Ulyssia Orders Its 323m Hull, Passing Over Meyer Werft

What did Ulyssia actually confirm at Monaco?

Ulyssia Residences confirmed on 23 September 2026, the opening day of the Monaco Yacht Show, that its 323-metre residential superyacht will be built by China Merchants Cruise Shipbuilding, with the formal contract due to be signed in November and construction beginning this autumn for a 2031 maiden voyage from Monaco.

Founder and chairman Frank Binder made the announcement at an intimate conference held at his own Monaco residence, alongside Ulyssia's architect Espen Oino. "There is hardly any capacity in Europe to build a yacht of this size," Binder told the assembled press. The choice ends months of ambiguity: when Ulyssia Residences last detailed the project publicly, at the 2025 Monaco Yacht Show, Germany's Meyer Werft was the shipyard publicly linked to the build. CMCS, a Chinese state-linked builder that has already delivered China's first domestically built polar expedition cruise ship, now holds the order instead, working alongside its engineering subsidiary Deltamarin on the vessel's outfitting, onboard systems and overall build programme.

The vessel itself is unchanged from its earlier reveals: 323 metres overall, designed by Norwegian naval architect Espen Oino, and structured around 122 privately owned residences plus 22 guest suites. Ulyssia Residences AG, the Monaco-based company developing the project, is run by chief executive Alain Gruber under Binder's chairmanship. At 323 metres, Ulyssia would rank among the largest privately owned vessels ever conceived, well past the 180-to-190-metre range that currently tops the largest yachts in service.

Why couldn't a yard in Europe build Ulyssia?

Europe's largest indoor megayacht outfitting facilities, at Lurssen and Feadship, top out at roughly 180 metres, little more than half of Ulyssia's 323-metre length, and Binder says CMCS is erecting a climate-controlled shed sized specifically for the project, a facility nothing currently operating in Europe matches at this scale.

Binder was direct about the reasoning: "We have a big goal and high standards. We want to deliver something exceptional, to a standard not done before on a boat of this size. We really have to go with the best and, in our view, CMCS is the most advanced shipyard in the world. The whole infrastructure is second to none, including a climate-controlled shed they will build just for us." Indoor final outfitting, sheltering a hull from weather and salt air during the most detail-sensitive phase of a build, is standard practice at Europe's top megayacht yards, but their sheds are sized for boats well under 200 metres. CMCS, whose track record to date runs to expedition cruise ships rather than owner-grade superyachts, is proposing to build a bespoke shed rather than adapt an undersized one.

Timing was the other factor Binder named directly. "Our buyers don't want to wait seven years. We really want to deliver by 2031, and the latest and only CMCS can do that," he said, adding that the wider infrastructure and scheduling flexibility at the Chinese yard reinforced the decision over Meyer Werft. The next steps are concrete and dated: Binder said the team will meet CMCS to finalise the build's layout and specification within the week, with the formal contract signature targeted for November 2026, well after this week's public announcement of the shipyard itself.

What's actually on board Ulyssia?

Ulyssia is built around 122 privately owned residences and 22 rentable guest suites, backed by a hospitality and wellness roster that includes a Chenot spa, EYOS Expeditions for exploration itineraries, VistaJet for private aviation and Triton Submarines for onboard submersibles, though neither residence prices nor how many units are reserved has been disclosed.

Interiors across the project come from Milan-based FM Architettura, unchanged since the design was first shown publicly. The amenity list running through both the 2025 and 2026 reveals covers a yacht club and marina built into the vessel itself, a dive centre, the Chenot spa and an onboard medical facility, multiple restaurants and bars, sports courts, flight and driving simulators, a theatre, a library, an art studio, two helicopters, tenders and Triton submersibles for underwater exploration. EYOS Expeditions, the specialist behind polar and remote-destination itineraries for private yachts and cruise operators alike, is named as the project's exploration partner, and VistaJet, the private aviation operator, handles air travel for residents.

None of the commercial detail has been made public. Ulyssia Residences has not published a price for a residence, a range of prices across the 122 units, or a count of how many are under reservation or deposit four years before the yard even signs its build contract. That silence is not unusual this early in a project of this scale, but it means the only verified number attached to Ulyssia's finances remains the widely reported build cost of more than EUR 2 billion, a figure describing what it costs to build the ship, not what it costs to live on her.

Has anyone tried a project like this before, and did it work?

The residential-superyacht model has one genuine long-run success, MS The World, still sailing a full itinerary in 2026 after 24 years in service, and one high-profile stall, the roughly 285-metre Njord, announced in 2020 for a 2024 delivery and still without a confirmed construction start or funding six years later, and Ulyssia shares both its exterior designer, Espen Oino, and its interior firm, FM Architettura, with Njord.

MS The World, launched in 2002, remains the proof that the ownership structure itself works over decades rather than years: residents co-own the ship, set its itinerary collectively, and the vessel went through a full drydock refurbishment in 2025 before sailing a 2026 route through 90 destinations across six continents. It is the one project in this category with a genuine multi-decade track record rather than a rendering and a press release.

Njord is the cautionary case sitting directly next to Ulyssia's own design team. Announced in 2020 with Meyer Werft named as builder and delivery targeted for 2024, Njord has since seen its shipbuilding agreements amended repeatedly, its delivery date slip past 2025, and as of this year no confirmed construction start or executed funding. Espen Oino designed Njord's exterior and FM Architettura designed her interiors, the identical pairing now doing the same jobs on Ulyssia. Neither firm's involvement caused Njord's stall, which traces to financing and shipyard commitment rather than design, but it means the two names most associated with getting a residential megayacht from concept to steel have one unfinished project already running years behind schedule.

What should someone weighing a residence, or a rival project, watch next?

The real test of Ulyssia's timeline is not this week's announcement but whether the build contract is actually signed in November as Binder stated, since a shipyard named in public and a contract signed on schedule are two different things, and Njord's own history shows how far apart they can drift.

For anyone actually evaluating a residence, the open questions are commercial rather than technical: what a unit costs, what the running costs and service charges look like once residents are aboard, and how a deposit is structured and protected if the build schedule moves. None of that has been published, and a buyer should treat CMCS's proposed climate-controlled shed as a plan rather than a fact until it exists, the way Njord's German build slot was also a plan before it stalled.

The more interesting signal for the wider industry is what Ulyssia's yard choice says about where megayacht-scale capacity is actually being built. CMCS has never built anything close to Ulyssia's fit-out standard, its record runs to expedition cruise ships, so 2031 will be as much a test of the yard's ability to deliver Espen Oino-grade detail at 323 metres as it is a test of Ulyssia Residences' own financing. A November contract signature, on the date Binder himself named this week, is the next real checkpoint, not the show announcement.