Nela’s case is easy to state and hard to argue with: a 42-metre Benetti, kept immaculately, out of a refit this year, with nine crew for ten guests and a kitchen the broker puts before the specification.
Start with the refit, because it is what makes her current. She was delivered in 2014 and came out of a 2026 programme with her soft furnishings redone and her systems brought up — which on a twelve-year-old yacht is the difference between a fair week and a good one. What was not touched is the part worth keeping. Stefano Righini drew the exterior and it has aged well: a low white profile with a long window band, a sheer that runs unbroken to the transom, and none of the vertical piling-on that dates a hull faster than anything.
The foredeck is where the yacht makes its argument. A spa pool sits set into the bow with the jets running, a broad shade sail stretched overhead on slim poles, and sunpads laid either side of it. It is forward of the wheelhouse, which means it is out of sight of the aft deck and the crew’s working routes — the most private spot on board, and the one that changes how a day at anchor is spent. Aft, the main deck lounge is arranged around low tables with rust-leather bolsters against cream, opening straight into the saloon. The sundeck above is the social deck: a long square table under a solid hardtop, laid for twelve, with sun beds beyond it.
Inside, the palette is warm and horizontal — pale oak, cream lacquer and a run of blue in the cushions. The main saloon takes the full beam with facing settees, brown leather backs, a low table with books stacked beneath it and window bands down both sides at seated height. Up a level, the upper saloon is the more theatrical room: mirrored ceilings and mirrored joinery, a bar with blue-and-white plates racked behind it, and at its forward end a round dining table for eight wrapped in glass with a large clock on the after bulkhead. That forward end is a different function, not a different room, and it is one of the more usable spaces on the yacht — dinner can be laid there while the aft deck is still busy.
Five cabins carry ten. The master runs forward on the main deck with a padded headboard wall hung with three blue-toned panels, joinery shelving either side and a marble bathroom with a glazed shower and a double vanity. Below, two doubles take hull windows at bed height, and a twin puts two singles either side of a vanity run, with its own marble bathroom. Everything is finished to one standard rather than tapering off as you go down the stairs.
She cruises at fourteen knots and tops out at fifteen, holds 470 gross tonnes on a GRP hull, and runs jet skis and a tender off a low platform at the stern. Nine crew is generous at this length and it is the number that makes the difference between a yacht that is serviced and a yacht that is run.
Nela charters the French Riviera and the western Mediterranean from EUR 180,000 per week.
