Francesco Paszkowski has drawn more Sanlorenzos than anyone else alive, and TAKARA ONE is a good place to see why the partnership works. She is 37.95 metres, delivered in 2016 and refitted in 2020, and she does the thing Paszkowski does best: she reads as one continuous space from the swim platform to the sundeck, without the stacked, tiered feeling that yachts of this length often carry.
The main deck is the clearest example. Aft, a shaded dining terrace opens through full-height glass into a saloon that runs almost the full length of the deck – a long ivory sectional to port, a woven ottoman at its centre, a coral blue rug underfoot and a fold-down balcony in the starboard topside that swings out over the water. Forward of a slatted timber screen, the same volume becomes the formal dining room: a marble table for ten in scarlet leather chairs, lit from both sides. The screen divides without closing, so the room breathes.
Her interior palette is warmer than most Italian yachts of the period. Teak, bronze mirror and dark lacquer are held in check by the sheer amount of glass, and the effect at anchor in the Dodecanese – which is where she spends her summers – is closer to a house on the water than a cabin.
The foredeck is her signature. A round moulded jacuzzi with contoured seats and jets sits in a raised teak surround at the bow, flanked by two large sunpads and a pair of low tables. It is the private end of the boat, and on a 38-metre with twelve guests aboard, having somewhere the group is not is worth a great deal.
Accommodation runs to five cabins. The master is forward on the main deck with a king bed, a long window at eye level from the pillow, a desk and an adjoining office. Two VIP doubles sit below, mirrored port and starboard, each with a full-length desk, a shell-shaded wall light and its own bathroom in stone and glass. Two twins with Pullman berths complete the layout and take her to twelve, which is what makes her work for two families travelling together rather than one.
Above, the skylounge bar folds open onto the shaded deck through glass doors – marble top, mirrored shelves, stools – and the sundeck beyond carries loungers, a bar and a dining table under a hardtop. Three separate places to eat outdoors is generous at this length.
She cruises at eleven knots and reaches seventeen, on MTU power, with 3,000 nautical miles of range and 314 gross tons of volume. The toy list is unusually complete for a yacht her size: a 9.9-metre Technohull tow tender, jet skis, e-foil, Seabobs, a sea pool, wakeboards, waterskis and inflatables, run by a crew of seven.
Her season is the eastern Mediterranean – Rhodes and the Greek islands in summer, Beirut in winter – and she is priced from 115,000 a week. That base matters more than it sounds. Rhodes puts the whole Dodecanese chain within a morning, and the crossing to the Turkish coast is short enough to make a two-country week practical rather than ambitious.
For a group of twelve who want Italian design, a real foredeck retreat and a boat that has already been softened by nine seasons of charter, she is a straightforward recommendation.
