purchase luxury amenities like yachts and private jets during the pandemic as an alternative to flying commercially.

Boat International’s Global Order Book 2022 edition found a 25% increase in the number of new yachts ordered to be built, marking a third year of consistent growth with more than 1,000 boats.

“Everybody just wants freedom, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals can afford it,” Will Christie, a superyacht broker, told the Guardian . “The ability to escape anywhere is very attractive in the current climate. They think: I don’t need to be stuck in the office, and if you’re worth billions, why should you be?”

And this trend does not seem like it will subside in the coming months. Experts indicate that there’s been an increase in the number of first-time buyers and small businesses seeking to purchase private jets, Reuters reports .

“I think the people we’re seeing convert from commercial are not going back to commercial,” Jamie Walker, chief executive of Jet Linx, a company that manages planes and operates private flights, told Reuters. His company has capped sales because they have struggled to keep up with demand.

Airlines’ staffing shortages and cancellations , much of which stems from the push for early retirement pilots faced during the commencement of the pandemic, are sure to entice customers to seek alternatives that can be devastating to the environment.

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Private jet and yachts seized as three arrested in £76m luxury care homes raid

Three people have been arrested as part of a sting by the Serious Fraud Office into property developer the Carlauren Group.

Tuesday 12 March 2024 14:09, UK

A private jet and two yachts have been seized, as three people have been arrested, in a £76m raid on a group who ran luxury care homes.

Two sites were raided across St Leonard's, Dorset, and Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, as part of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) probe, supported by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

The investigation is looking into the UK registered property developer, the Carlauren Group, which collapsed into administration in November 2019.

When it folded, the SFO said that it led to some elderly residents being forced to move out, and left 600 investors out of pocket.

The Carlauren Group bought 23 properties across the UK, often former hotels including the historic Windlestone Hall in Durham, and allegedly claimed to offer annual 10 per cent returns to investors as it sought to turn the buildings into high-end care homes.

However, the SFO said only nine of these became operational and some continued as hotels instead of care homes.

Alongside that, the group allegedly purchased a number of supercars, including two Lamborghinis and a McLaren 570GT, a private jet and two yachts.

Nick Ephgrave QPM, director of the Serious Fraud Office, said: "This company's abrupt collapse has created turmoil and enormous anxiety for many, with elderly people forced to vacate their homes and investors left with nothing.

"Today's arrests are a major development in our investigation and a step towards getting the answers so many people need."

The group was said to have had 600 people and companies invest in the scheme through the purchase of rooms that were to be rented out to the elderly.

This was inside luxury facilities that boasted of swimming pools, room service and other amenities.

According to the SFO, the rooms were advertised and sold with a guaranteed annual payout and opportunity to sell the asset back for a profit after 10 years

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The European High-Level Roundtable on Fusion energy calls for closer collaboration between the public and the private sector

On 14 March, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Iliana Ivanova , hosted the first “High-Level Roundtable on Fostering Innovation for Fusion energy in Europe’’. The online event gathered leading public and private stakeholders in the field of fusion energy research and technology. Participants discussed how to accelerate the demonstration of fusion electricity generation, and involve bigger industrial stakeholders, as well as startups, in the transition from LAB to FAB. The participants also considered potential R&I policy initiatives to unlock the disruptive potential of EU innovation in the shortest time possible.

The development of fusion electricity offers the promise of a clean, sustainable, and unlimited source of energy that can make a decisive contribution to the goal of a European net-zero economy. The possible elaboration of a coordinated fusion strategy at the EU level could contribute to harnessing the European expertise and experience – both in the public and private sectors – vis-à-vis a growing international interest and competition in the fusion energy field.

The main takeaways of the Roundtable are the needs to foster closer collaboration between public and private entities, attracting investments in Europe, developing regulatory frameworks, and stimulating European competitiveness in the emerging global fusion energy market. These take-aways will feed into the preparations of the extension of the Euratom Research and Training Programme for the years 2026-2027, which could consider new actions to strengthen the EU fusion energy landscape such as a Public-Private Partnership and a Fusion Innovation Pillar to strengthen the fusion energy eco-system. In particular, a forthcoming call for proposals for a Coordination and Support Action under the Euratom Research and Training Work Programme 2023–2025 will lay the ground for developing a Public-Private Partnership to foster the active involvement of the EU private sector in the realisation of a prototype fusion power plant.

Major industrial groups active in the nuclear field such as Framatome, Empresarios Agrupados and Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi joined the Roundtable, as well as Focused Energy representing the emerging world of new ventures. The European Joint Undertaking Fusion for Energy , the European Partnership EUROfusion and the Fusion Industry Association also participated in the event. A report on the Roundtable will be published soon.

The Euratom Research and Training Programme pursues nuclear research and training, including the EU leadership in the development of fusion energy, and the continued improvement of nuclear safety, security of supply and radiation protection. The Euratom Programme complements Horizon Europe using the same instruments and rules for participation. The dedicated budget is €1.38 billion for the period 2021 - 2025.  The European Commission is preparing a legal proposal for the Extension of the Euratom Research and Training Programme for the period 2026-2027. A call for evidence and related public stakeholder consultation is being launched.

More Information

Euratom Research and Training Programme

Euratom Research and Training Programme 2021–25

Euratom Research in Action and Opportunities for Europe

Regulation establishing the Euratom Programme 2021–2025

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Nelson Mullins Grows Private Funds, Investment Management Team

By Bloomberg Law Automation

Adam V. Sussman has joined Nelson Mullins as a partner with the private funds and investment management practice in New York, the firm said Thursday .

Sussman counsels private fund sponsors in addition to advising institutional investors on their participation in private equity and other alternative asset funds, according to Nelson Mullins.

He provides counsel on business aspects such as the organization, marketing, fundraising and ongoing operation, compliance and management of private equity funds, and credit and debt funds, Nelson Mullins said.

This story was produced by Bloomberg Law Automation.

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‘Below Deck’ Sails Into a New Era

With a different captain at the helm and new production elements, the reality show about charter yachts is switching up its style.

By Shivani Gonzalez

Starting a new season of “ Below Deck ” can be similar to returning to summer camp as a kid — you know it’s going to be fun and that you’ll be in the same environment, but some of the people will be different and you’re not quite sure what the vibes will be.

This time around, in particular, feels that way because for the first time in the show’s 11-season run, Captain Lee Rosbach is no longer at the helm. It’s a pivotal moment for a franchise that has become one of the most popular entities in the sprawling universe of reality TV since premiering on Bravo in 2013 . The show’s appeal was built on endless romances between various crew members (“boatmances,” as they came to be known), horrible charter guests and some sort of passive-aggressive fight about how many shackles of the anchor chain should be in the water. And there was always Rosbach presiding over the drama as he trudged around the boat, reeling off one liners like “I’m madder than a pissed-on chicken” and “we screwed the pooch so many times we should have a litter of puppies running around.”

At the center of the show now is Kerry Titheradge (the stern yet goofy captain of “Below Deck Adventure” fame), who is managing the Motor Yacht Saint David with the cheeky chief stew Fraser Olender by his side.

With that change in captain, the energy on the boat — both onscreen and off — is different, according to Olender.

“I feel like Kerry this season, as opposed to Lee, has a no B.S. attitude, which I love with him,” Olender said in an interview. “With Kerry, he taught me a lot and sort of forced to me confront issues directly with my team, work them out, as opposed to making executive decisions too soon.”

This shift in management style changes the central conflict — whereas the drama once focused on the captain swiftly kicking out any unpleasant crew member (as we might have seen with Rosbach), the drama now focuses on the whole crew trying to get along (since Titheradge gives people those second chances).

Additionally, Olender noted that the captain’s relationship with the crew can also affect the drama on board.

“Captains absolutely do get involved, whether they know it or not,” Olender said, adding that for the crew, everything is about “trying to impress your captain.”

This phenomenon plays out early in the new season when the lead deckhand, Ben Willoughby, called out a fellow crew member over the radios about not wearing a life vest — something he easily could have done in private. The drama that followed became an interpersonal conflict between the two of them, both with the ultimate goal of impressing Titheradge. (Of course, the two deckhands had kissed on the previous crew night out, which is more in line with the “Below Deck” drama viewers are used to.)

For “Below Deck” showrunners, the changeovers in the cast allowed them to rethink what the show would look like.

From the season premiere, it was immediately apparent that Rosbach’s absence wasn’t the only change this season: The filming is sleeker, the daily, multicourse meals prepared by the chef are given their own glamour shots and the cameras sometimes cut to the perspectives of yachties running around on deck and through the galley.

“Our showrunner, Lauren Simms, is an avid consumer of all different kinds of media,” Noah Samton, a senior vice president of unscripted current production for NBCUniversal, said in an interview. “She pitches us different ideas on how to stylistically evoke different feelings and change the mood a little bit of ‘Below Deck’ without removing what really works.”

Moving through the rest of the season, and potentially through seasons to come, Olender is aiming to bring a cutthroat management style while also bringing affection for his stews, all with his signature British humor.

On Bravo’s side, there are changes in the works for the other “Below Deck” spinoffs — including “Sailing Yacht,” “Mediterranean” and “Down Under” — which collectively, have 26 seasons. Specifically, Samton said that “Down Under” is currently filming and that even though fans should be ready to see new things, the show will stay true to its original concept.

“These are real yachties doing a real job so you have to stay within those confines because the audience isn’t going to want anything that is too produced or fake,” Samton said. “So we have to find ways to reinvent while staying true to the original concept of the show.”

And as Olender said: “I’m sure that every year if I were to work with this franchise again, that I’ll be thrown a collection of total chaotic and disastrous stews — that’s what makes it watchable.”

Shivani Gonzalez is a news assistant at The Times who writes a weekly TV column and contributes to a variety of sections. More about Shivani Gonzalez