Kasper 7: the 36-hour brief that remade a 67m spec Benetti
Reopening a spec hull
Kasper 7 began as a Benetti spec project, already in the early stages of construction when Karim and Nisrine Karagulla bought it during the pandemic as the successor to their 18-year-old Benetti Classic. The first decision was the purchase itself: take the delivery slot a spec hull offers, then treat the design as still open. Benetti delivered the 1,250 GT yacht in 2023.
Exterior designer Giorgio M. Cassetta and the yard's project manager sat down with the owners early in the project, and in an intense 36 hours the group settled window modifications and a long list of layout changes. BOAT International reports that nearly everything was developed in that sitting, which tells a buyer where the leverage sits: before steelwork closes the options, with every decision-maker in one room.
Steel and glass decisions
The most visible call was the glazing. Nisrine Karagulla, founder of the interior architecture firm Askdeco, scrapped the planned rows of vertical and horizontal windows and specified two round portholes of 1.9 metres in diameter, with smaller round ones for the lower deck. "I thought it would look nice if I gave it a vintage look," she told BOAT International.
The bulwarks came down too, reduced in height on the main and upper decks to pull in light and the view. These are structural changes with cost and schedule attached, and Kasper 7 shows they can still be won on a hull already in build. Custom awnings in citrus-yellow and white stripes, drawn from Mediterranean parasols, carried the same decisiveness into the soft kit.
The discipline of subtraction
Inside, the sharpest decisions are removals. The cinema lounge that shares the upper deck with the owner's suite holds the only television on board, and mirrored surfaces are deliberately scarce. The dining room sits forward on the main deck, set around a pink resin table by the artist Wonmin Park with seating for 14 and a sculptural bar by the studio Sayar & Garibeh.
The jury at the 2025 BOAT Design & Innovation Awards gave Kasper 7 Best Interior Design among motor yachts of 500 GT and above, and the 67-metre also took Best Naval Architecture for displacement motor yachts. For an owner writing a brief this season, the working lesson is plain: the trophies went to a set of early, specific decisions, and every one of them is the kind you can put in a contract.