ChrisJefferies
Administrator
MBY is starting up a new regular feature next month called 'World's Coolest Boats' and we'd love you to get involved!
The idea is quite simple (and ever-so-slightly inspired by a similar feature in Yachting World) - each month, we'll devote the last page of the magazine to one of the world's coolest motor boats and we'd love to hear your suggestions.
It can be a production boat or a one-off, a leisure boat, a race boat or even a military or commercial craft, the only rule is that it's no longer in production, and all we need from you is a few good reasons why you think this merits a place in the definitive list of the coolest motor boats ever built.
You don't need to post images on here as we can source images ourselves, but if you have any that you own the copyright to, that would be ideal.
To get the ball rolling, the first nomination for World's Coolest Boat is the 118 WallyPower:
Michael Bay’s 2005 sci-fi thriller movie The Island was about a group of people isolated in a compound, they’re told, due to nuclear fallout. As the film progresses, we learn that these people are in fact clones of wealthy individuals, created for organ harvesting should it ever be needed. Because they are clones, they experience dreams based on lives they have not lived. One of them is a clone of a famous yacht designer, and so his dreams are of superyachts.
The studio needed the most dramatic, the most outstanding, the most iconic superyacht on the water to illustrate this, and so, of course, they chose the WallyPower 118.
The brainchild of Luca Bassani, heir to a Milanese lighting fortune and owner of Monaco based Wally Yachts, it was the first foray into large motor yachts for his yard, noted up until then for building edgy sailboat designs and being named after the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character, Wally Gator (a favourite of his young son).
The most outstanding feature of this sensational beast is the styling. 118ft long and completely unique, it appears to have been constructed using origami. The hull is carbon fibre and GRP composite, the superstructure triple laminated tinted glass on a carbon frame. And if that’s not whacky enough, everything on the exterior of the yacht, from the cleats to the tables to the seating, is concealed, rising out of the deck when required. If Darth Vader had a superyacht, it would look like this.
Such an outstanding design deserves outstanding performance, so the pair of 370hp diesel engines, producing a top speed of 9 knots, appears initially underwhelming. But fear not, these are merely an amuse-bouche, fitted only to manoeuvre the boat out of the harbour. Once at sea the captain is free to light up the three Vericor TF50 gas turbines, unleashing over 16,800hp through three (two steerable, one fixed) water jets and propelling this incredible machine past 60 knots, according to the manufacturer.
Although conceived as a production yacht, reportedly only one was ever built. The price at the time, £17 million.
Cool Cuts
YEAR 2004
LOA 118ft 1in (36.0m)
BEAM 29ft 6in (9.0m)
POWER 16,800hp
SPEED 65 knots
PRICE £17 million
COOL RATING Absolute zero
The idea is quite simple (and ever-so-slightly inspired by a similar feature in Yachting World) - each month, we'll devote the last page of the magazine to one of the world's coolest motor boats and we'd love to hear your suggestions.
It can be a production boat or a one-off, a leisure boat, a race boat or even a military or commercial craft, the only rule is that it's no longer in production, and all we need from you is a few good reasons why you think this merits a place in the definitive list of the coolest motor boats ever built.
You don't need to post images on here as we can source images ourselves, but if you have any that you own the copyright to, that would be ideal.
To get the ball rolling, the first nomination for World's Coolest Boat is the 118 WallyPower:
Michael Bay’s 2005 sci-fi thriller movie The Island was about a group of people isolated in a compound, they’re told, due to nuclear fallout. As the film progresses, we learn that these people are in fact clones of wealthy individuals, created for organ harvesting should it ever be needed. Because they are clones, they experience dreams based on lives they have not lived. One of them is a clone of a famous yacht designer, and so his dreams are of superyachts.
The studio needed the most dramatic, the most outstanding, the most iconic superyacht on the water to illustrate this, and so, of course, they chose the WallyPower 118.
The brainchild of Luca Bassani, heir to a Milanese lighting fortune and owner of Monaco based Wally Yachts, it was the first foray into large motor yachts for his yard, noted up until then for building edgy sailboat designs and being named after the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character, Wally Gator (a favourite of his young son).
The most outstanding feature of this sensational beast is the styling. 118ft long and completely unique, it appears to have been constructed using origami. The hull is carbon fibre and GRP composite, the superstructure triple laminated tinted glass on a carbon frame. And if that’s not whacky enough, everything on the exterior of the yacht, from the cleats to the tables to the seating, is concealed, rising out of the deck when required. If Darth Vader had a superyacht, it would look like this.
Such an outstanding design deserves outstanding performance, so the pair of 370hp diesel engines, producing a top speed of 9 knots, appears initially underwhelming. But fear not, these are merely an amuse-bouche, fitted only to manoeuvre the boat out of the harbour. Once at sea the captain is free to light up the three Vericor TF50 gas turbines, unleashing over 16,800hp through three (two steerable, one fixed) water jets and propelling this incredible machine past 60 knots, according to the manufacturer.
Although conceived as a production yacht, reportedly only one was ever built. The price at the time, £17 million.
Cool Cuts
YEAR 2004
LOA 118ft 1in (36.0m)
BEAM 29ft 6in (9.0m)
POWER 16,800hp
SPEED 65 knots
PRICE £17 million
COOL RATING Absolute zero
