PRINCESS MELDA is a fresh sheet of paper in the charter market, a 42 metre custom motor yacht drawn by Guido de Groot and delivered new in 2024. Her profile is clean, low and modern, and the thinking behind her shows in the way space is used: generous volume for twelve guests, wide social decks and an interior that feels current rather than borrowed from an earlier decade. She is a yacht for guests who want something recently built and quietly contemporary.
The exterior decks are the heart of the design. The sun deck is given over to loungers, shaded seating and room for evening drinks as the light drops over the anchorage. One deck down, the main aft deck is set for al fresco dining, a shaded table just above the water where most meals are taken through a charter week. At the stern a full spread of water toys turns each anchorage into a playground, launched for swimming, diving and exploring the coast by tender.
Inside, the palette is pale and precise. The main salon is bright and open, with soft curved seating, clean lines and full height windows that pull the sea into the room. A second lounge sits a deck up, quieter and more intimate, a comfortable retreat with its own view over the water. The formal dining area centres on a sculptural table set against a marble feature wall, an elegant setting for dinner served indoors when the evening cools.
Accommodation is arranged across six cabins for twelve guests. The full beam master runs the width of the yacht, with a large bed, a private window line at eye level with the sea and a generous en-suite. A VIP cabin continues the modern look with a double bed, a vanity and warm concealed lighting, and the further double cabins keep the same crisp finish, each with an en-suite of its own. The layout gives a family or a group of friends real privacy without losing the sense of a single, considered design.
Under way she is an easy, capable cruiser, settling onto a comfortable fifteen knots with a pair of MTU engines for the passages between islands. A crew of nine runs her from a professional galley and bridge, handling the tender, the toys and the table so that guests can shape each day exactly as they like. She is built for the rhythm of a Mediterranean summer: slow mornings at anchor in a quiet bay, active afternoons in the water, and long dinners on deck as the coast turns gold and then dark. With near new machinery and finishes throughout, she also asks little of her guests beyond deciding where to point the bow next.
Delivered in 2024 and still close to new, PRINCESS MELDA offers charter guests a rare thing, a genuinely modern custom yacht with the volume, deck space and light interior that recent design allows. For groups who value a fresh build and a calm, current aesthetic, she is a strong and well conceived choice.
