Silver Yachts is taking its fast, long-range philosophy into a new category. The Australian builder has designed an 85-foot custom catamaran for owners who want to go farther and stay away longer. At 26 metres, the aluminium multihull isn’t the largest project the yard has built. But its ambitions are bigger than its dimensions suggest. It combines a catamaran’s stability and space with the speed, range and efficiency Silver Yachts is known for, built as a genuine ocean-going explorer.
The project is aimed at experienced owners planning extended cruising far from conventional support networks. Construction starts at Silver Yachts’ Jiangmen facility in China, with delivery expected in 2028. The yacht’s name remains confidential for now.
What stands out is that the designers didn’t treat the catamaran as just a way to add room. They used the twin-hull platform as the foundation for a serious long-distance vessel, one that can cover real distance quickly while staying practical for life aboard over long stretches of time.
A catamaran with superyacht ambitions
The yacht measures 85 feet 4 inches, with a beam of 42 feet 3 inches. That width is one of the design’s biggest advantages. A catamaran can put far more volume into accommodation and communal space than a monohull of similar length. The two hulls also give it a broad, stable platform, so the yacht doesn’t need to get dramatically longer to feel spacious.
Here, the goal was to make that space actually work. The yacht will sleep eight guests across four staterooms. Design Unlimited is developing the interior, working with the owners and naval architect Jason Ker of Ker Yacht Design to build something meant to function as a genuine home at sea, not just luxury transport between stops.
That philosophy fits where the explorer-yacht market is heading. Today’s owner is often less interested in arriving at a famous harbour and more interested in reaching places that are hard to get to. That kind of travel needs comfort balanced against endurance, efficiency and practicality, and this project seems built around exactly that balance.
Built to cover serious distances
Performance is the most unexpected part of the project. The yacht is expected to hit 25 knots while holding a range of roughly 2,000 nautical miles at that speed. Drop to a more economical 11 knots, and the projected range climbs to around 4,000 nautical miles. Those numbers set it apart from most leisurely cruising catamarans. At 25 knots, owners can cover real ground quickly when they need to move between cruising grounds. At 11 knots, it becomes a genuine long-range platform, one that can spend extended periods at sea without constantly planning around refuelling stops.
That combination matters. Speed alone is easy to advertise. Useful speed paired with meaningful range is much harder to actually deliver. Silver Yachts built its name on lightweight aluminium construction and efficient hull forms, and this catamaran draws on that experience directly. The design leans on reduced resistance rather than raw engine power, which shapes the hull configuration too.
Wave-piercing hulls and a lifting foil
The twin hulls are wave-piercers, with elongated, tapered bows built to move through water efficiently rather than push through it. Hull efficiency matters for more than fuel economy on a yacht built for long distances. A more refined hull form can smooth out the ride in rough conditions while cutting the energy needed to hold speed.
The design also uses a lifting foil. In simple terms, it works like an underwater wing. As the yacht moves forward, the foil generates lift, raising the vessel and reducing how much hull surface stays in the water. Less resistance means better efficiency at speed.
It’s an unusual feature for a yacht this size, and it says a lot about how engineering-led the project is. The foil isn’t there for spectacle. It’s there to make a relatively compact yacht travel quickly and efficiently without giving up its long-range credentials.
The explorer concept, redefined
“Explorer” gets used loosely across the superyacht industry, but this project has a stronger claim to the word than most vessels marketed under it. The intended owners are experienced cruisers planning to spend real stretches of time away from the infrastructure that normally supports yachting. That means the yacht has to work as a self-contained platform, not just a comfortable boat.
One of its most interesting features is a drive-in tender dock paired with a lifting tender platform. For owners exploring remote coastlines, that’s more than a convenience. Tenders are essential for reaching shallow bays, beaches and shorelines a 26-metre yacht can’t approach directly, so making tender operation simple becomes part of the yacht’s overall cruising capability. That reflects a broader shift in luxury yacht design. The tender isn’t just gear stowed on deck anymore. It’s part of the expedition system, alongside water toys, diving equipment and other gear that lets owners actually experience a destination instead of watching it from offshore.
Space without the bulk
One of the strongest arguments for this project is how much usable space it packs into an 85-foot footprint. The beam of more than 12.9 metres gives the designers an unusually wide platform to work with, letting the yacht separate functions more cleanly than a similarly sized monohull could manage. Design Unlimited is handling the interior, working with the owners to build something that supports both everyday life and long-distance travel. Details are still limited at this stage, but the philosophy is clear: comfort isn’t supposed to be sacrificed for range.
Explorer yachts have traditionally leaned rugged, with heavy storage and the ability to operate remotely. Luxury catamarans have leaned the other way, toward outdoor living and generous entertaining space. Silver Yachts is trying to combine both. The result should be a yacht that can spend months away from its home port without feeling like a converted expedition vessel.
A natural evolution for Silver Yachts
This project also fits Silver Yachts’ existing portfolio. The Australian builder is closely associated with long, sleek aluminium superyachts like Silver Fast and Bold, and it later developed the SilverCat family, applying its lightweight construction and efficient hulls to multihull platforms. That background gives the new custom yacht a solid foundation. Silver Yachts isn’t entering the catamaran market cold. It’s applying lessons from earlier multihull and high-speed projects to a brief that puts unusually strong emphasis on autonomy.
There’s also a real difference between a series-built yacht and a fully custom project. The owners built this around a particular style of travel rather than picking an existing platform and adapting their lifestyle to it. Ker Yacht Design handles the concept and naval architecture, Design Unlimited handles the interior, and the whole thing is shaped around the intended use from the start. In the modern superyacht market, that might be the real luxury: not more space or more power, but a vessel built around exactly how its owners plan to live.
An ocean-going family home
Despite its explorer credentials, the yacht is ultimately built around family use. Eight guests in four staterooms keeps the scale deliberately intimate compared with larger superyachts. This isn’t meant to be a floating hotel. It’s a private environment for extended cruising with family and close friends.
That choice makes sense for a vessel travelling far beyond conventional cruising grounds. Long voyages expose weaknesses in a layout that a weekend charter never would. Storage, privacy, circulation, and the relationship between indoor and outdoor space all matter far more when guests are effectively living aboard for weeks or months.
Design Unlimited’s brief goes beyond visual luxury, then. The interior has to support ordinary routines just as well as it handles spectacular moments: breakfast at anchor, an afternoon offshore, a stormy passage, working remotely, entertaining friends, or just finding somewhere quiet to read.
A different vision of luxury
What’s most compelling about this 85-footer is what it says about how luxury at sea is changing. For decades, superyacht design was mostly about size: more decks, bigger suites, bigger pools, more elaborate entertainment spaces.
Explorer yachts have complicated that formula. For today’s long-distance owner, luxury can mean independence instead: leaving a major marina and staying self-sufficient for weeks, reaching remote anchorages, moving quickly when it matters, and having enough space onboard that isolation feels like freedom rather than inconvenience.
This catamaran is clearly built around that idea. Its 4,000-nautical-mile range at 11 knots gives it real endurance. Its projected 25-knot top speed lets it cover ground fast when needed. Wave-piercing hulls and a lifting foil focus on efficiency, while the wide catamaran platform provides the volume for comfortable long-term living. None of those pieces is revolutionary on its own. The combination is what makes the project stand out.
The road to 2028
Construction is still ahead, with the first stages starting at Silver Yachts’ Jiangmen shipyard and delivery planned for 2028. That leaves plenty of time for the custom interior, engineering and owner-specific details to come together.
For now, the yacht exists mainly as a carefully engineered answer to a demanding brief. At 26 metres, it won’t compete with the world’s biggest floating palaces on scale, and it doesn’t seem to want to. Its appeal is elsewhere: an 85-foot yacht that offers the capability of a much larger explorer without the operational burden that usually comes with extreme size.
When it reaches the water in 2028, its greatest luxury may not be any particular suite or lounge. It’ll be the ability to point the bow toward somewhere distant, with very few reasons to turn back.
Written By: Leah Kim
Published On:21st August 2026