Aquarius
| LOA 56 m, launched 2017, delivered early 2018 | |
| Naval architecture by Dykstra, interior by Mark Whiteley | |
| St Barths Bucket winner 2019 and 2022 | |
| ISS Best Sail 40 m+ and overall Best Interior 2019 | |
| Robb Report Best of the Best sailing yacht 2019 | |
| 8 guests in 4 cabins with split-level owner's suite | |
| Crew of 9, Rondal rig | |
| Successor Aquarius II, 65 m, delivered to the same owners in 2025 |
An elegant brief, precisely executed
The owners asked Dykstra Naval Architects and Royal Huisman for an elegant yet muscular sailing yacht with a classic profile, equally suited to crossing oceans with family aboard and lining up at a Bucket regatta. It is the most demanding kind of brief because it forbids extremes, no raceboat rawness, no motorsailer softness, just balance held at 56 metres.
Dykstra delivered a ketch whose spoon bow, counter stern and low deckhouses could pass for a design from the 1930s, sitting on an entirely modern underbody with a tall, efficient Rondal rig. The reference points are the great classics, but nothing beneath the waterline is nostalgic, and her regatta record settles any doubt about which era her performance belongs to.
Proven where it is hardest to hide
Aquarius won her class at the St Barths Bucket in 2019 and repeated the result in 2022, racing against the strongest large sailing yachts in the world. Bucket results are the closest thing the superyacht world has to an honest benchmark, same water, same wind, crews that include professional sailors, and a classic-styled family cruiser beat the fleet twice.
The trophy shelf filled quickly ashore as well. In 2019 she took Best Sail 40 m+ and the overall Best Interior at the International Superyacht Society awards, and Robb Report named her its Best of the Best sailing yacht the same year. For a yacht conceived around family cruising, the sweep across performance and design honours is the strongest possible validation of the original brief.
A classic-styled family ketch that won the St Barths Bucket twice, then sent her owners back to order a bigger one.
Whiteley's interior, a family home at sea
Mark Whiteley arranged the accommodation for eight guests in four cabins, headlined by a split-level owner's suite, with a private deckhouse and cockpit reserved for the owner's party. A large deck salon, a media room and a fully equipped gym complete a layout drawn for long months aboard, and a crew of nine runs the yacht without friction.
The finish is the point of difference. Whiteley's paneling and furniture were executed in Vollenhove's own joinery halls, where cabinetmakers spend careers on this standard, and the natural light through the deckhouses gives the interior a warmth photographs undersell. It is a home that happens to win regattas, which was precisely the commission.
The owners came back for more
The clearest verdict on Aquarius arrived as an order. Her owners returned to Royal Huisman to commission Aquarius II, a 65 metre ketch delivered in May 2025, with the stated ambition of repeating the original yacht's Bucket-winning form at a larger scale. The first Aquarius has since passed to new owners and sails on as Apsara. In an industry where satisfaction is measured in repeat business, a bigger sister ship is the highest score available.
That continuity also tells buyers how the yard works. The team, the design office and the spar maker that delivered the first yacht carry directly into the second, compounding everything learned. Royal Huisman's order book has been shaped this way for decades, generations of owners building their next boat with the same people who built their last.
The case for a modern classic
Classic-styled yachts carry a risk, the look can outrun the substance. Aquarius is the proof that it need not, a yacht photographed for her beauty and remembered for her results. In the brokerage conversation that dual identity is valuable, she appeals to romantics and racers at once, and yachts with both constituencies hold their value.
For an owner considering a commission in the 50 to 60 metre sailing band, Aquarius is the reference for what Dykstra, Whiteley and Vollenhove produce together, a boat that crosses oceans with children aboard in April and beats professionals around the cans in March. Few yachts of any size have ever done both so convincingly.
Motores y sistemas
| Auxiliary engine | A single MTU 8V2000M72 diesel rated at 720 kW (about 965 to 996 hp depending on the rating standard quoted), giving roughly 16 knots under power and a 10-knot motoring cruise, per Yacht.de's technical rundown and corroborated by YachtCharterFleet's listing for the same hull. |
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| Fuel and water tankage, range under power | 24,000 litres of fuel and 9,500 litres of fresh water, giving a motoring range of about 4,000 nautical miles at 10 knots. Both figures appear on Yacht.de and on YachtCharterFleet's listing, though the latter mislabels the unit as gallons rather than litres. |
| Generators and watermaker | Two Northern Lights generators at 70 kW each and a 13,000 litre per day HEM watermaker, per Yacht.de's technical rundown. No second source was found to corroborate the generator brand or watermaker output, so treat this as reported rather than independently confirmed. |
| Thrusters, keel and rig | A fixed 4.80 metre draught keel and spade rudder, chosen over a deeper lifting keel because, per the naval architect quoted in Yachting World, a lifting keel 'quickly stops being practical' for a yacht meant to reach harbours like St Barths, not just to race. Two hydraulic thrusters rated at a combined 110 kW are listed by Yacht.de, though the manufacturer it names could not be confirmed elsewhere. The rig is a Rondal carbon mast and boom package with Rondal/Carbo-Link continuous rigging, an air draught of 58.5 metres and a reaching sail area of about 2,200 square metres (520 sq m mainsail, 440 sq m mizzen, 430 sq m blade headsail), figures given consistently by Dykstra Naval Architects' own design page and by Yachting World's reporting. |
Lo que cuentan armadores y tripulaciones
The owners rate her a perfect 10 for satisfaction
Interviewed by Superyachts.com and separately by Yacht.de, the owners said Aquarius is a 10 out of 10 for their satisfaction, that she sails gracefully and powerfully, and that from 12 to 15 knots she sails beautifully and is near-perfect on beam reaches. They called owning her a dream come true.
Superyachts.com and Yacht.deCaptain praises her handling despite her size
Captain James Turner told Yachting World that with the correct sail plan Aquarius is a delight on the helm, responsive with weight to the wheel, and that contrary to what her length and volume suggest she feels lively, forgiving and almost playful.
Yachting World
Lo bueno y lo que conviene vigilar
Puntos fuertes
- A genuine dual identity, proven twice at the BucketAquarius won her class at the St Barths Bucket in both 2019 and 2022, racing against dedicated performance yachts, while also being built and used as a family cruiser. The owners logged 11,000 nautical miles within five months of handover, per Yachting World, showing the boat is sailed hard rather than kept for show.
- Owner and captain accounts agree with the awardsBoth the owners, quoted by Superyachts.com and Yacht.de, and captain James Turner, quoted by Yachting World, independently describe the same qualities the judging panels rewarded: powerful, forgiving handling and elegant looks that do not compromise performance.
A tener en cuenta
- Classic overhangs cost real interior volumeYachting World's review notes that with roughly 50 feet of bow and stern overhangs, there is far less usable internal volume than a yacht of this length would normally offer, and fitting the accommodation and systems into that low-volume hull took, in the designers' own account, a huge and iterative effort across four parties.
- The keel was chosen for harbour access, not maximum performanceDykstra deliberately fitted a fixed 4.80 metre keel rather than a deeper lifting keel because a lifting keel becomes impractical for a yacht meant to enter shallower harbours such as St Barths, per Yachting World's reporting. That is a sensible trade-off for the brief, but it does mean Aquarius gives up some of the pointing ability a dedicated raceboat of her size would have.
Información práctica
| Price | No original build price was ever published. Now sailing as Apsara after a change of ownership, she is currently listed for sale at EUR 52,000,000 through brokers including Burgess and Arcon Yachts. |
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| Delivery | Launched in 2017 and handed over to her first owners in early 2018, per Royal Huisman and Dykstra Naval Architects. |
| Used market | One example exists. She has since changed hands and is on the brokerage market today as Apsara, undergoing works at STP Shipyard Palma, per YachtBuyer's and Burgess's current listings. |
| Not published | The original build price, independent confirmation of the generator and watermaker specification, and any on-the-record confirmation of who owns her today under either name. |
Para quién es: The owner who wants timeless looks with a racing record to match, a family passage-maker that competes at the Bucket and wins.