Some yachts announce themselves before they arrive. HBC does it with colour: a hull finished in a deep, almost-black navy that holds its own against any horizon, wrapped around 2,150 tons of German-engineered aluminium from Abeking & Rasmussen.
Delivered in 2009 and reworked in a 2019 refit, she carries scale that changes what a charter can be. At 85.65 metres she was reconfigured from an owner’s layout into eleven cabins built specifically around guests rather than family, and the arithmetic matters: twenty-two can sleep aboard across a run of king and queen suites, an unusually deep capacity at this length. Reunions, milestone birthdays, multi-generational parties — the numbers that normally force a compromise on space simply don’t apply here.
The outdoor architecture is built for a full day’s rotation rather than a single showpiece. A jacuzzi shaded beneath a fixed sail canopy anchors the sundeck; a beach club with balconies to port and starboard opens the lowest deck almost entirely to the water; a dedicated pool sits framed in glass on the main deck aft. A glass-walled lift threads all of it together, connecting sundeck to swim platform without a single flight of stairs standing in the way. Guests move between shade, sun and sea as the day dictates, not as the itinerary dictates.
Inside, the main salon is panelled in warm wood and lit by a run of full-height windows, with turquoise glass tables that catch the light rather than fight it. A separate skylounge bar gives evening drinks their own room, away from the dining table and the main gathering space — the kind of separation that only a yacht this size can afford to build in rather than improvise. A fully equipped gym sits alongside a massage room staffed by a dedicated therapist among the twenty-eight crew, so the wellness routine doesn’t have to pause for a charter to feel like one.
The owner’s suite occupies the upper deck with its own private terrace, positioned apart from the guest accommodation rather than simply larger than it — genuine separation, not just square footage. A VIP suite on the main deck and a run of guest and twin cabins fill out the eleven-room count, each finished in the same restrained palette of wood, cream and navy that runs through the rest of the yacht.
The toy inventory reads like a small marina: three jet skis, a fleet of Seabobs, e-foils, a kite rig with four sail sizes, dive gear for six with two dive instructors among the crew, and a twelve-metre VanDutch chase tender capable of 40 knots for anyone who wants to cover ground independently of the main yacht. A seven-metre inflatable water slide and a jellyfish-netted sea pool round out a programme built for groups that span generations rather than a single type of guest.
HBC charters the Mediterranean in both directions — west in high summer, east and the Adriatic through the shoulder season — before wintering in the west basin. At this scale, with this configuration, she is built less for a couple seeking privacy than for a group that wants room to spread out without ever feeling like it has left the yacht behind.
