There is a version of the Mediterranean that rewards going slowly, and DXB is
built for it. She is a Benetti Classic 115, delivered from Viareggio in 2003 and
carried through a refit completed in 2025, and at 34.8 metres she offers the
volume and the crew of a considerably larger boat without the berthing problems
that come with one.
Stefano Righini drew the exterior and the shape has aged well: a raised
foredeck, a long run of hull windows and a superstructure that steps back rather
than piles up. Zuretti handled the interior, and this is where DXB separates
itself from the current market. The joinery is high-gloss cherry, deep and warm,
with fluted columns, burl inlays and mirrored panels that push the light around.
It is a decisively traditional room, and after two decades of pale oak and
brushed grey it reads as a genuine alternative rather than a period piece.
The main deck is one open volume, and it is a large one. Aft, a curved cream
sofa faces a wall-mounted screen across marble tables; forward, past a low
credenza, a marble dining table for ten sits under a coved ceiling with the
bar just beyond. A separate sky lounge sits a deck above, which is the layout’s
real advantage. Ten guests are not obliged to share one room. Children can
watch a film upstairs while the adults eat, or the whole party can move up
after dinner to the deep sofa and the blue print armchairs by the bookcase.
Outside, the sundeck carries a single jacuzzi ringed by curved white settees,
with a bar and shaded loungers to one side. The aft deck below is furnished as
an outdoor drawing room in woven rattan over a patterned rug, and there is a
second alfresco dining table forward of it. All of it opens onto a swim
platform, with the tender, three Seabobs, a jet ski and two kayaks stowed
close by.
Five cabins sleep ten. The master is full-beam on the main deck, in the same
cherry joinery, with an arched upholstered headboard, hull windows either side
and an en-suite in marble with gold fittings. Below, two queen guest staterooms
sit either side of the lobby, each with its own portlight, mirrored joinery and
en-suite, and two twin cabins finish the layout with a pair of full-size singles
apiece. Every cabin has its own bathroom, which for a 2003 boat of this size is
not a given.
Seven crew look after ten guests. She cruises at 10 knots and carries 3,200
miles of range at 12, which is more than a Mediterranean season asks of her and
means the itinerary is set by what the guests want to see rather than by where
the fuel dock is. For a family or two travelling together who want space, a
proper second saloon and a boat with some character to it, DXB makes a strong
and unusually well-priced case.
The 2025 refit was not cosmetic. Systems, soft furnishings and finishes were all
addressed, and the result is a twenty-two-year-old yacht that presents as a much
newer one while keeping the joinery that gives her a character no current
production boat is trying to reproduce.
