REV Ocean will be the largest charter yacht, open 25% at most
The largest yacht ever to reach the charter market
REV Ocean measures 194.9m and more than 19,000 GT, which puts her ahead of the 136m Flying Fox as the largest yacht available to charter. Vard built the hull and superstructure in Norway, with exterior lines by Espen Oino and interiors by the British studio H2 Yacht Design. After leaving the shipyard she moved to Damen Shiprepair Vlissingen in the Netherlands for a long final outfitting, with delivery targeted for late 2026 and first voyages expected into 2027.
Charter listings show room for up to 36 guests across 18 cabins, run by a crew of 54. That scale reads more like a small research ship than a conventional superyacht. She was conceived as an expedition and science platform first and a charter yacht second, and she carries a submarine hangar, dive facilities and two helipads.
A quarter of the calendar for guests, the rest for science
The owner, Norwegian businessman Kjell Inge Rokke, has set aside roughly three quarters of the vessel's time for scientific research and about a quarter for charter and other use. Net income from those charter weeks is earmarked to help fund the marine research and conservation work the yacht was built to carry out. Rokke has described the vessel as a platform for gathering knowledge rather than a private toy.
For a charter client the science hardware is the draw. The yacht is fitted with a deep-diving submersible and a remotely operated vehicle rated for the deep ocean, alongside working laboratories, a dive center and an auditorium for briefings. A booking here is closer to buying access to a floating research institute than to a week of pure leisure, and the planned itineraries reflect that.
No rate yet, and very few weeks to sell
Burgess holds the charter mandate, and a weekly rate has not been published. Context sits at the top of the market, where Feadship's hydrogen-powered Breakthrough lists from about EUR 3.5m a week and Lurssen's Kismet from around USD 3m. Whatever REV Ocean asks, the harder constraint for brokers is supply, because only a small slice of each year is open to paying guests.
Her planned cruising also sits outside the usual charter map, with early routes pointed toward the Arctic along the Norwegian coast and later toward the Southern Ocean by way of the United States and South America. For owners weighing their own expedition builds, she is a live test of whether ocean science and paid charter can share one hull without either purpose losing out. The first bookings will show how much a UHNW guest will pay for access to a working submarine and a research program attached to the week.