Special One

• LOA 52 m, 499 GT, six decks
• Largest true sportfish yacht in the world
• Design, naval architecture and interior by Vripack
• Top speed over 30 knots, twin MAN diesels
• Alustar aluminium construction
• Certified for HVO renewable fuel
• Sportfish input from Pascarelli Consulting and Bush and Noble
• Delivered June 2024, Monaco Yacht Show debut

A category invented at 52 metres

Sportfish boats traditionally stop around 30 metres, where the demands of speed, agility and a low cockpit collide with weight. Special One's owner, a passionate fisherman, wanted the genre at superyacht scale without losing the fishing. Royal Huisman and Vripack Yacht Design answered with a 52 metre vessel that trade press across the board describes as the world's largest true sportfish yacht.

The proportions keep the faith. A long bow and high bulwarks sweep through a clear sheer down to a low, uncluttered cockpit aft, the working end of any real sportfisher, while six decks rise forward of it. She reads instantly as a sportfish boat, just one seen through the wrong end of a telescope, and that fidelity to the genre is what makes the project remarkable.

The physics problem

Making a six-deck, 52 metre yacht run past 30 knots and still measure under 500 gross tons was the kind of challenge many in the industry considered impossible, and it is why the commission came to Vollenhove. The yard built her in Alustar aluminium with the weight discipline of its racing sailboats, because every saved tonne feeds directly into speed, agility and the tonnage arithmetic.

Twin MAN diesels drive her past 30 knots flat out, with a 14 knot cruise for covering ground to the fishing grounds. She is also certified to run on hydrotreated vegetable oil, with her designer citing a reduction in CO2 emissions of over 90 percent against conventional diesel, a meaningful figure on a boat built to chase fish across entire oceans.

A 52 metre sportfisher that tops 30 knots under 500 gross tons, a build many in the industry considered impossible.

Fishing credentials, not fishing decoration

The owner's team salted the project with genre specialists, Pascarelli Consulting and the sportfishing experts at Bush and Noble, to keep the boat honest. The cockpit, tackle arrangements and tower were developed as working equipment for big-game fishing, engineered to the same standard as the rest of the vessel. This is a yacht meant to raise marlin, and the specification never treats fishing as a theme.

That authenticity matters to the audience she was built for. The world's serious sportfishing owners are a tight community with sharp eyes for imitation, and Special One's reception, capped by her Monaco Yacht Show debut in 2024, established her as the real thing at a scale nobody had achieved. She created her market segment and currently owns all of it.

Vripack inside

Vripack drew the naval architecture, exterior and interior as one integrated project, and the interior answers the family half of the brief. The Dutch studio worked in walnut joinery, Italian marble and bespoke furnishings, an understated luxury that would sit comfortably on any 500 GT motoryacht, spread across interior and exterior spaces on six decks.

The layout swings between two lives. On passage and at anchor she is a family superyacht with the volume, service spaces and finish of her class. When the fishing starts, the aft cockpit and tower take over and the yacht becomes a tool. Very few vessels of any size manage a genuine dual identity, and hers was the entire premise of the build.

What she signals

For Royal Huisman, Special One was the second act, after PHI, in proving the yard's mastery beyond sail, and the more audacious of the two. A shipyard that can deliver the world's largest sportfisher at 30 knots and 499 GT can engineer essentially anything an owner imagines, which is precisely the message a full custom yard wants its flagship projects to send.

For owners, she redraws the map of what is commissionable. Categories that seemed fixed, the sportfisher, the expedition boat, the fast sloop, are all open to reinvention at superyacht scale by a yard with the engineering nerve to attempt it. Special One is the standing proof, and the reason her name keeps appearing in every conversation about one-of-one builds.

Para quién es: The owner who fishes seriously and refuses to choose between a true sportfisher and a family superyacht.