Sunseeker's New 45M Flagship Already Has Its First Buyer

What is the Sunseeker 45M superyacht?

It is Sunseeker's new 45-metre flagship, unveiled at the Cannes Yachting Festival on 8 September 2026 as the British builder's largest yacht to date and its first entirely new superyacht design since the 134 Superyacht brought it back into the segment in 2025.

Sunseeker confirmed the 45M on 8 September 2026, built on what the yard calls a new semi-displacement hull platform optimised for long-range cruising, comfort and operational efficiency. At roughly 440 GT she is bigger than any Sunseeker delivered to date, and the exterior comes from the builder's own in-house design team rather than an outside studio, while the interior is by Vickers Studio, the London firm also credited on the yacht by SuperYacht Times. Two features stand out in every account of the reveal: a large aft deck built to blur the line between yacht and sea, and an upper-deck sky lounge that Sunseeker says can be tailored entirely to an individual owner's lifestyle.

Accommodation runs to five staterooms with the option of a sixth, sleeping up to 10 guests as standard or 12 with the extra cabin, and a crew of nine. A transverse tender garage houses a tender alongside two personal watercraft, a layout choice that trades some below-deck volume for faster, more private access to the water than a yacht this size usually offers. Sales Director Mark Chinery framed the 45M as a deliberate step up from the 134: "The 45M superyacht represents the next step in that journey. It is a completely new project that demonstrates our confidence to challenge convention, our courage to think differently and our relentless pursuit of something truly exceptional."

How does the Sunseeker 45M compare with the 134 Superyacht?

The 45M is roughly five metres longer and about 94 GT bigger than the 134, but where the 134's engines, top speed and range are already public, Sunseeker has disclosed none of the equivalent numbers for its new flagship.

The 134 Superyacht, unveiled at Cannes in 2025, runs 40.45 metres and 346 GT on a semi-displacement GRP hull, with twin MTU 12V 2000 M96X engines as standard, an optional upgrade to twin MTU 16V 2000 M97L, a top speed of 20 knots and a range in excess of 1,200 nautical miles at 10 knots. The first hull is due in 2027 and a second in 2028, which means Sunseeker is now selling a second, larger flagship before the first one it used to re-enter this size bracket has even delivered.

That timing is not unusual for a yard building momentum in a size class it only recently returned to, and it lets Sunseeker point to two flagships in build rather than one. What it also means is that a buyer cannot yet compare the 45M against the 134 on the numbers that normally decide a purchase this size. The 134's propulsion package, speed and range came from Sunseeker itself well before her first sea trial; the 45M has had none of that published yet, roughly five weeks after the reveal at the time of writing.

Why did a buyer sign for the Sunseeker 45M before a hull exists?

Sunseeker says a repeat customer has already secured a signed letter of intent on hull number one, a commitment made against a rendering and a design brief rather than a priced specification, engine package or delivery-tested platform.

Megayacht News, reporting from the Cannes reveal, describes the sales position plainly: a letter of intent secured from a repeat customer for hull number one, with keel-laying not due until the third quarter of 2027 and delivery expected around the second quarter of 2029. A letter of intent is not a signed build contract, but it is a real commercial commitment, and securing one from an existing Sunseeker owner rather than a new client is the detail that matters most here: it says the buyer is betting on the yard's track record with earlier, smaller models rather than on anything specific to the 45M itself, because there is nothing specific to the 45M yet to evaluate.

For Sunseeker, a repeat buyer at the top of its range is the strongest evidence it can offer that the platform underneath the 134 and the 45M is worth extending upward. For any other owner considering the same yacht, it is also the plainest possible statement of what is being asked: three years between signing and delivery, on a hull platform with no completed sister yet in the water, and on a specification that can still change before steel and grp are cut.

What is Sunseeker's 'Original Mavericks' brand relaunch?

Sunseeker used the same Cannes reveal to relaunch its brand identity as 'The Original Mavericks', redefining its four product lines, Predator, Manhattan, Ocean and Superyacht, around distinct characters, and unveiled the 86 Ocean Enclosed and the Manhattan 94 alongside the 45M.

The rebrand casts Predator as instinct and performance, Manhattan as contemporary luxury, Ocean as exploration and capability, and Superyacht, the line the 45M now leads, as personalisation. CEO Scott Millar tied the relaunch to the company's history rather than to any single model: Sunseeker, he said, became one of the most admired names in yachting by refusing to follow convention, built by people willing to think differently, take risks and push boundaries. Design direction across the relaunched lines emphasises cleaner profiles, stronger proportions, sharper glazing and sculptural surfaces, with future concepts pointed at wellness, recovery, fitness, sleep and adaptive living spaces.

The other two reveals at Cannes give the relaunch some immediate weight. The 86 Ocean Enclosed, a 26.17-metre addition to the Ocean range with an enclosed upper deck styled on a Portuguese bridge, joins the existing 90 and 90 Ocean Enclosed. The Manhattan 94, at 28.6 metres and around 140 GT, had its first hull, named Black Mamba, launched in July 2026, with a second hull already sold and under construction. Against that backdrop the 45M reads as the flagship end of a genuine multi-model push rather than a one-off design exercise.

What has Sunseeker not published about the 45M, and what should a buyer ask?

Sunseeker has not disclosed a price, an engine package, a top speed or a range for the 45M, the same figures it published for the 134 well before that yacht's first sea trial.

None of the outlets that covered the Cannes reveal, including SuperYacht Times, Megayacht News, Pressmare and YachtBuyer, report a price, propulsion package or performance figures for the 45M. That is a wide gap for a yacht already carrying a signed letter of intent: the 134's MTU engine options, 20-knot top speed and 1,200-mile range at cruising speed were public from the outset, giving that buyer hard numbers to weigh before committing. Nobody outside Sunseeker has been aboard a 45M, sailed one or tested her hull, because she does not exist yet in any built form; there is no sea trial, no independent report and no owner account to draw on beyond the yard's own material.

None of that makes the letter of intent unreasonable. Sunseeker's repeat buyer is trusting a yard that has now sold two flagship-sized platforms in successive years and that delivered its smaller Manhattan 94 on schedule this July. But a buyer approaching the 45M today, rather than the one who already knows the yard's build history first-hand, has real questions to put to Sunseeker before signing anything: what engines and speed the platform will actually carry, what the all-in price is likely to run to against the 134, and how much of the specification shown at Cannes is fixed against how much is still open to change before the first hull is laid down in 2027.