Gulf Craft began in 1982 when Emirati businessman Mohammed Alshaali, frustrated by what it cost to ship an American fishing boat to the Emirates, decided with his brother to build boats at home instead. More than four decades and over 10,000 hulls later, the company he founded counts among the world's top ten superyacht shipyards and sits at the table of SYBAss, the association of the industry's leading builders.
The heart of the operation is a 462,000 square foot production complex in Umm Al Quwain, one of the largest yacht building facilities anywhere, supported by a second yard in the Maldives and a service centre in Ajman. Everything from hull lamination to joinery happens in-house, which is rare at any size and rarer still outside Europe.
Majesty is the flagship marque, a ladder that climbs from an 18.4 metre flybridge cruiser to the 56.4 metre Majesty 175, with each rung engineered so an owner can move up without leaving the family. The Superyacht Collection, from 100 feet upward, is where the yard competes directly with the Italian semi-custom houses on volume, finish and delivery time.
Nomad is the explorer line, a fleet of what the yard calls SUVs of the sea. These are semi-displacement hulls drawn for genuine passage making, with the range figures and fuel capacity to back the styling. Between them the two lines cover both moods of ownership, the marina statement and the horizon chase, from one production system.
Most builders abandon fibreglass long before 40 metres and switch to steel. Gulf Craft kept going, refining resins, coring and lamination until it could mould the Majesty 175, the largest composite production superyacht in the world at her 2021 delivery. Composite construction keeps weight down, which shows up where an owner feels it, in shallower draft, higher speed for the installed power and lower fuel burn.
The shallow draft matters more than the record. A composite Majesty draws far less water than a steel yacht of similar volume, which opens the Gulf's sandbanks, the Maldivian atolls and the Bahamas in a way most 50 metre yachts cannot follow.
The yard keeps a large in-house design and naval architecture studio, then brings in outside eyes where they sharpen the product. Cristiano Gatto Design in Italy shapes the big Majesty flagships, Dutch studio Phathom has redrawn the recent generation from the Majesty 111 to the Nomad 101, and hull specialists such as Van Oossanen and Andrew Wolstenholme have contributed the naval architecture beneath the newest models.
The results have been collecting hardware, including World Yachts Trophies for the Majesty 111 and Majesty 60 and an International Yacht and Aviation Award for the Majesty 175. The days when Gulf styling was a regional taste are over, and the order book now spans Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Gulf Craft builds fast. The first Majesty 145 went from contract signing to finished 45 metre superyacht in about a year, a timeline the established European yards rarely match at that size. For an owner, that compresses the least enjoyable part of yachting, the wait, and the semi-custom platform still leaves real latitude on layout and interior finish.
The yard's home water is also a strategic advantage. With Gulf ownership growing quickly and the builder's service operations concentrated in the Emirates and the Maldives, a Majesty or Nomad owner cruising the region is never far from the people who built the boat.
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