Moonshot, Tansu's 39m Explorer, Sells at EUR 8.95m Asking

What is Moonshot and why has she carried three names?

Moonshot is a 39.1-metre, 295 GT explorer-style motor yacht built by Tansu Yachts in Turkey and delivered in 2017, sold in a deal that closed between 21 and 24 August 2026 at her published asking price of EUR 8,950,000.

BOAT International and Fraser Yachts both confirm the same transaction: Max Bulley of Y.CO represented the seller, Alain Auvare of Fraser Monaco brought the buyer, and the price paid was the yacht's last asking figure of EUR 8,950,000 - brokers rarely confirm a sale went at full ask, which is itself a signal about how the boat presented after her refit. Fraser's own listing history dates the deal to 21 August; BOAT International's brokerage-sales column, which typically runs a few days behind the paperwork, carried it on the 24th. Both name the same two brokers and the same price, which is the cross-check this desk requires before a hard number runs.

The hull itself has traded names before. The image library BOAT International used for this sale still carries a file stamped from 2024 under the name Esosh, and YachtBuyer's own build record lists Echo R and Echo-R as earlier project names for the same 39.1-metre Tigershark-model hull. None of the three sources reports a change of ownership behind any of those renamings - Tansu and other semi-custom Turkish yards commonly launch a hull under a shipyard or charter name and see it renamed once at delivery and again at each resale - but a buyer doing his own registry check should expect to find Echo R, Esosh and Moonshot all attached to the same nine-year-old hull, not three different boats.

Why does a wood-and-epoxy hull still find buyers against GRP and steel competition?

Tansu builds Moonshot's hull and superstructure in epoxy-and-wood rather than the GRP or steel/aluminium more common at 39 metres, a construction method that trades a longer, more labour-intensive build for a lighter, quieter-running semi-displacement hull with genuinely shoal-friendly draft.

At 1.85 metres, Moonshot's draft is shallow enough to work anchorages a deeper-hulled 40-metre motor yacht cannot reach - a meaningful selling point in the Turkish and Greek waters this design was built for, where a lot of the best anchorages sit behind a shallow bar or reef. The trade-off shows up in the numbers: twin Caterpillar C18 diesels rated around 1,000hp each push her to a 15.8-knot top speed and a 13-knot cruise, figures a planing GRP hull of the same length and power would comfortably beat. Naval architecture is by Diana Yacht Design, with Riza Tansu credited for the exterior - Tansu's yard builds to its own in-house design language across the Tigershark range rather than commissioning an outside studio for each hull, which is part of how a semi-custom 39-metre reaches the water for a price well under what a fully bespoke build of the same size would cost.

Wood-epoxy construction carries its own maintenance and insurance conversation that a GRP or aluminium buyer does not have to have - hull surveys look for different things, and not every underwriter prices the two constructions the same way. None of the three sources for this sale addresses insurance or survey cost directly, which is exactly the kind of gap a buyer needs to raise with his own surveyor rather than assume away; Fraser and BOAT International both confirm the hull passed whatever due diligence this sale required, but neither publishes a survey report.

What did the refit before this sale actually change?

BOAT International's sale listing credits Moonshot with a full interior refit and comprehensive systems updates completed shortly before the sale, executed by URAStudio working alongside Tansu's in-house design team rather than as a full re-architecture of the layout.

The photographs released with the sale show a saloon and cabins finished in boucle upholstery, walnut joinery and a mirrored deckhead over the dining table - a materials palette that reads current rather than nine years old, and is the clearest evidence available that the refit went beyond soft furnishings into a genuine re-fit-out. The accommodation plan itself was not changed: eight guests across four cabins, a master suite on the main deck with a VIP and two further cabins below, a layout Tansu has used across multiple Tigershark-model hulls including the sister yacht Belka.

None of the three sources publishes a refit cost, a yard name, or exact dates for the work, and this desk did not find one independently - which is itself worth recording, because a refit that cannot be dated or costed is a refit a buyer has to take partly on trust. What is verifiable is the result: a 2017 hull marketed and sold in 2026 on the strength of a recent interior rather than a discount for her age, which is consistent with the fact that the deal closed at the published asking price rather than below it.

What does an owner give up by choosing a boat like Moonshot?

Moonshot's 3,000-nautical-mile range is quoted at an economical 10.5 knots, not at her 13-knot cruise, and her 15.8-knot top speed is slow next to a planing GRP yacht of the same length - the honest cost of the shallow draft and quiet running the wood hull buys.

Both YachtBuyer and BOAT International give the same range figure - 3,000nm at 10.5 knots - which puts her firmly in coastal and regional cruising territory: comfortable for the Aegean, the Turkish Riviera or an Atlantic coastal run, but not built for an ocean crossing without a fuel stop. Her 20,000-litre fuel capacity and 4,313-litre freshwater tank are modest next to a 40-metre-plus expedition yacht built for genuine long-range autonomy, and a buyer shopping her against a true explorer design - something built to Ice Class or with double the range - is comparing two different categories of boat that happen to share a similar length on paper.

The other cost is speed: at 15.8 knots flat out, Moonshot will not outrun weather the way a fast planing hull of the same length can, and a 13-knot cruise means longer transit days between anchorages than an owner used to a 20-knot-plus GRP yacht might expect. Zero-speed stabilisers, fitted for use both underway and at anchor, are the yard's answer to the comfort question that a slower semi-displacement hull raises - but no independent sea trial or owner account of her motion in a seaway is publicly available, so that claim rests on the builder's own specification rather than a verified report.

Is EUR 8.95 million a strong price for a 39-metre yacht in today's market?

Moonshot's confirmed EUR 8.95 million sale sits below the roughly EUR/USD 10.7 million average brokerage sale price the market has recorded so far in 2026, consistent with a broader shift this year toward mid-sized resales rather than the largest yachts driving total sales value.

Brokerage market reporting for the first quarters of 2026 has tracked a slide in average sale price from roughly USD 11.7 million to USD 10.7 million even as total sales value approached USD 1 billion, a combination that reads as more transactions at more moderate prices rather than fewer, bigger ones. A 39-metre wood-hulled explorer selling at just under EUR 9 million, at full asking, fits that pattern closely: not a flagship deal, but a solid, unremarkable transaction of exactly the kind now driving market volume.

For an owner or a broker reading the market rather than one boat, the useful signal in this sale is less the price itself than the fact it closed at asking with no discount reported - in a market where sellers are more often trimming price to move a boat, a deal that needed no reduction says the combination of a recent refit and a shallow-draft, wood-hulled explorer design found real demand this month. Whether that holds for the next 39-metre to come to market depends on facts this desk cannot yet verify - her condition, her exact refit cost, and whether Moonshot's buyer paid a premium for the interior work specifically - and is worth revisiting the next time a comparable Tansu hull changes hands.