Altair is a Heesen, and she moves like one. Built in aluminium as the fifth hull in the yard’s fast 50-metre series and delivered in 2016, she pairs a genuinely quick platform with the full volume of a much heavier yacht. Where many yachts at this size ask you to choose between speed and space, Altair simply offers both.
She reaches 23 knots and cruises comfortably in the low twenties, which changes the way a charter week unfolds. Longer hops between the marquee anchorages of the French and Italian rivieras become an afternoon rather than an overnight, and the yacht arrives fresh and level thanks to her aluminium hull and stabilisers. For a party that wants to see more of the coast in a week, that pace is the whole point. Her range of around 3,100 nautical miles opens up longer passages when the itinerary calls for them.
Her interior was designed for light and refreshed for charter, and it reads bright and current rather than heavy. The main saloon runs in cream and soft neutrals with accents of colour, opening through glass to the side decks. A step forward, the formal dining table seats the full party under considered lighting. Up a deck, a rounder sky lounge with its own bar makes an easy, informal room for a film or a nightcap with the coastline sliding past. Warm timber detailing grounds the palette without weighing it down.
Outdoors, Altair is built around the sun. The sun deck carries a jacuzzi framed by curved sun pads and a shaded bar, a full outdoor room for the middle of the day. Aft and amidships, covered lounges and dining spaces give shade when the light is high, and the swim platform turns the stern into a staging point for the water. A dedicated tender and toy garage keeps the decks clear and uncluttered for guests.
Altair sleeps twelve guests across six cabins. The master is a bright, full-width room with generous glass and its own bathroom, and the guest cabins mix doubles and a twin, each finished in the same fresh palette with natural light and en suite facilities. A crew of eleven runs the yacht, a generous ratio that keeps the service quiet and attentive across a full charter, with dedicated crew routes that keep the guest areas calm and private.
The toy store is set up for active days, with jet skis, seabobs and a foil board ready off the swim platform alongside the tenders. Days can be as fast or as slow as the party wants, a long run to a distant cove in the morning, an afternoon anchored with the toys out, dinner under the stars on the aft deck.
Altair suits a group that values performance as much as comfort, that wants to cover ground and still travel in real style. She is a fast, bright, well-crewed 50-metre with the range to open up the whole Western Mediterranean, and the kind of easy contemporary interior that a charter week is built around.
