Soaring
| 68.2 m LOA, 11.6 m beam, 1,541 GT | |
| Delivered 2020, steel hull with aluminium superstructure | |
| Exterior and interior by Focus Yacht Design | |
| Eagle-beak bow, scalloped glazing, orange boot stripe | |
| Owner's deck with private aft terrace and observation library | |
| Beach club with gym, spa and steam room | |
| Twin MTU engines, 16 knots top speed | |
| 12 guests in six cabins, crew of 17 |
Built to be recognised
The owner's instruction for Soaring was refreshingly direct, a yacht that would never be confused with any other vessel on the horizon. Focus Yacht Design answered with a sculpted bow the yard describes as an eagle beak, rows of scalloped window reveals cut into the superstructure, and a single line of bright orange at the boot stripe, a signature visible across an anchorage.
Individuality at this scale usually costs coherence, and the skill in Soaring is that it does not. The details resolve into a balanced, athletic profile, and the German build quality keeps the sculptural surfaces fair under harsh light. She proved the yard could deliver personality as convincingly as the restraint it is known for, on a hull sized for genuinely private cruising.
One studio, one voice
Focus Yacht Design, the Bremen-based studio, carried both the exterior and the interior, keeping the design voice consistent from the bow detail to the cabin joinery. Inside, the mood is contemporary and light, arranged for 12 guests in six cabins with a crew of 17 in support, proportions that keep service ratios high without pushing the yacht into a larger operating class.
The interior architecture leans on connection to the water, with the scalloped windows reading from within as sculpted frames around the seascape. Public spaces flow from a main saloon aft through dining to sheltered exterior lounging, the practical Mediterranean pattern executed with unusual care. It is a yacht drawn by one hand throughout, and guests feel that unity even when they cannot articulate it.
The brief was a yacht that could never be mistaken for another. One glance at the bow settles it.
The owner's private deck
Soaring's defining luxury is separation. The master suite occupies the aft end of the upper deck, opening through sliding doors onto a private terrace over the water, with no guest traffic crossing the space. Forward on the same deck sits a library and observation lounge reserved for the owner, a quiet room facing the horizon that most 68 metre yachts simply do not offer. Together the two spaces bracket the deck into a genuine private apartment.
This geography turns the yacht into two worlds, a sociable main deck for guests and an upper level where the owner can withdraw entirely while remaining aboard his own party. For owners who live on their yachts for weeks, that arrangement matters more than any single amenity, and it is the feature charter guests with ownership ambitions remember after a week aboard.
Wellness at the waterline
At the stern, the lower deck opens into a beach club with a gym, spa and steam room stepping almost directly onto the swim platform, the modern arrangement that moves daily life down to the water, where a 68 metre platform is at its most generous. Above, the sundeck carries a bar, jacuzzi and sunpads, giving the yacht the full vertical spread of leisure spaces her volume allows.
Twin MTU engines drive her to 16 knots with a 14 knot cruise, conventional, quiet and supportable anywhere. At 1,541 GT on an 11.6 metre beam she is the most manageable yacht in this library, large enough for a full programme and small enough to reach harbours and bays the 80 metre fleet must anchor outside, a trade many experienced owners consciously seek.
A 2020 delivery that held its nerve
Soaring was delivered in 2020, arriving into the strangest year the industry has known, and went on to build a strong charter and cruising record regardless. The delivery itself, completed as the world closed around it, became a small demonstration of Lemwerder's operational discipline, the quality that rarely makes brochures and always makes reputations.
She has since traded on the brokerage market and now sails under the name Starlust, extending the pattern that runs through this whole fleet, Abeking & Rasmussen hulls find buyers. For a prospective owner she represents the yard's craft at its most personal scale, a fully custom German yacht with a face all her own and an owner's deck that larger vessels struggle to match.
Engines and systems
| Engines | Two MTU 12V4000 M65R diesels, confirmed by name and model across three independent sources. Power is reported at roughly 2,000 hp (1,492 kW) each by most brokers, against 2,029 hp each in one listing, a minor rounding discrepancy rather than a real disagreement. |
|---|---|
| Speed | Top speed is reported consistently at 16 to 16.5 knots. Cruising speed is genuinely disputed between 12 knots, given by Boat International's 2023 sale report and several charter listings, and 14 knots, given by the original 2020 delivery coverage and other brokers. |
| Range | Most sources agree on approximately 4,500 nautical miles at 12 to 13 knots. One listing instead gives 6,000 nautical miles, an outlier not corroborated elsewhere. |
| Fuel and water capacity | Fuel capacity of 203,000 litres is confirmed independently by two sources. Freshwater capacity of 39,000 litres appears only in one listing and could not be independently corroborated. |
| Stabilisers, thrusters and generators | Zero-speed, at-anchor capable active fin stabilisers are confirmed directly by a broker listing; the specific brand attribution circulating in aggregated search results could not be confirmed against a second named source. Bow thruster output, and generator make, model and output, are not published on any source checked, including the builder's own page. |
| Tonnage | Gross tonnage is unsettled across sources, ranging from 1,420 GT to 1,541 GT depending on the listing, with no single figure presented as definitive. |
| Guests and crew | 12 guests in six cabins with 17 crew, consistent across essentially every source checked. |
What owners and crew report
No verified owner, crew or charter-guest commentary located
Research turned up only builder and press-office design narratives, such as Focus Yacht Design's description of the brief, and brokerage listing copy. No first-person, named owner, captain or charter-guest review of living aboard, performance or service was found.
Yotters research desk
What is good, and what to watch
Strong points
- A deliberately unmistakable exteriorThe owner's brief was explicitly for a silhouette that would not be confused with any other yacht on the horizon. Focus Yacht Design's scalloped windows, orange boot stripe and eagle-beak bow are consistently singled out by Boat International, Robb Report and Yacht Harbour as her defining feature.
- A full-custom build at a top-tier yardSteel hull and aluminium superstructure by Abeking & Rasmussen, with naval architecture carried in-house and classed to Lloyd's, not a semi-custom or series hull.
- An owner-centric layout with independent design recognitionA dedicated owner's deck with private aft terrace and forward library, plus a water-level gym and wellness centre with direct sea access, built around a stated owner brief rather than generic superyacht boilerplate.
What to watch
- Inconsistent published specificationsGross tonnage is reported anywhere from 1,420 GT to 1,541 GT depending on the listing. Cruising speed is given as both 12 knots and 14 knots with no source reconciling the two, and range is similarly split between 4,500 and 6,000 nautical miles. A buyer or charter guest cannot rely on any single brokerage's numbers as definitive.
- Modest performance for her sizeTwin MTU 12V4000 diesels at roughly 2,000 hp each give a top speed of only 16 to 16.5 knots and a cruise of 12 to 14 knots, unremarkable for a 68 metre yacht, and there is no independent sea-trial writeup to corroborate ride quality or handling beyond builder- and broker-sourced figures.
- Opaque beneficial ownership since resaleThe Cayman Islands flag and the disagreement between trackers on who currently owns her mean the ownership question is a real transparency gap for anyone vetting the vessel, not a design flaw but material due diligence context.
Practical detail
| Sale and rename | Sold in March 2023 and renamed Starlust. Boat International reported the sale closed on 22 March 2023 as an in-house deal by Ocean Independence brokers Peter Hurzeler and Daniel Kupfer. The asking price had been reduced by 10 million euros in October 2022 to 88 million euros; the actual transaction price was not disclosed. One brokerage still shows a stale 105 million euro asking figure from before the sale, a reminder of how unreliable published asking prices become once a yacht changes hands quietly. |
|---|---|
| Current status | Ocean Independence's own listing now marks her sold and not currently available for sale. At the same time, at least two charter specialists actively market her for private charter under the Starlust name, which is normal once a new owner elects to charter rather than a contradiction. |
| Charter rate | 700,000 to 750,000 euros per week plus expenses, consistent between Boat International's directory and YachtCharterFleet's listing. Cruising grounds are given as the Mediterranean and Greece in summer and the Indian Ocean, Maldives and Southeast Asia in winter, with one current listing placing her in the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf. |
| Ownership since resale | Beneficial ownership is not disclosed by the yard or any broker, and she is flagged in the Cayman Islands, a jurisdiction commonly used to keep ownership off public record. Trackers disagree on who has held her: SuperYachtFan names the original 2020 to 2023 owner as Ivan Shabalov, a Russian pipe-manufacturing executive, and separately names a different individual as the post-2023 owner. None of these attributions is confirmed by the registered owner, and this page does not repeat the more serious, single-source allegations that circulate around her post-2023 ownership, since they could not be corroborated against a second named source. |
| What is not published | The build cost, the actual 2023 sale price and the true beneficial owner are all undisclosed. Published technical specifications also disagree across brokers, so there is no single canonical spec sheet in the public domain. |
Questions owners ask
How big is the Abeking & Rasmussen Soaring?
68.2 m LOA, 11.6 m beam, 1,541 GT. Delivered 2020, steel hull with aluminium superstructure.
Who is the Abeking & Rasmussen Soaring for?
An owner who wants a fully custom Abeking & Rasmussen at a personal, manageable scale, with privacy engineered into the deck plan.
What is the Abeking & Rasmussen Soaring good at?
A deliberately unmistakable exterior. The owner's brief was explicitly for a silhouette that would not be confused with any other yacht on the horizon. Focus Yacht Design's scalloped windows, orange boot stripe and eagle-beak bow are consistently singled out by Boat International, Robb Report and Yacht Harbour as her defining feature.
What are the drawbacks of the Abeking & Rasmussen Soaring?
Inconsistent published specifications. Gross tonnage is reported anywhere from 1,420 GT to 1,541 GT depending on the listing. Cruising speed is given as both 12 knots and 14 knots with no source reconciling the two, and range is similarly split between 4,500 and 6,000 nautical miles. A buyer or charter guest cannot rely on any single brokerage's numbers as definitive.
What do owners and crew report about the Abeking & Rasmussen Soaring?
Research turned up only builder and press-office design narratives, such as Focus Yacht Design's description of the brief, and brokerage listing copy. No first-person, named owner, captain or charter-guest review of living aboard, performance or service was found. (Yotters research desk)
Who it is for: An owner who wants a fully custom Abeking & Rasmussen at a personal, manageable scale, with privacy engineered into the deck plan.