Darwin 115

The founding line, grown to full size

Every CdM story starts with the Darwin Class, the Sergio Cutolo and Hydro Tec design that carried the yard's first delivery in 2011 and its first hundred-footer, the Darwin 107 Storm, in 2015. Thirteen Darwins have been launched since the beginning, and the current ladder runs 86, 102 and 115 feet, with the 115 at the top since 2021.

The design language has barely moved in fifteen years, and deliberately so. Bluff bow with a bulb below, high freeboard, upright superstructure, masts and davits that look rated for work because they are. In a market that has since filled with explorer-styled fashion statements, the Darwin remains the reference the imitators are measured against.

Hull one, stretched by a good idea

The first 115 was conceived at 34 metres and grew to 35 during design, because the owner wanted an enclosed swim platform aft and the yard's answer was to lengthen the boat around the request. That sequence, brief first and dimensions second, is how CdM handles custom work, and the 115 wears the extra metre invisibly in its balanced profile.

She launched in August 2021 in Ancona and was handed over that year, with exterior and naval architecture by Cutolo's studio and interiors by Nauta Design, the Milan practice behind the yard's Nauta Air line. The palette is calm and practical, drawn for an owner who measures a boat by how it feels on day forty of a passage. Nauta's involvement also tied the two halves of the catalogue together, the studio behind the Nauta Air line finishing the flagship of the Darwin one.

Conceived at 34 metres, delivered at 35, because the owner wanted an enclosed swim platform and the yard stretched the ship around it.

Eight guests, one apartment

The accommodation takes the unfashionable position that fewer, bigger cabins beat a maximised guest count. Eight guests sleep in four cabins, led by a full owner's apartment forward on the main deck with the kind of glazing, wardrobe volume and office space normally found ten metres further up the size ladder. A VIP and two twins with Pullman berths sit below, so grandchildren and guests are covered without diluting the owner's own quarters.

The trade is deliberate and the right buyers recognise it immediately. This is a couple's or a family's boat for long stretches aboard, with guest capacity for holidays, and the space per person at sea is exceptional for 35 metres. Crew quarters and galley circulation follow the yard's usual separated, workable pattern.

Five thousand miles on a pair of C18s

Twin Caterpillar C18 diesels drive the 115 to a 13 knot maximum, with 5,000 nautical miles available at ten knots. The steel hull, 7.7 metre beam and the line's trademark deep tankage do the work, and the running costs at passage speed embarrass most 35 metre yachts, because the installed power is roughly half of what a semi-planing rival carries. Tankage, not fashion, dictates the proportions, and the payoff arrives every time a forecast forces a long rerouting.

The engine room continues the Darwin tradition of being the best room on the boat by an engineer's standards, full height, logically piped, with every filter and pump reachable without yoga. The lazarette can be configured as dive centre, fishing station or workshop, the same menu the line has offered since hull one in 2011.

The temperament question

At 35 metres CdM now offers two answers, this and the Deep Blue 115. Capability is near identical, range, tonnage discipline and build quality all shared, so the decision is character. The Deep Blue is expressive and sculptural, while the Darwin is understatement in workwear, a yacht whose glamour is that it plainly does not need any. Both share the yard's class standards and the same Ancona build halls, so the sea trial and the mood board, not the spec sheet, decide it.

Owners who choose the Darwin tend to keep them, and the used market reflects it, with early hulls held for long ownerships and selling quickly on the rare occasions they surface. As the flagship of the founding line, the 115 carries the purest version of the identity the whole brand is built on.

What is confirmed and what still varies

Only one Darwin 115 has actually been delivered: the 2021 launch Buzios, even though Cantiere delle Marche has built thirteen Darwin Class yachts in total across its 86 to 115 foot range. That rarity cuts both ways for a buyer. Gross tonnage for the model is reported anywhere from about 310 to 330 GT, with one broker listing over 400 GT that no other source corroborates, and displacement is reported between roughly 290 and 350 tonnes depending on whether it is light-ship or full load. A new-build price of about EUR 19,200,000 appears in broker aggregation citing the yard, but it is a single-sourced starting figure that excludes extras, taxes and owner's supply, so treat it as indicative rather than fixed.

What is well corroborated is the story behind hull one. CdM co-founder Vasco Buonpensiere said of the sale: 'we are glad this experienced owner decided to entrust us to build his Darwin and proud of the confidence he has placed in our team.' Naval architect Sergio Cutolo called the 115 'the biggest of the Darwins, the first Darwin,' noting an 86-footer had launched exactly ten years before it, and press coverage describes the owner as passionate about fishing, with the stern platform configured as a cockpit for it. No independent sea trial or first-person owner interview specific to the 115 has been published, so everything above the waterline still rests on shipyard and broker material rather than outside testing. The nearest like-for-like alternative from another yard is the Bering 115; within CdM's own range the Deep Blue 115 offers near-identical capability in a more sculptural style.

Para quién es: An owner who wants the definitive CdM character piece, values space per person over cabin count, and plans the kind of remote itineraries the Darwin has been drawn around since 2011.