XIPHIAS was built in wood at Chantier Naval de l’Esterel in 1974, and half a century later she is still working – not as a museum piece but as a charter yacht that came out of a major refit in 2025 with new interiors and upgraded systems. That combination is rare enough to be the whole point of her. There are very few genuinely classic hulls on the charter market that a broker can put twelve months of recent yard work behind.
The Esterel yard built fast, narrow, beautifully proportioned motor yachts, and her lines show it. At 33.2 metres on a 6-metre beam she is slim by modern standards – today’s 33-metre yachts run a metre and a half wider – and the result is a profile with real length to it, a low deckhouse, and none of the stacked-box look that volume-maximising design produces. Twin MTUs push her to 18 knots, with 15 the comfortable working figure.
Inside, the 2025 refit resolved the usual tension in a classic restoration. The joinery is warm figured timber, taken right through the deckheads and the door frames, but the furniture, lighting and stone are current: pale bouclé seating, slim brass floor lamps, marble-topped tables, indirect cove lighting in place of the original downlights. It reads as a yacht that has been lived with and updated rather than frozen. The main deck runs as one continuous room rather than separate saloon and dining rooms: a round marble table at the after end, a full-height lit drinks cabinet amidships, and the seating group forward of it, all drawing light from an unbroken run of side glazing.
Accommodation is a four-cabin arrangement for eight, and it is laid out unusually. The full-beam master sits on the lower deck, where the narrow hull works in its favour – the room spans the full width without an obstruction and feels quiet and enclosed. The VIP is on the upper deck and opens through sliding glass doors onto its own stretch of side deck with a table and chairs – private outdoor space off a guest cabin, which on most yachts this size would be a study or a wheelhouse annexe. Two further cabins convert between twin and double. Every bathroom was renewed in the refit, in cream marble with walk-in showers and vessel basins.
Her deck spaces are her charter argument. The aft deck sits under a fixed awning with a long table for eight and deep lounge seating outboard; a covered upper deck holds a second table with sea views on three sides; and the side decks are properly wide, a consequence of the older design philosophy that treated walking around the boat as a normal thing to do. Zero-speed stabilisers were fitted to hold her steady at anchor.
She cruises the East Mediterranean and the Adriatic, which suits her: Greek and Turkish anchorages reward a yacht that draws little and looks right against a stone harbour wall. The toys are comprehensive without being excessive – a Novamarine tender, a Sea-Doo Spark, two SeaBob F5S, an Audi e-tron efoil, a Tiwal sailing dinghy, paddleboards, water skis, towables, and diving and snorkelling equipment. An inflatable swimming platform with ladder and net can be rigged on request. Seven crew run her, a high count for eight guests and the clearest signal of how she is operated.
