Amaryllis

• 78.4 m LOA, 12.4 m beam, 2,108 GT
• Delivered 2011, final hull of the four-yacht 78 m series
• Exterior and interior by Reymond Langton
• Twin Caterpillar 3516 engines, 2,000 hp each
• 16 knots top speed, 5,500 nm range at 12 knots
• 12 guests in six suites, crew of 19
• Sundeck spa pool, gym and treatment room
• Long international charter record

The series that opened the modern era

Amaryllis was the last of four sisterships, a 78 metre series drawn by Reymond Langton that began with Eminence in 2008 and continued through C2 and Titan before closing with her delivery in 2011. When the run started, Abeking & Rasmussen was respected in yachting but hardly spoken of alongside the Dutch giants. Four yachts of near 80 metres in four years, all of evident quality, changed the conversation about a yard most buyers had associated with pilot boats and naval work.

The timing carried its own message. Amaryllis was built straight through the aftermath of the financial crisis, a period that ended several storied yards and delayed projects across the industry. Lemwerder delivered her on the strength of a diversified order book that never depends on yachting alone. Owners noticed that resilience, and the decade of major commissions that followed, Secret, Romea, Cloudbreak, Aviva, Elandess, Excellence, traces directly back to the series.

Reymond Langton's double act

Reymond Langton designed Amaryllis complete, exterior and interior, an early example of the single-studio approach the yard would repeat on Aviva. Outside she is a classic profile executed with unusual finesse, a long white hull with a gentle sheer, balanced superstructure and none of the visual bulk that afflicts many yachts of her volume. She photographs like a larger vessel carrying herself lightly.

The interior is where the project became famous. Richly detailed and unapologetically opulent, it was executed with a density of custom furniture, marquetry and hand finishing that placed her among the most elaborate interiors of the period. Taste this individual is a choice, and it was the owner's to make. What the yacht demonstrates is the German yard's ability to build whatever level of craft the brief demands.

Guests book her to live inside the interior for a week. Surveyors respect what sits beneath it.

A guest platform that still competes

Amaryllis sleeps 12 guests in six suites, led by a full owner's apartment, with a crew of 19 running the ship. Her guest spaces flow across generous deck areas to a sundeck with a spa pool, and the amenity set, gym, spa treatment room, cinema-equipped saloon spaces, matches yachts a class above her length because the 12.4 metre beam carries volume where it counts.

She has spent long periods on the international charter circuit, where her interior became a genuine draw, guests booking the yacht specifically to live inside it for a week. Charter exposure is the harshest audit in yachting, and Amaryllis has passed it for over a decade. For a buyer, that record converts a decorative reputation into evidence of a fundamentally sound, well-run vessel.

Caterpillar sense beneath the finery

Below the waterline Amaryllis is entirely rational. Twin Caterpillar 3516 engines of 2,000 horsepower each drive her to 16 knots flat out, cruise her at 14 and stretch her range to around 5,500 nautical miles at 12 knots. A steel hull and aluminium superstructure follow the yard's invariable recipe, built to Germanic tolerances and classed for worldwide service.

The mechanical conservatism is why she endures. Caterpillar support exists in every ocean, the systems are legible to any competent chief engineer, and the hull was faired and painted to a standard that has kept her looking current through multiple paint cycles. Yachts age in the engine room and the bilges long before the salon shows it, and hers were built by people who also answer to admiralties.

What she offers an owner today

Amaryllis has been offered on the brokerage and charter markets through leading international houses, which makes her a rare accessible entry into Abeking & Rasmussen ownership at close to 80 metres. A new build of her scale at Lemwerder is a four-year commitment. She exists now, surveys as a 2011 German hull tends to survey, and carries a proven charter business with her.

Her interior will suit some buyers exactly and others will plan a restyle, a routine calculation at this level where the asset underneath justifies it. Either way the fundamentals hold, pedigree hull, documented history, worldwide-supported machinery and a name that surveyors respect. As the final hull of the series that opened the yard's modern chapter, she also carries a place in the builder's story that later yachts cannot claim, and provenance of that kind never leaves a vessel.

Für wen: A buyer seeking near-80 metre Abeking & Rasmussen pedigree on the open market, with one of the most celebrated interiors of its decade.