Alloy Yachts built VESPER to a brief that few 40-metre motor yachts answer: the seakeeping of a much larger displacement hull, the range to cross an ocean basin, and the shallow draft to work anchorages a bigger boat has to admire from outside. The judges agreed. She took Best Power 24m-40m at the 2009 International Superyacht Society Awards, and after a 2022 refit the reasoning still holds.
Her lines are Dubois – long, low, faintly naval, with an unbroken sheer that reads purposeful rather than decorative. Hull and superstructure are aluminium, the configuration semi-displacement, and the numbers behind the styling matter: 14 knots at cruise, 16 flat out, and 2,400 nautical miles in reserve. She is a 299-tonne yacht that behaves like something heavier in a sea.
Donald Starkey drew the interior, and it has aged unusually well. Dark macassar joinery frames rooms that are otherwise light – pale upholstery, cream leather panelling, glass and polished nickel – so the yacht never feels closed in. The main deck lounge runs the full width of the hull, wrapped by windows deep enough to put the coastline at eye level from the sofa. Forward, a dining table for twelve sits under the same run of glass, laid on ebony with the sea alongside.
Accommodation covers twelve guests across five cabins. The master takes its own stretch of the main deck and reads closer to an apartment than a stateroom: the bed, then a separate sitting area, then a study with a proper desk, then a walk-in wardrobe and a stone-lined shower en suite. Below, two doubles and two twins share the lower deck. One twin carries a pullman berth, and that single detail is what takes her from ten sleeping guests to twelve without anyone drawing the short straw.
What sets her apart on charter is how much of the yacht faces outward. The main deck aft converts between formal dining and a cocktail lounge in the time it takes the crew to move a table. The sun deck carries a jacuzzi, a curved bar and a shaded dining setting on one level. The foredeck is a second, quieter deck entirely – sun pads, no traffic. And the tender garage has been converted into a gym that opens directly onto the water, so a morning session ends with a swim rather than a corridor.
The toy inventory is led by a 12.5-metre Novamarine BS120 chase tender, new for summer 2025 – a serious boat in its own right, and the reason VESPER can lie at anchor somewhere quiet and still put guests ashore in minutes. Jet skis, seabobs, paddleboards and towables fill out the rest.
She works the eastern Mediterranean through the summer – Croatia, Montenegro and the Greek islands – then crosses for the Caribbean season, where much of her current photography was shot beneath the Pitons of St Lucia. Seven crew run her, a generous ratio at this size, and it shows in the service.
For charter parties who want a yacht that moves properly, anchors close in and never feels like a scaled-down version of something larger, VESPER is a precise answer.
