W-Magic

A Three Year Build, a January Launch

Construction on hull 3093 began at Zwartsluis in 2022. Megayacht News reported a run of about two and a half years of construction to the January 2025 launch, a figure that lines up with Boat International's own account of an early 2022 start; a separate brokerage account describes the whole project, design phase included, as a four year build. Vitters marks the same week in January 2025 as three separate milestones: the hull rolled out of the Zwartsluis build shed on 3 January, was craned into the water at the yard's Amsterdam site on 7 January, and had her 62 metre Southern Spars carbon mast stepped the following day.

That sequence, shed to water to rig in under a week, is standard Vitters practice for a hull of this size and reflects a yard that still launches by water rather than road for anything over about 40 metres. The project carried the yard assigned number Project 3093 through construction and only took the name Magic, later styled W-Magic in some yacht directories, once she was substantially complete. Project engineer Jan Albert de Jonge, who oversaw the build, described the appeal of the job in terms familiar to anyone who has followed a Vitters project from drawing board to delivery: starting from naval architecture lines and an owner's brief and watching a finished, sailing yacht emerge from them.

Aluminium Hull, Hydraulics Built In-House

W-Magic is built in aluminium, hull and superstructure both, rather than the carbon fibre Vitters has also used on yachts like Sarissa, a choice that suits a cruising sloop built for long range comfort over stripped weight racing performance. At 44.3 metres length overall, 9.66 metres beam and a 4.80 metre draft on a fixed keel, she carries a gross tonnage in the region of 304 to 308 depending on which registry figure is used, putting her toward the smaller end of Vitters' large sloop output next to yachts like the 55 metre Marie or the 86 metre ketch Aquijo.

Sail handling runs through hydraulic systems Vitters developed in-house for the blade, staysail and additional headsails, controlled by push buttons at the helm stations or a handheld remote, so the yacht can be sailed shorthanded without a large foredeck crew. Two submarine anchor systems sit forward, a peak shaving battery bank gives around eight hours of silent, generator free operation at anchor and a full length deckhouse skylight was built into the superstructure specifically to carry daylight down into the saloon below, a detail Boat International singled out in its first look at the finished interior.

She's very easy to operate, with very little effort required from either crew or owner at the helm.

Reichel/Pugh Lines and What the Sea Trials Showed

Naval architecture and exterior styling both came from Reichel/Pugh Yacht Design, the California firm better known in this size range for maxi racing yachts, here applied to a cruising brief: a trim, grey hulled profile with a modern, glazed superstructure rather than the more traditional lines of some earlier Vitters sloops. The rig is Southern Spars carbon, standing 62 metres off the water, carrying a North Sails 3Di wardrobe and Harken winches, with sail area quoted at 1,098 square metres upwind and 1,684 square metres downwind on the biggest reaching sails.

On sea trials in the North Sea off Amsterdam in early 2025, Magic returned 10 to 11 knots upwind in around 8 knots of true wind and 14 to 16 knots beam reaching in 15 to 18 knots true wind, figures reported independently by SuperyachtTimes and Boat International from the same trial period. Under power alone, a single 592 hp MAN diesel and twin 55kW generators give a claimed 12 knot top speed and 9 knot cruise, with an estimated range around 3,000 nautical miles, numbers that matter on a yacht built as much for ocean passages as for regatta starts.

Design Unlimited Inside, Pieter Laureys' Styling

The interior is a joint credit between Design Unlimited, the British studio, and stylist Pieter Laureys, with List handling execution and fit-out. Ten guests sleep across five cabins, headed by a full-beam owner's suite aft with dual walk-in wardrobes, a private study and a Botticino marble en suite. Four further guest cabins include a children's bunk cabin, and crew quarters for seven are finished to a standard matching the guest areas rather than treated as an afterthought.

Wood panelling runs through the interior in a contemporary rather than traditional register, lit by the deckhouse skylight and by an open-plan saloon and formal dining area that opens by sliding glass doors onto a covered aft cockpit. On deck, a sunbathing pad and two separate outside dining and seating areas spread the guest space fore and aft, and the transom folds down into a beach club platform near the waterline, the kind of swim and tender access that has become close to a baseline expectation on a new build sloop this size.

Sea Trials, Delivery, and a Fast Trip to the Brokerage Market

Vitters' own build log puts handover in February 2025, immediately after the January sea trial period, and Megayacht News reported the same February delivery date citing the yard directly. Boat International's later coverage of the completed sea trials, published as the yacht was already under way to Cascais in Portugal, suggests the final handover and passage slipped somewhat later into the spring, which would not be unusual for a first of type custom yacht completing trials in winter North Sea conditions. Either way, delivery landed within weeks of the figure both the yard and the trade press first quoted.

Delivery captain Barnie Smith, quoted by Boat International after running her, described a yacht built to be sailed by a small crew rather than manhandled: very easy to operate, he said, with very little effort required from either crew or owner at the helm. That match between the hydraulic, push-button sail plan and the trial reported handling is one of the few pieces of independent, on the water testimony available for a yacht barely months out of build.

A One-Off, Priced Like One

Custom sloops in the 40 to 50 metre range almost never carry a public build price, and Vitters is no exception: nothing on the yard's own site or in its press materials states what W-Magic cost her original owner to commission. The one number in public view is a brokerage asking price, not a build cost: Burgess listed her for sale at 41.9 million euro not long after delivery, a figure that reflects a complete, delivered, sailed-in yacht rather than a newbuild contract price, and the two are not directly comparable.

The reason for the sale is unusually well documented for a private custom yacht: the owner's family grew during the design and build process to the point that a larger motor yacht, a Heesen, suited them better than the sloop he had commissioned, according to Boat International's brokerage report. That leaves W-Magic in the unusual position, for a yacht this fresh out of build, of being close to off the shelf rather than requiring a fresh multi-year commission of a new hull.

Design

Para quién es: An owner who wants a delivered, sea-trialled aluminium performance sloop with push-button sail handling and true offshore range, available now rather than as a fresh multi-year commission.

Precio orientativo: No public build price exists for a one-off Vitters commission this size. The only published figure is a post-delivery brokerage asking price of 41.9 million euro through Burgess, quoted after the original owner's family outgrew the sloop and moved to a larger Heesen motor yacht.