Novamarine Sells Its 26m BS 260 Before Cutting a Single Plate

What is the Novamarine BS 260, and who bought it?

The BS 260 is a 26-metre rigid inflatable Novamarine is building as the new flagship of its Black Shiver range, and the yard has already signed a contract for the first hull with an unnamed Italian client, ahead of any steel or composite work starting.

Novamarine, founded in Olbia, Sardinia, in 1983 and now owned by the SNO Group since a 2013 buyout, confirmed the sale during Monaco Yacht Show week, saying the first BS 260 goes to an Italian buyer for delivery in 2028. Francesco Pirro, the yard's chairman and chief executive, said the contract sets "new structural expectations for performance-focused pleasure craft," the only public comment attached to the sale so far. Novamarine has not named the buyer, disclosed a price, or published engineering drawings beyond the headline dimensions: 26 metres length overall on a 7-metre beam, with twin MTU diesels rated at a combined 4,400hp.

The BS 260 sits at the top of Novamarine's Black Shiver line, a family of hard-top RIBs that previously topped out at the 20.1-metre BS 200, itself only launched in 2024 as a replacement for the smaller BS 220. Going from a 20-metre flagship to a 26-metre one in two years is a large jump for any builder working in the maxi-RIB category, where boats over roughly 15 metres already count as a genuine yacht-sized chase boat rather than a large tender. Novamarine's own site has yet to publish a specification page for the BS 260, showing only a placeholder as of this story, which means the 26-metre figure and the engine output are the only confirmed numbers in public circulation. The yard's roots are in exactly this kind of large, purpose-built RIB: Novamarine's early professional and military work included 20 patrol units supplied to the Qatar Coast Guard in 2014 and 2015, and its tenders have since become standard equipment on yachts from other builders, a track record the company is now leaning on to justify a flagship this size.

How does the BS 260 compare with Novamarine's current flagship, the BS 200?

The BS 260 carries three guest cabins and one crew cabin, against a BS 200 that sleeps its occupants in a single convertible forward dinette, so the jump in size converts directly into genuine overnight accommodation rather than just a bigger open deck.

The BS 200, the current largest delivered Black Shiver, is a day boat that can sleep aboard in a pinch: its forward C-shaped dinette folds down into a double berth, with a shower and a small galley nearby, but nobody would call it a cabin layout. Its twin MAN engines, rated at 1,300hp each, push it to a 48-knot top speed and a 40-knot cruise on Arneson surface drives, figures that come from the builder's own published spec sheet and match owner and dealer listings independently. The BS 260 moves the range into a different category: four separate cabins, three for guests and one for crew, is a genuine small-yacht layout, not a RIB with a berth squeezed in.

The combined 4,400hp behind the BS 260, more than double the BS 200's 2,600hp, has to move a longer, heavier hull, so it is not obviously going to be a faster boat; Novamarine has not published a speed figure for it either way. What is clear from the dimensions alone is that a 26-metre RIB with four cabins reads less like an oversized tender and more like a direct competitor to small production motor yachts in the 24 to 28-metre bracket, except built as an open RIB hull with none of a displacement yacht's volume or accommodation depth below decks.

Why would an owner choose a 26-metre RIB instead of a small yacht?

A RIB this size is bought as a standalone, fast, low-crew second vessel, either to run alongside a larger yacht as its chase boat or as a first boat in its own right for an owner who wants speed and simplicity over a full yacht's systems and crew count.

The chase-boat market that the BS 260 sits at the very top of exists because superyacht owners increasingly want a separate, fast, independently usable vessel that does not require unloading davits or a full crew complement every time they want to move quickly between anchorages or get to shore. Industry guides to the category put an 11 to 15-metre RIB as the size where most superyacht chase-boat briefs land, with roughly 200 nautical miles of useful day range and a cabin and a head aboard; at 26 metres, the BS 260 is roughly double the length of a typical chase boat and well past what most superyachts carry as a tender, which puts it closer to a standalone vessel an owner runs independently of any larger yacht.

Sweden's Windy has pushed into similar territory with its SR77, at just under 24 metres billed by the yard as the largest leisure vessel built in Sweden and the largest boat in Windy's own history, which makes it the closest size competitor the BS 260 has in public circulation. Neither builder's largest model has an independent sea trial published yet, so a buyer choosing between the two, or against a small production motor yacht of similar length, is working from yard-supplied numbers on both sides rather than a tested comparison.

What details about the BS 260 has Novamarine not published?

Novamarine has not disclosed the BS 260's price, hull material, top speed, range, fuel capacity or interior finish, and with delivery not due until 2028, none of those figures is likely to firm up soon.

Every number attached to the BS 260 beyond length, beam and combined horsepower comes from the same single announcement; there is no separate technical release, no rendering beyond the yard's own placeholder page, and no naval architect or exterior designer credited publicly for the model. That is normal for a boat sold this far ahead of its own construction start, but it also means a buyer weighing the BS 260 against a built, sea-trialled alternative like the BS 200 or the Windy SR77 has considerably less to go on for the boat that costs more and takes longer to arrive.

The sale sits alongside a separate move by Novamarine into supplying custom tenders for other yards: in November 2025 the builder signed an agreement with Palumbo Superyachts to design and build tenders for four of that group's brands, ISA Yachts, EXTRA Yachts, Columbus Yachts and Mondomarine. Giuseppe Palumbo, that group's sole director, said at the time that "every detail must reflect a precise idea of beauty, quality and personality," language that points to Novamarine positioning itself as a serious tender and chase-boat builder for the wider superyacht industry, not just a leisure-RIB brand selling direct to owners. The BS 260 contract, signed the same year, reads as the flagship proof of that ambition rather than an isolated one-off sale.