Athena

• LOA 90 m, gross tonnage 1,103 GT
• Three-masted gaff schooner, around 2,500 sq m of sail
• Naval architecture by Dykstra Naval Architects, styling by Pieter Beeldsnijder
• Aluminium hull and superstructure, teak decks
• Rondal rig with in-mast and in-boom furling, carbon gaffs
• 10 guests in 5 staterooms, crew of 20
• Range 4,000 nm at 10 knots under power
• Delivered 2004, refits at Huisfit and Lurssen

The commission that changed the yard

When the order for Athena arrived, Royal Huisman was known for sailing yachts in the 30 to 50 metre band, built with a watchmaker's discipline. The new project asked the same discipline at nearly twice the length. At 90 metres overall and 1,103 gross tons, Athena was a step into genuine ship territory, with a crew of twenty and systems closer to a small liner than to anything the yard had launched before.

Vollenhove absorbed the challenge in aluminium, the material the yard had been refining since 1964. Hull and superstructure are both aluminium, which kept the enormous structure light enough to sail properly and gave her the longevity the alloy is prized for. The build proved that Huisman quality was not a function of size, and every large Huisman since has walked through the door Athena opened.

A clipper for the modern age

Dykstra Naval Architects, the Amsterdam office behind the world's great modern schooners, shaped the naval architecture, while Pieter Beeldsnijder gave her the long counter stern, sweeping sheer and varnished detailing of a golden-age yacht. The result reads as a classic from a distance and resolves into something far more capable up close. Her underbody and appendages are contemporary, which is why a 90 metre yacht from 2004 still sails on her lines.

The rig is the showpiece. Three masts from Rondal carry around 2,500 square metres of sail, handled with in-mast furling for the topsails and in-boom furling along carbon fibre gaffs. That hardware means this vast gaff schooner can be worked by her professional crew without a hundred deckhands, a piece of quiet engineering that makes the romantic silhouette practical.

At her 2004 delivery Athena was reported as the largest private sailing yacht in the world, and she still defines Royal Huisman at ship scale.

Life aboard a private ship

Athena accommodates ten guests in five staterooms, generous numbers by sailing yacht standards, arranged with the calm, paneled warmth Beeldsnijder was known for. Her 12.2 metre beam gives the interior real volume, deckhouses pour in an unusual amount of daylight for a schooner, and the sheltered cockpits and long teak decks offer the kind of outdoor living that large motor yachts spend millions trying to imitate. Twenty crew keep the operation seamless, hotel service on a vessel that is fundamentally a sailing machine.

She is also a genuine passage maker. Under power she ranges 4,000 nautical miles at 10 knots, and under sail she has recorded speeds approaching 19 knots. Athena has crossed oceans routinely since delivery, which is the point of a schooner at this scale, the world becomes reachable in silence, with the machinery of a ship and the manners of a yacht.

Kept young by the people who built her

A yacht of this size is judged by how she ages, and Athena has been maintained like a national monument. She has returned to the group's own Huisfit refit operation, emerging from a major program gleaming, and has also undergone refit work at Lurssen in Germany. Trade press has tracked her through brokerage listings over the years, and through every cycle her condition has been described as exceptional.

For a prospective owner that history matters more than any brochure. A twenty-year-old aluminium Huisman with a documented refit trail is a known quantity, surveyable to the rivet, with a builder still standing behind the drawings. Very few 90 metre sailing yachts exist at all, and none carries a cleaner paper trail.

Why she still matters

Athena sits in the tiny club of sailing yachts above 80 metres, alongside a handful of names that collectors recite from memory. Scale alone does not put a yacht in that club, the combination of size, pedigree and beauty does, and Athena has all three. She is the flagship reference for the entire Royal Huisman portfolio, the proof point buyers are shown when they ask what the yard can really do.

As an asset she occupies a market of one. There is no production comparable, no sister ship, and no realistic way to replicate her today without a nine-figure commitment and half a decade of patience. Owners who want a classic profile with modern bones at the absolute top of the sailing world will find the shortlist begins and mostly ends here.

Para quién es: The owner who wants the definitive modern classic schooner, a private ship with true ocean range and a place in sailing history.