AB Yacht Design's 92m Project Always Lets an Owner Split the Suite

A Deck That Changes Its Mind

Aristotelis Betsis, founder of AB Yacht Design & Naval Architecture, unveiled Project Always on 18 August as a 92-metre concept whose defining feature is not a hull shape or a propulsion system but a single deck that can be built two different ways. The private owner's deck, set above the yacht's social spaces, can be configured either as one continuous master suite spanning the full beam or split into two equally sized master staterooms sharing the same footprint. Both versions keep the same proportions, the same privacy, and the same uninterrupted sea views; only the internal walls change.

That single decision point matters more than it sounds. A full-custom yacht at this size typically locks an owner into a layout the moment naval architecture and structural drawings are frozen, usually a year or more before steel is cut. Betsis is proposing to keep that one variable open later into the build process, so an owner who starts the project as a couple can still end it with a second master suite for a grown child, a co-owner, or a charter guest paying full rate for the best cabin on board, without redrawing the yacht.

The Numbers Behind the Restraint

Project Always is drawn at 92 metres overall with a 15.2-metre beam and a 3.8-metre draught, a beam-to-length ratio on the generous side for a yacht this length, which typically buys more stability at anchor and more usable width for the flexible suite layout to actually work. The design is rated for 18 guests across nine staterooms in its private configuration, but the concept is also drawn to a commercial layout carrying up to 36 guests, effectively doubling capacity by adding berths rather than staterooms.

Crew provision is set at 35 across 21 crew quarters, a ratio that reads as generous even by large-yacht standards and signals a build aimed at five-star hotel service rather than a lean private-use crew. The tender garage is sized for a 10-metre limousine tender alongside a 9-metre adventure RIB, with room alongside for a full water-toy inventory: WaveRunners, Seabobs, e-foils and Jetsurfs. A 12-metre D-value helipad sits forward, sized for a mid-size executive helicopter rather than a light utility aircraft.

Betsis's Case for Adaptability

AB Yacht Design & Naval Architecture built its reputation on the AB 95 series, delivered performance-focused motor yachts with a 50-knot top speed and a first unit already in the water, so Project Always is a step up in both size and ambition into full-custom explorer-and-entertainer territory. The studio's pitch for the concept is explicitly about how the yacht is lived in rather than how it looks from a chase boat: an aft pool terrace that runs straight into a beach club with direct water access, a main-deck wellness area with spa facilities opening onto the pool and sea lounge, and social spaces concentrated on the upper deck for panoramic entertaining.

The exterior itself is deliberately restrained: sculpted surfaces, expansive glazing and layered decks with broad overhangs creating shade across multiple levels, rather than the aggressive styling some yards use to signal size. The bet is that owners shopping at 90 metres-plus increasingly want a yacht that photographs well but is chosen for how the layout actually works day to day, and that a design studio offering naval architecture in-house, rather than outsourcing it to a separate firm, can move faster when an owner wants to change a variable like the suite configuration late in the process.

What Project Always Is Not, Yet

Project Always has no shipyard attached, no named client, no price and no delivery date. It is a design-studio concept in the literal sense: a set of drawings and renders that exist to attract a commission, not a yacht under contract. That distinction matters for anyone reading the coverage as a launch. AB Yacht Design & Naval Architecture is a design and naval architecture practice, not a builder, so a client who wants Project Always built still has to place the design with a yard capable of a 92-metre full-custom aluminium or steel hull, a list that narrows quickly to a handful of European builders with open slots for a project this size.

Carrying more than 12 guests, the concept's stated upper configuration of up to 36, also pushes the project toward the Large Yacht Code and equivalent passenger-vessel safety rules that apply once a yacht is certified to carry more than 12 people commercially, a compliance step that reshapes structural fire zones, evacuation routes and crew certification and is not addressed anywhere in the concept material published so far. None of that makes the idea less useful to a prospective owner; it means the flexible-suite pitch is the starting point for a negotiation with a yard and a class society, not a finished specification.

A Crowded Season for Concepts

Project Always lands in the middle of an unusually dense run of design-studio reveals ahead of the Monaco Yacht Show: Edoardo Ridoli's 70-to-80-metre Genesis surfaced a day earlier on 17 August, RMK Yachts split its Livia concept into three separate owner lifestyles on 20 August, and ER Yacht Design's 110-metre Untouchable arrived without a yard attached earlier in the month. For an owner actually in the market, that clustering is useful information in itself: it means more studios than usual are competing for the same handful of commissions, which historically gives a prospective client more room to negotiate on design fees and timeline before a yard is even chosen.

It also means comparison shopping is easier than it has been. Where Genesis leans on a fast-displacement hull and a sporty profile, and Untouchable pitches itself as a modern gentleman's yacht at 110 metres, Project Always is the one making its case almost entirely on interior flexibility rather than exterior styling or outright speed. Which pitch converts into an actual signed contract will not be visible from the outside; design studios rarely confirm a commission until a keel is cut, and several of this season's concepts may never be built at all. What is visible now is that AB Yacht Design has staked its version of the pitch on a single deck that can be built two ways, and left everything else about the project, including who might build it, unanswered.