Amer's first steel explorer runs 8,900nm at 60 litres an hour

Delivered, and already off Corsica

Even Further was delivered on 23 July and is already working the Corsican coastline. She started life as the Amer Steel Explorer 41, shown as a project at the 2022 Monaco Yacht Show, and reached the water this summer as the 41.45-metre Amer 42 Explorer. She is the first steel hull the Amer yard has built and the founding boat of its new custom line.

Luiz de Basto drew both the exterior and the interior. Naval architecture is by the Italian studio Optima Design, a third credit most of the coverage has left off. The hull is steel with an aluminium superstructure, and she measures 486 GT on a displacement of 440 tonnes.

Four engines so that two can be switched off

Explorers at this size almost always run twin diesel shafts. Even Further instead carries Volvo Penta's Professional Platform, four D13 engines coupled to two IPS40 pod drives. That is the pod thinking Amer has used on its smaller composite yachts, scaled up to a 440-tonne steel hull for the first time.

The reason for four smaller engines instead of two large ones is the eco mode. In it only two of the four are engaged, so the pair that are running sit near their efficient load instead of loafing at a fraction of it. A conventional twin-shaft explorer cannot do that. It has to throttle both big diesels well below their best point to reach the same speed.

The range number, and whether it holds up

On initial open-sea trials the yard recorded 60 litres of diesel an hour in eco mode at 9.5 knots. Fuel capacity is 56,300 litres and Amer puts the range at 8,900 nautical miles. Cruising speed is 14 knots and top speed is 16.3.

The arithmetic behind that claim is checkable, which is not always true of range figures. At 60 litres an hour, 56,300 litres is about 938 hours of running, and 938 hours at 9.5 knots is about 8,900 nautical miles. It assumes dry tanks and a flat sea, so it is a ceiling and not a passage plan, but it is not a number pulled out of the air.

Built to go cold, and to carry things

The hull is built to Ice Class standards with a high bow for open water. Twin 8,000-kilogram cranes are integrated into the superstructure for launching and recovering tenders and toys, so dive gear and a serious chase boat are not a compromise. There is a touch-and-go helipad forward.

Volume goes into living as well as into range. The flybridge runs about 17 metres, more than 40 per cent of the length overall. At 486 GT she also sits under 500, which keeps her clear of the heavier crewing and survey band that begins above that line.

Why Amer moved to steel

Even Further is a double first, the yard's first steel hull and the opening boat of a new custom line. Amer, part of the Permare group, has spent years selling fuel economy on composite yachts. Chief executive Barbara Amerio dates the strategy to the late 1980s, long before efficiency became an industry talking point, and argues it now reads as an advantage for owners and charter operators facing higher fuel costs.

For a buyer the choice is the whole point. A steel explorer that burns like a far smaller boat, and can be built to order, is a different proposition from the shaft-driven norm at this length. Even Further is not for sale, so the real test of the line is what the yard books in behind her.