Whisper, Eric Schmidt's 95m Lurssen, Lists at EUR 149m

A Famous Hull Changes Hands Again

Will Christie of Christie Yachts has listed the 95.2-metre Lurssen Whisper for sale at EUR 149,000,000, with BOAT International and SuperYacht Times both confirming the figure and the broker on 17 and 18 August 2026. The yacht was delivered in 2014 as Kismet, built for American businessman Shahid Khan as a successor to his 68-metre Lurssen Atlas. Former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt reportedly bought her from Khan in September 2023 and renamed her Whisper. Neither the 2023 sale price nor either owner's reason for selling has ever been disclosed.

The naval architecture and exterior are by Lurssen and Espen Oino, with the original 2014 interior by Reymond Langton Design. That pairing won Whisper, then Kismet, the World Superyacht Award for Displacement Motor Yachts of 1,300 to 2,999 GT at 75 metres and above in 2015 - a category built entirely around yachts her size. She carries 2,928 GT on a 13.8-metre beam and 3.7-metre draft, a steel hull and aluminium superstructure, with seven cabins for 12 guests and crew quarters for up to 27.

What The Money Buys

The headline space is a double-height, art deco-styled main saloon built around a 350kg chandelier and a grand piano - the room BOAT International's charter editor Georgia Boscawen pointed to when she called Whisper 'one of the most elegant yachts on the water.' The sundeck carries a 12-metre pool with an integrated Jacuzzi beside a koi-mosaic wall, and the lower decks hold a hammam, a plunge pool and a hair salon. Two helicopter landing areas and a private stargazing platform, lockable off from guests and crew, round out a layout built for owners who wanted more programme than a standard 95-metre carries.

In 2025, Michael Smith Design carried out an extensive interior refit, refreshing guest and social spaces without touching Reymond Langton's original scheme throughout - the master bathroom's freestanding tub and lacquered chinoiserie panel, for instance, are unchanged from 2014. Twin Caterpillar 3516C-HD diesels producing a combined 5,438hp give Whisper a 16-knot top speed, a 13-knot cruise and a 7,400 nautical mile range - modest figures next to newer 90-metre-plus builds, which increasingly pair hybrid drivetrains with faster top ends.

A Scarce Slot at the Top of the Market

Christie's own framing of the listing is the more useful number for a serious buyer: 'there is a lack of boats for sale at the moment that are over 80 metres from northern European shipyards,' he told BOAT International, adding that a new-build to Whisper's specification today would run 'not far off EUR 400,000,000.' That gap between a EUR 149,000,000 resale and a scratch-built equivalent, on a design that already carries an industry award and a refreshed interior, is the case Christie is making to buyers weighing a multi-year new-build slot against a yacht they could own by the end of the year.

Whisper has not sat idle while listed. She chartered through the Mediterranean this summer at a published rate of EUR 1,200,000 a week, discounted to EUR 975,000 as the season softened - a rate Yotters reported in July alongside a broader 30 per cent pullback in Mediterranean charter demand. A yacht earning real weekly revenue while she waits for a buyer is a different proposition from one sitting idle, and it gives a prospective owner a working data point on what she can generate before they take title.

What a Buyer Still Has to Weigh

Two ownership changes inside twelve years, on a yacht neither owner has explained selling, is the kind of pattern a buyer's surveyor will want walked through rather than left alone - particularly since neither the 2023 transaction value nor the full scope and cost of the 2025 refit has been made public. Khan, for his part, did not step away from the size class: BOAT International reports he went on to commission a new, larger 122-metre Kismet, delivered in 2024, which suggests the original sale was a move up rather than a move away from Lurssen.

The honest comparison is not Whisper against a blank sheet of paper, but Whisper against the small handful of other 80-metre-plus resales actually on the market this year, most of them either older or without a comparably fresh interior. On that narrower shortlist, a decade-old hull with a 2025 refit and an award-winning layout is a stronger position than the headline price alone suggests - provided a buyer is comfortable with a 16-knot top speed and a drivetrain that will look increasingly dated against the hybrid deliveries now reaching Northern Europe's yards.

Where This Sale Sits in a Cooling Top End

Whisper joins the market alongside Hakvoort's 63.7-metre explorer Scout, listed at EUR 95,000,000 through Fraser earlier this month as the largest yacht that yard has built in a century of business - a different type of vessel entirely, but a sign that even long-held flagships are testing the resale market this summer rather than waiting for a stronger one. BOAT International's own brokerage pages have carried repeated price cuts at the top end through August, including reductions on the 34-metre Solaris CeFeA, the 33-metre Custom Line Queen J III, the 42-metre HJB Fabulous Character and the 48-metre Admiral Althea, a pattern Marine Industry News also reported in early August. Whisper's price has not moved since the listing went live, but she is entering that same softening market rather than a strong one.

What sets her apart from most of those cuts is size and pedigree: few sellers at 90 metres and above are willing to test the market at all while new-build yards stay booked years out, which is precisely the scarcity Christie is selling against. A buyer comparing Whisper to Scout, or to any other large resale currently listed, is really comparing two different bets - a purpose-built explorer against a decade-old award winner with a fresh interior - and the EUR 149,000,000 ask only makes sense against the near-total absence of a third option this size and this new.