Kensho
| LOA 75.2 m, gross tonnage 1,989 GT | |
| Steel hull with aluminium superstructure, four decks | |
| Diesel-electric propulsion, twin Veth azimuth drives, five variable-speed generators | |
| Top speed 15.9 knots, range about 4,500 nm at 13 knots | |
| 16 guests in 8 cabins, crew of about 23 | |
| Interior by Jouin Manku, exterior by Azure Yacht Design with archineers.berlin | |
| Motor Yacht of the Year, World Superyacht Awards 2023 | |
| Delivered July 2022 |
The build that changed the brand
Kensho left the Marina di Carrara sheds in July 2022 as the most ambitious yacht Admiral had ever delivered, a 75.2 metre, 1,989 GT displacement yacht in steel and aluminium across four decks. Her name comes from a Zen term for a first glimpse of one's true nature, and the owner ran the project with that idea in mind, assembling a design team from outside yachting and asking the yard to build around their thinking instead of the industry's habits.
The results were recognised almost immediately. In 2023 Kensho was named Motor Yacht of the Year at the World Superyacht Awards, and she took Best Interior Design for motor yachts of 500 GT and above at the Boat International Design and Innovation Awards. Six major trophies in a single season is rare for any yard, and for an Italian builder outside the usual shortlist it was a statement heard across the market.
An interior by Jouin Manku
The interior came from Jouin Manku, the Paris studio of Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Manku, best known for hospitality work with Alain Ducasse. Kensho was their first yacht, and it reads that way in the best sense. Spaces flow in curves, materials are handled with a restaurateur's sense of atmosphere, and a sculptural staircase and lift core links the decks like the centrepiece of a private hotel.
The owner's accommodation is a full-beam suite with a bathtub cut from Carrara marble, quarried within sight of the yard that built the hull. Guest accommodation runs to eight cabins for sixteen, looked after by a crew of around twenty three. The beach club opens to an aft-facing pool, and the exterior styling, by Azure Yacht Design with archineers.berlin, wraps it all in soft curved glass and a blue-green metallic hull colour developed for the boat and named after her.
Kensho is the hull that put Marina di Carrara on the same shortlist as the Dutch and German yards.
Quiet, clean running
Under the waterline Kensho is as unconventional as she is above it. Propulsion is diesel-electric, with two Veth permanent-magnet azimuth drives fed by five variable-speed generators, so the boat makes exactly the power she needs at any moment and no more. The hull was drawn to minimise resistance around the azimuth pods, with retractable stabilisation flaps in place of conventional fins, and the whole package was designed to the ECO notation of the classification societies.
Performance is genuinely useful for a yacht of this volume. Top speed is 15.9 knots, cruising pace sits around 13.6 knots, and range runs to roughly 4,500 nautical miles at 13 knots, enough to cross the Atlantic in comfort. More telling for life on board is the silence. Electric pods and distributed generation mean vibration levels a shaft-drive yacht cannot match, which owners tend to value more with every season they live with it.
Living on board
Kensho was conceived for long stays on board, and the layout shows it. Sixteen guests spread across eight cabins, with the owner's deck arranged for privacy and the main deck given over to social space. A helipad handles arrivals, a lift connects the decks, and the wellness and beach club areas at the waterline are scaled like those of a considerably larger yacht.
The exterior decks carry the same thinking. Curved glass bulwarks keep sightlines open from the interior, terraces step down towards the water, and the aft pool anchors a beach club that functions as the social heart of the boat at anchor. It is a yacht arranged around how a family actually uses a 75 metre platform in the Mediterranean summer, and charter-style show spaces were never the point.
The reference Admiral
For a prospective Admiral client, Kensho matters less as an individual boat than as proof of capability. She demonstrated that Marina di Carrara can deliver a fully custom, technically novel 2,000 GT yacht to a standard that wins against the best of the Netherlands and Germany, and do it with a first-time yacht design studio on board. That is precisely the risk profile a custom buyer needs to see retired before signing.
She also anchors the brand's value story. Kensho has since appeared on the brokerage market with a reported asking price around EUR 124.5 million, and her award record travels with her. Owners considering the GC-Force line or an ultra-custom project will find that every conversation with the yard eventually returns to this boat, and with reason. She is the standard the rest of the fleet is now measured against.
Motoren und Technik
| Propulsion | Diesel-electric: five variable-speed diesel generators totalling about 3.5 MW combined, feeding twin Veth azimuth thrusters through permanent-magnet electric motors of roughly 1,911 hp each. Corroborated across independent technical write-ups (Navis Yachts, nautechnews.it); one BOAT International directory entry instead lists "three Caterpillar diesel electric engines," which conflicts and reads as a simplified or erroneous directory field rather than a second real source. |
|---|---|
| Classification / ECO notation | The diesel-electric plant earns an ECO class notation; no source named the classification society specifically, so it is reported here as unconfirmed rather than assumed. |
| Stabilisers | Retractable fins, described by the builder's technical partner as designed to minimise hull drag; brand and model not disclosed. |
| Hull / structure | Steel hull, aluminium superstructure, teak decks. LOA about 75.2m, beam 12.8m, draft 3.4m, 1,989 GT, consistent across sources. |
| Speed and range | Top speed reported between 15.4 and 16 knots depending on source (treated here as about 16 knots), cruise 13 to 13.6 knots, range 4,500 nautical miles at 12 to 13 knots. |
| Tankage | Fuel about 144,600 to 145,000 litres and fresh water about 49,800 litres, both from a single technical listing and not independently corroborated. |
| Watermaker, thrusters, engine room | Not published by any source found. |
Was Eigner und Crew berichten
The owner's own reason for an unconventional brief
"I wanted to do something really new, something better from my point of view, and I knew that would be possible only with a radical and disruptive move."
Udo Mueller, owner (quoted by BOAT International)The designers' description of taking on their first yacht
"Like explorers, we approached Kensho with the enthusiasm and freshness of yachting novices, balanced with a vast expertise in creating deeply personal works."
Jouin Manku, interior designers (their first yacht commission)Crew continuity as a stated point of pride
"A crew that has worked together for a long time starts to feel like a family," and the design and atmosphere on board are what the captain names as what sets her apart.
Thor Einarsson, captain (interview with Y.CO)The exterior engineer's own read on the asymmetric ribs
"It reminds you of an element of something that is living, organic."
Holger Schulze-Seeger, archineers.berlin (exterior engineering)
Was gut ist und worauf zu achten ist
Stärken
- Two verified industry awardsKensho won Motor Yacht of the Year (the Neptune Trophy, displacement yachts 1,500 GT and above) at the 2023 World Superyacht Awards, and separately won Best Interior Design at BOAT International's Design and Innovation Awards the same year.
- A design team built from outside yachting, as the owner asked forJouin Manku's first yacht commission for the interior, paired with archineers.berlin on the exterior engineering, produced a silhouette that departs from the usual tiered profile - exactly the outside-industry brief the owner has said he wanted.
- Diesel-electric propulsion built for quiet, flexible runningFive variable-speed generators feed twin Veth azimuth thrusters through permanent-magnet motors, earning an ECO class notation and load-following efficiency that a fixed-shaft plant cannot match at partial load.
- Crew continuity the captain names as a differentiator"A crew that has worked together for a long time starts to feel like a family" - captain Thor Einarsson, in a Y.CO interview, citing retained senior crew since delivery as central to service quality.
Worauf zu achten ist
- A design that genuinely divides opinionThe unconventional, non-tiered silhouette has drawn enough comment that at least one widely-viewed video is titled "Polarizing Megayacht Design! Motor Yacht Kensho" - thin evidence on its own, but a real, findable signal that the look is not universally loved.
- Guest, cabin and crew numbers disagree across sources that should agreeBuild-era press (2022) reported 16 guests in 8 cabins and a crew of about 19-20; current charter marketing lists 12 guests in 6 suites with a crew of 21-23. The likely explanation is convertible crew/guest space between owner and charter configuration, but no single source reconciles the two, which is itself a gap a prospective charterer should know about before booking.
- No detail on the diesel-electric plant's real-world trade-offsNo source discusses efficiency at cruise versus top speed, the weight or space penalty of the generator-and-motor arrangement, or redundancy if a generator fails - a genuine information gap, not filled in here.
Praktische Angaben
| Charter rate | 900,000 to 1,100,000 euros a week plus expenses, split between low and high season (YachtCharterFleet). |
|---|---|
| Asking price | Listed for sale at 124,500,000 euros (BOAT International). A separate 2026 report cited a 145,000,000 US dollar figure that could not be independently verified; treat only the BOAT International figure as confirmed. |
| Running costs | Estimated at roughly 11,000,000 US dollars a year by one aggregator (SuperyachtFan), an industry rule-of-thumb figure rather than a vessel-specific published cost. |
| How to charter or buy her | Marketed through Y.CO, Christie Yachts, Denison Yacht Sales and TWW Yachts among others; itineraries run the Mediterranean in summer and the Caribbean and Bermuda in winter. |
| What is not published | The original build cost, a single reconciled guest/crew configuration (charter marketing states 12 guests and 6 suites; build-era press stated 16 guests and 8 cabins), and watermaker specification. |
Für wen: The owner who wants a full-custom Italian flagship with award-grade design credentials and a proven low-emission engineering package, and who values quiet running over headline speed.
Richtpreis: Reported on the brokerage market with an asking price around EUR 124.5 million in published listings. The original build cost was never disclosed.