A 1988 Heesen is not an obvious charter proposition until you see what a 2026
refit does to one.
SEA AXIS is 38.1 metres of aluminium Frank Mulder hull – light, slippery and
built when Heesen was making its name on exactly that combination – and she has
just come through a refit that brings her fittings, systems and interior
entirely up to date without touching what made the hull good in the first place.
She cruises at 12 knots and carries twelve guests in five cabins with seven crew.
Her signature is not a spec line. It is the aft deck after dark, when a
full-size cinema screen deploys against the superstructure, the sun pads become
the seating, and the yacht turns into something closer to a private outdoor room
than a boat. Next to it sits a bar built around a slab of backlit agate. These
are the details that decide charters, and she has both.
Above, the sun deck carries a spa and a second bar on the same level as the sun
pads, so the day does not require moving between decks to change activity.
Forward of that, the bridge deck dines alfresco around a round table for ten
under shade.
Inside, she reads as a proper three-space yacht rather than one open volume
stretched thin. The main saloon runs long and low in warm teak, twin sofas
facing across a pale runner. Forward, the formal dining saloon seats ten under
its own lighting. And a deck up, the sky lounge is a genuinely separate living
room with its own bar, armchairs and a glass door to the deck – the space that
makes a rainy afternoon or a late night work without everyone occupying the
same room.
Accommodation is unusually generous for the length. The master sits on deck with
a king, a desk, a seating area and a double-vanity en suite with a full tub.
Below, a VIP king, a mid-ship king and two twin staterooms take her to twelve,
each with its own en suite and the same teak joinery throughout.
The toy inventory matches the rest: an inflatable slide off the side deck,
seabobs, waverunners and a 32ft Intrepid chase tender. Seven crew run her
between the Bahamas in summer and the Caribbean in winter.
What she offers is space, staffing and a set of features that yachts fifteen
years newer and considerably more expensive often do not carry – an outdoor
cinema, three distinct interior living spaces, and an on-deck master – on a hull
that has just been comprehensively renewed.
A word on the hull, because it is the reason she still makes sense. Frank Mulder
drew her in aluminium at a moment when Heesen was building its reputation on
light, efficient, fast-for-their-day motor yachts, and aluminium does not tire
the way other materials do. Maintained properly – and she has been – a hull of
this construction is a renewable asset. The 2026 refit is the latest round of
exactly that, and it is why a 1988 delivery date should be read as provenance
rather than as age.
Her cruising pattern is the classic one: Bahamas through the summer, working the
Exumas and the shallow banks where her draft is an advantage, then south to the
Caribbean for the winter season. Seven crew for twelve guests is a generous
ratio at this length, and it shows in how the service runs – particularly on the
nights when the cinema goes up and dinner moves outside.
From $105,000 per week.
