Darwin 86
| LOA 26.07 m, beam 7.43 m | |
| 195 GT, steel hull with aluminium superstructure | |
| Design and naval architecture by Hydro Tec | |
| Twin Caterpillar C12 engines, 287 kW each, 11.5 knots maximum | |
| Range toward 7,000 nm at 8.5 knots | |
| 8 guests in 4 cabins | |
| Six hulls built, first delivered 2011 | |
| The first yacht Cantiere delle Marche ever launched |
The boat that founded the yard
When CdM opened its doors in 2010, the Darwin 86 was the entire product plan, a 26.07 metre steel displacement explorer drawn by Sergio Cutolo at a moment when the market wanted anything but slow and serious. Vitadimare 3 launched in May 2011, and her success in finding sisterships built the company around her.
Six Darwin 86s now exist, early members of the thirteen-strong Darwin family, and the model's DNA runs through everything the yard has done since. The high bow, the upright wheelhouse, the honest superstructure and the priority of tankage over topspeed all appeared here first, fifteen years before the explorer became yachting's fashionable word. Even the name was a thesis, Darwin as in evolution, the yard's statement that a yacht should adapt to its owner's life and not the other way around.
Absurd range, sensible size
The numbers remain startling. Twin Caterpillar C12 diesels of 287 kilowatts each give a top speed of 11.5 knots, and at eight and a half knots the 42,600 litre tanks stretch toward 7,000 nautical miles, a figure many 60 metre yachts cannot match. The 86 does not visit oceans. It commutes across them. Those figures come from a hull with the windage of a small ship and the appetite of a fishing boat, the combination Cutolo tuned the entire class around.
The hull measures 195 GT, huge volume for 26 metres, with a 7.43 metre beam carried well into the ends. The machinery installation is small, simple and globally supported, and the systems philosophy is the yard's usual redundancy-first commercial template scaled down. Little on board is exotic, which is exactly what long-range reliability looks like. The engine room, reached without contortions, is the same commercial-grade working space the yard fits at 40 metres, scaled down and no less serviceable.
Toward 7,000 miles at eight and a half knots, from the 26 metre boat that founded the company in 2011.
Living aboard a small ship
Eight guests sleep in four cabins, generous at this length, and the boat lives much larger than its measurement thanks to the volume-forward hull. The sun deck is enormous for a 26 metre, a Darwin signature from the start, and the aft deck and lazarette handle tenders and toys with the same practicality as the bigger sisters.
This is the size where an involved owner can genuinely know every system aboard, run a small professional crew and still cross the Atlantic on own keel. Several 86s have spent their lives doing precisely that, and the model's owners have historically been the yard's best salespeople, returning for 102s and larger. Vitadimare 3 herself stayed with her original owner for years before the yard's pre-owned desk announced her sale, a pattern of long first ownerships the model set early.
What it proved, and still proves
The 86 demonstrated in 2011 that a market existed for compact, uncompromising explorers at custom quality, the insight the entire company scaled up. It also set the yard's commercial pattern, hulls sold before launch, owners deeply involved in specification, and deliveries that arrive when contracted, habits formed when the company could not afford to miss.
The model remains listed at the base of the Darwin ladder, and its delivered hulls anchor the brand's used market. When one comes up for sale it moves fast, because nothing else at 26 metres offers this combination of steel construction, sub-200 GT running costs and transoceanic legs from a still-active builder.
The entry ticket to the brand
For a buyer, the 86 is the least expensive route into CdM ownership, new or used, and none of the yard's engineering standards thin out at this size, and insurance, berthing and crew costs at 195 GT sit closer to a large production flybridge than to anything called a superyacht. Class rules, plate thicknesses, systems redundancy and the commercial-grade engine room philosophy all carry down intact, which cannot be said of every builder's smallest model.
It suits owners at both ends of a yachting life, those starting their first serious long-range program and those simplifying down from bigger tonnage without giving up the ability to go far. Fifteen years after Vitadimare 3, the first CdM is still the clearest statement of what the yard believes a yacht is for.
Двигатели и системы
| Main engines | Varies by hull across a 14-year production run: hull one Vitadimare 3 (2011) and the current Cantiere delle Marche sales listing both specify twin Caterpillar C12 diesels at 287 kW each; the yard's own current model page lists twin MAN 16-450 units at 331 kW each with ZF W325 gearboxes; a separate technical brochure indexed by YachtBuyer lists twin Scania DI13070M units at 294 kW. Six hulls have been built since 2011 and the spec sheet has clearly moved more than once (Cantiere delle Marche, Romeo United Yachts, YachtBuyer) - a used-boat buyer should confirm engine make on the specific hull, not assume it from the brochure. |
|---|---|
| Gearbox | Twin ZF W325, ratio 3.958:1, per the yard's current model page (Cantiere delle Marche) |
| Generators | Two units, reported as 55 kW Kohler-or-equivalent by the yard's own page and as 2x55 kW by Romeo United Yachts; a third source (YachtBuyer) lists three Northern Lights sets totalling 155 kW, which reads like an older or optioned configuration rather than the current standard - flagged, not resolved |
| Bow thruster | Electric, reported as 35 kW (YachtBuyer) or 37 kW (Cantiere delle Marche) - the two figures are close enough to be a rounding difference, not a contradiction |
| Stern thruster | Electric, 26 kW (Cantiere delle Marche's current model page; not mentioned by the other sources, possibly a running change) |
| Stabilizers | Electric, zero-speed fins (Cantiere delle Marche, Romeo United Yachts, YachtBuyer all agree) |
| Fuel tankage | Reported inconsistently: 38,390-38,400 litres on the yard's current model page and YachtBuyer, versus 42,600 litres on Romeo United Yachts and in Cantiere delle Marche's own Vitadimare 3 sale announcement. Both figures are given here rather than picked - it may reflect a running change across the six hulls |
| Fresh water tankage | 3,400 litres (Cantiere delle Marche, Romeo United Yachts, YachtBuyer all agree) |
| Black / grey water | 985 litres black water, 6,360-6,366 litres grey water (Cantiere delle Marche, YachtBuyer) |
| Range | Reported inconsistently: 4,000 nm at 10 knots on the yard's current model page and YachtBuyer, versus roughly 6,000-6,770 nm at 8.5-9 knots on Romeo United Yachts and in the yard's own Vitadimare 3 press material. The lower figure looks tied to the smaller fuel-load reading above; a buyer should ask which tankage a quoted range assumes |
Что сообщают владельцы и экипажи
Long first ownerships
Vitadimare 3's original owner kept the boat for over a decade before the yard's pre-owned desk sold her on in 2024-25, with the yard describing her as still shipshape after thousands of miles logged.
Carlo Aquilanti, Cantiere delle Marche sales manager - the yard's own account of its own sale, not an independent owner testimonialDelivered to serve as a genuine long-range cruiser
Empire, the sixth hull, was delivered in 2024 to an American owner and put through sea trials confirming her range and low-noise credentials before handover.
Boat International and Cantiere delle Marche's own delivery announcement
Сильные стороны и что учесть
Сильные стороны
- Range that shames much bigger yachtsEven on the lower of the two reported figures, 4,000 nm at 10 knots from a 26 metre hull is exceptional, and the higher figure of roughly 6,770 nm at 9 knots (Cantiere delle Marche's own press material for Vitadimare 3) would out-range many 50-plus metre yachts.
- The model that proved the whole companyHull one founded Cantiere delle Marche in 2011 and the yard has built six since, with the sixth (Empire) delivered on a commercial-grade sea trial that hit its speed and noise targets (Cantiere delle Marche, Yachting Magazine).
На что обратить внимание
- The spec sheet has moved and the market has not caught upEngine make, generator count and output, and fuel tankage all read differently across the yard's own current page, a used listing broker and an indexed brochure. A buyer comparing a used hull to the brochure needs the actual build spec for that hull, not the class average.
- No independent sea trial or owner review foundEvery performance figure traced back to Cantiere delle Marche itself or to brokers reselling the yard's own material - no independent publication (Boat International's directory entry is a specification listing, not a review) or owner-forum account was found for this specific model.
Практическая информация
| New price | EUR 11,950,000 for the current standard-version Darwin Class 86 (Romeo United Yachts) |
|---|---|
| Used asking prices seen | USD 11,395,250 for Empire (2024-built, Fort Lauderdale) and EUR 7,500,000 for a 2019-built hull (YachtWorld, sysyachtsales) |
| Hulls built | Six delivered since hull one, Vitadimare 3, in May 2011 (Cantiere delle Marche) |
| Typical resale timeline | About 4.5 months from listing assignment to signed contract, per the yard's own pre-owned desk on the Vitadimare 3 sale - a single data point from the seller's side, not an independent average |
| Sea trial data (Empire, hull six) | 11.6 knots top speed at half load, 146 litres/hour fuel burn, cabin noise under 40 dB(A) (Cantiere delle Marche's own delivery report) |
| Not publicly known | A confirmed current-hull engine spec that all sources agree on, exact optional-equipment pricing (the yard directs buyers to a dealer for that), and independent charter or owner-forum commentary - none was found for this model |
Для кого: An owner who wants genuine ocean-crossing range at the smallest, most personally manageable size in the fleet, and values the purest expression of the yard's founding idea.