Cloudbreak

• 75.28 m LOA, 12.4 m beam, 2,308 GT
• Delivered 2016 after four years of development
• Exterior by Espen Oeino, interior by Liaigre
• Large certified helipad for heli-ski operations
• Range about 8,500 nm, top speed 15 knots
• 12 guests in six staterooms, crew of 22
• Sauna, massage room and plunge pool
• Full surf, dive and expedition toy inventory

An explorer built around two obsessions

Most explorer yachts are styling exercises wearing crossover clothes. Cloudbreak was commissioned around a concrete programme, chasing surf breaks across remote oceans and flying to untouched snow, and every major decision aboard serves it. The name itself belongs to one of the world's most famous waves, the Fijian break surfers cross oceans to reach. Four years of development with the yard went into making that programme workable at 75 metres, and the length of that gestation shows in how naturally the vessel wears her role.

The evidence is operational. A large certified helipad dominates the foredeck for the heli-ski missions, the garages swallow a quiver of surfboards, kiteboards, wakeboards, kayaks and full scuba equipment, and the crew complement of 22 includes the specialist support that expedition guests require. She was built to loiter for weeks off coastlines that have no marinas, and she has spent her career doing exactly that.

Espen Oeino's working envelope

The exterior comes from Espen Oeino, the most experienced explorer designer working, and it shows in the priorities. A high, capable bow, a mast and superstructure arranged around the helideck, long sheltered deck runs and a transom organised for water access in open sea. The look is rugged and purposeful, and it earned her a distinct identity in a fleet of white wedding cakes.

Oeino resisted the temptation to disguise the yacht's working character, and the honesty pays off visually. Cloudbreak photographs like a vessel with somewhere to be. For owners weighing an explorer, her exterior is a useful benchmark of what a serious brief looks like when a designer respects it, seakeeping first, silhouette second, and a profile that still manages considerable elegance.

Named after a wave, interior like an alpine lodge, and 8,500 miles of range to connect the two.

A chalet below decks

The interior belongs to the Paris house Liaigre and takes its cues from alpine lodges, muted natural textures, dark timber, leather and stone in place of the lacquer and marble of the Mediterranean fleet. The trade press reached instinctively for the phrase ski chalet, and the description fits. After a day in the water or on a glacier, guests come back to warmth.

Twelve guests sleep in six staterooms, supported by a sauna, massage room and a plunge pool positioned for the view. The contrast between the rugged envelope and the soft interior is deliberate and complete, and it resolved a problem most expedition yachts fail at, being genuinely comfortable to live aboard during the long passages that real exploring involves.

Range as the core specification

Cloudbreak's headline number is 8,500 nautical miles at cruising speed, drawn from twin Caterpillar engines that push her to 15 knots flat out. That range places the entire Pacific within reach between bunkerings, which is precisely what a surf-and-snow itinerary requires. Her 2,308 GT of volume rides on a 12.4 metre beam across the 75.28 metres the trade directories now list, a shade over the 72.5 reported at her delivery, with steel below and aluminium above.

The seakeeping that makes such passages tolerable comes from the same naval-architecture office that designs the yard's pilot vessels for the North Sea. Guests judge a yacht in the anchorage, crews judge it in a seaway, and Cloudbreak's reputation among professional crew is as strong as any vessel in this library. For an expedition owner, that is the reference that matters.

The charter-proven expedition asset

Cloudbreak has maintained a high-profile charter career, marketed to guests who want the surf, dive and heli-ski programme with the crew infrastructure to deliver it safely. Expedition charter is a small and demanding niche, and she effectively defines its upper end. The revenue is real, and so is the operational shakedown that continuous chartering forces on a yacht and her systems.

As an asset class, true explorers of this calibre are scarce, and scarcity has protected their values as the wider market discovered remote cruising. Cloudbreak offers a buyer or charterer the rare combination of a genuine expedition capability, a Liaigre interior and an Abeking & Rasmussen build file. No other yacht in the fleet carries all three, and imitations have a way of revealing themselves in the first real sea.

Pour qui: An owner whose itinerary is written by waves and snowfields, and who needs a yacht that treats the programme as seriously as the interior.