Cantiere delle Marche Delivers a Fourth Yacht Called Ammonite

What is the new Ammonite, and who built it?

Ammonite is the fourth hull of Cantiere delle Marche's Nauta Air 110 explorer line, a 33.1-metre steel-hulled, aluminium-superstructure yacht delivered from the yard's Ancona facility in September 2026 to Marcus and Caroline Blackmore.

The yacht measures 33.07 metres overall on a 29.63-metre waterline, with a 7.55-metre beam and a 2.35-metre draught at full load, displacing 250 tonnes. Cantiere delle Marche, the Ancona yard behind the Nauta Air and Darwin explorer ranges, launched the hull on 1 July 2026 and completed sea trials and outfitting over the following two months before handover. Exterior and interior design is by Nauta Design, the Milan studio whose name the model line carries; naval architecture and engineering is by Hydro Tec. Twin Caterpillar C18 Acert diesels of 533kW each drive the yacht to a top speed of 13 knots, with a cruising range the yard states at 4,000 nautical miles at 10 knots.

"We are particularly thrilled to announce the launch of this yacht because the Owner ... is a true sailor and explorer himself," said Vasco Buonpensiere, Cantiere delle Marche's CEO, at the July launch. Nauta co-founder and CEO Massimo Gino called the build "one of those wonderful projects where the relationships bring out the best in everyone." Both statements point to the same fact underlying the story: this is not a first-time buyer testing an unfamiliar yard, but a repeat client the builder already knows well.

Why do the Blackmores keep naming every yacht Ammonite?

Marcus and Caroline Blackmore have now owned four vessels called Ammonite - three Southern Wind sailing yachts before this one - and the new Nauta Air 110 is reported as the couple's third Nauta-designed commission, making the delivery a continuation of a two-decade relationship rather than a first purchase.

Marcus Blackmore is the Sydney businessman who spent four decades running Blackmores, the vitamins and supplements company his father Maurice founded in 1938 and grew into Australia's largest natural-health brand, now owned by Japan's Kirin Holdings. Away from the company he and his wife Caroline built a genuine offshore sailing record: a succession of Southern Wind yachts, each named Ammonite, that raced in major regattas and cruised routes from the fjords of Alaska to the remote archipelagos of the South Pacific. The couple's first Ammonite was a 25-metre Southern Wind; their second, a 29-metre sister ship delivered years later, kept the same name rather than starting a new one, a habit the new 33-metre Nauta Air 110 now extends to a fourth hull. That history is the context an owner-focused reader needs to weigh what this delivery means - it is not a couple buying their way into yachting, it is two experienced blue-water sailors choosing to move from sail to a long-range motor explorer for the next chapter.

The switch itself is a data point worth reading plainly. An owner who has spent twenty years under sail, and who could specify anything afloat, chose a modest-displacement steel explorer with a 13-knot top speed over a faster, flashier motor yacht of the same length. That choice tracks a broader pattern Cantiere delle Marche has built its business on: sailors and long-range cruisers moving to power without giving up the seakeeping, range and self-sufficiency they valued under canvas. Yotters could not confirm a purchase price; Cantiere delle Marche does not publish sale figures for its custom builds, and neither the yard nor the owners had disclosed one as of publication.

What can Ammonite actually do at sea?

On the yard's own figures, Ammonite can cross most ocean basins on a single bunker at 10 knots and berth ten guests in five cabins, but her 13-knot top speed and 2.35-metre draught set firm limits on both how fast she moves and where she can anchor.

A stated range of 4,000 nautical miles at 10 knots covers, for context, roughly the distance from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean with fuel to spare, or the Mediterranean end-to-end and back without refuelling - the kind of passage-making the Nauta Air line is built around rather than an incidental extra. The 250-tonne full-load displacement and steel-hull, aluminium-superstructure construction are the same combination used across Cantiere delle Marche's Darwin and Nauta Air ranges specifically for the added strength and lower centre of gravity that long, exposed passages call for, at the cost of the outright speed a planing hull of the same length would offer.

Below decks, the yard specifies accommodation for ten owners and guests plus two pullman berths across five cabins, with crew quarters for five in three further cabins - a ratio that favours guest space over the larger crew complements some explorer yachts carry. Fuel capacity is 42,970 litres, fresh water 6,480 litres, with 8,400 litres of black and grey water tankage, figures that back up the range claim and point to genuine autonomy rather than a number pulled for a spec sheet. None of these figures come from an independent sea trial; they are the yard's own, and Yotters could not find a published third-party test of this hull as of publication.

What does Ammonite's spec sheet leave out?

The yard's figures are strong on range and construction but say nothing about outright performance in a seaway, resale history for the Nauta Air line, or independent verification of any number quoted - gaps a buyer considering the same model should close before signing.

A 13-knot top speed is slow set against almost any planing motor yacht of comparable length, and an owner shopping this segment for speed rather than range is shopping the wrong boat. The 2.35-metre draught, while shallow for a yacht of this displacement, still rules out the very shallowest anchorages that a smaller explorer or a shoal-draught catamaran can reach. And because Ammonite was delivered only this month, there is no independent owner or charter report yet, no third-party sea trial, and no resale data point for the Nauta Air 110 specifically - only the yard's and the design studio's own launch statements, both understandably positive.

What the record does offer is provenance: four hulls of the same model delivered inside roughly four months, on top of the earlier Nauta Air 110 sold to Blackmore in 2024 and a prior hull named Mimi la Sardine, suggests a design the yard can now build repeatably rather than a first-of-type still working out faults. For a prospective owner, that production maturity, plus a buyer with two decades of relevant experience choosing this yard again, is a more useful signal today than any performance number Cantiere delle Marche has not yet had independently tested, and the surer bet for anyone shopping this size of explorer this year.