Very few charter yachts carry a certified helideck. Fewer still offer the helicopter with it. PLANET NINE does both, and that single fact reorganises what a week aboard her can look like: a rainforest in Costa Rica in the morning, a reef off Belize in the afternoon, and neither of them reachable by tender.
Admiral delivered her in 2018 as ANTARCTICA, to a Tim Heywood exterior and an interior by Mlinaric, Henry and Zervudachi. She was refitted in 2026. At 74 metres and 2,189 gross tonnes she is a genuinely large yacht, and she uses that volume for range and equipment rather than for show: 6,000 nautical miles between fuel stops, twin Caterpillars turning a displacement hull at a steady 13 knots, and 22 crew to run her properly.
The helideck is the centre of the yacht in more ways than one. When the helicopter is away it becomes a full-size sports court – the pickleball net goes up over the touchdown circle, and there is a basketball hoop rigged off the superstructure. It is the rarest thing on a charter yacht: a genuinely large flat outdoor space that is not furniture.
Below that, the interior is restrained and warm rather than showy. Mlinaric, Henry and Zervudachi worked in pale linens, blue and white stripe, teak and understated marine art, and the result reads more like a well-travelled house than a yacht interior. The main deck lounge curves along the beam with a wraparound sofa beneath a continuous run of windows. A deck up, a second lounge sets two long blue sofas facing each other across a pair of low tables and opens directly onto the aft deck.
Her wellness provision is unusually serious. The gym is a real one – a full rack of dumbbells, a cable machine, an olympic bar and plates, benches, all built into a room with proper headroom rather than squeezed into a lobby. Alongside it sits a treatment room with a massage table, and a steam room in the spa area. There is a dedicated cinema with a wall-width screen, and a study for anyone who has to work.
Accommodation covers twelve guests across eight cabins. The owner’s suite opens onto its own private balcony over the water – breakfast without leaving the room. The guest cabins are generously sized for a yacht carrying only twelve, and one converts between twin and double, which makes her flexible for mixed groups.
Watersports are run off the stern rather than squeezed in as an afterthought. Diving is a proper programme here, with the compressor and kit stowed on a dedicated platform at the waterline, and a sportfishing tender that works the drop-offs off Central America. Between dives there is a jacuzzi with sun pads alongside, an aft deck laid out for shade rather than sun, and enough deck across three levels that twelve guests are rarely in the same place at once.
She works Central America – Belize, Costa Rica and the Pacific coast of Mexico – and crosses to the Caribbean and Bahamas for the winter. It is not a conventional charter circuit, and it suits her: this is a yacht built to reach places rather than to be seen in the same three harbours.
For a group that wants remote coastline, a serious gym, a cinema, a sports court and a helicopter on the roof, there is a very short list of yachts that can do all of it. PLANET NINE is on it.
