Sailing art? Full tour of the EXTRAORDINARY Spirit 111 superyacht

Welcome aboard one of the most sensational large yachts ever built. We are thundering upwind in double figures and making the Solent look pretty small at the moment. This Spirit 111 is sensational for a few reasons but largely because it takes art and aesthetics on a yacht to a whole new level. This is the largest single-masted timber craft built in the UK since 1930 when the J-Class Shamrock was built and it reminds you a bit of a J-Class as well because it goes upwind like a witch, it goes downwind at the same speed and you have fun going in both directions in double figures. What a feeling, it's just amazing. So we've just put the big cable-less sail up and we are doing, as you can see the apparent wind's come right down but we're still making 12 knots very very quickly past Cowes back into Portsmouth Harbour, what a magic sail. We've covered a lot of ground, really nice kite reach back doing 12-13 knots now just back with the white sails again. As I was just saying it feels like an overgrown day sailor, it's just brilliant, really good fun on the wind in both directions. So that's the throttle lead there, it's literally if you're sailing putting that main sail up or down or whatever you just want a bit of power it's on, it's always on if you want it you can turn it off for safety reasons but it also regenerates under sail so the prop is regenerating power to the lithium batteries and you can sit at anchor for four days I think without needing any external shore based power or anything like that. All this sailing, phenomenal sailing, all this flash deck, gloss, mahogany, just elegant beauty is one thing but you wait till you see what is down on this yacht. I don't think I've ever been so excited about seeing an interior on any boat. This interior is like an art gallery, it is a testament to the best of British craftsmanship and some real imagination too. I've been waiting a couple of years to see this, I've seen all the renders and they really delivered. Just look at it, have you ever seen a yacht's interior anything like this? The free-flowing, a lack of any angles, it's just, I mean it's like something you know the Spanish architect Gaudi or the artist Dali might have conceived. It's just, it just laughs in the face of practicality and just puts aesthetics absolutely first in every way. This table forms the heart, it's the centrepiece of the yacht, it's a capstan-inspired, glass-topped table that is supported by 64 individual bits of timber there, all different angles, all different measurements. It's like a sculpture and then this curved seating that surrounds this, just extraordinary, all steam-bent timber, this American walnut, but it's also been kept relatively simple. I know that sounds like a strange word to use but in terms of decor and there's only three wood types here that you're looking at and that's this American walnut, the teak and the soles and the majority which is the the Sipo mahogany and that mahogany is all been cut from one log which is why you're looking at matching grain everywhere. It's just, the finish is immaculate. I love it because it's different, it's so different and that's what a super yacht should be, you know, normal is boring and this leaves practicality aside as I said. The owner is a young European owner in his mid-30s, he doesn't care for practicality, he likes aesthetics, visuals, colour, light, shapes and the lighting alone is amazing on this boat. We've seen some of the shapes already, the lack of angles and the way things are hidden away. So here's the galley and apart from that induction top it's all hidden behind cupboards, the sink, microwave, the fridge, it's all hidden away and as you see you haven't even seen a cabin yet or a daughter cabin but they're all hidden. The door handle is hidden behind beautifully matched grain and even chart table area is behind a panel here. It's been open all day while we've been sailing but hidden away to just use the natural design of the boat to do the talking. The interior design was initially done by Rhodes Young for the first time outside of Spirit and they came up with this curved concept of an S-shaped layout where you don't see into the cabins or where the cabins are, you can't even see where the cabin doors are, I don't know if you've noticed but all these angles, I mean you see that one angle there but it smooths out, the line continues but it smooths out across this grain, it's just beautifully done and then we'll walk through towards the owner's cabin here. So look how the grain doesn't change but the angle of the wood does and that's come out so it allows this hidden door handle which is a motion activated sensor in there that's now unclicked it so the door can open and then into this extraordinary owner's cabin. It's all still curving around in this S-shape and an exhibition of different timbers. Look at this, a cocoon, a nest as a berth, again the steam-bent American walnut timber surrounding it. Not a single spotlight in view on this boat, no down lights, it's all indirect lighting. Look at the shower, imagine sitting in there, beautiful teak sole, all the grain running into the centre and the yellow metal fittings around, it'll tarnish over age. The only one of the art and the timber craftsmanship to do the talking, it's the design and the design. It's not a massive bed, there isn't a big flat-screen TV that pops up from somewhere, there aren't big portholes in the side and that's the bit I mean about simple, it's really letting the craftsmanship do its thing. You notice, probably haven't even seen any lockers, they're hidden and quite how you hide the shallow gaps but there are two large wardrobes in here for example, one there and one there and you would never notice where that join is if I hadn't showed you. Same again here, didn't even notice it was there but this is entranceway into one of the mechanical areas that is just very very well laid out. Plenty of room for more fridge freezer space in here and you've got the water maker, electronics and there are several areas on the yacht like this which are very very clearly installed and labelled. There isn't even a crew cabin on this boat, the owner wants to sail it, just him himself go sailing with his, day sailing with his friends so there are three guest cabins on suite, one forward here, two more aft and then really a replication of, small replication of what we see in the owner's cabin. Moving aft into this, these identical guest en suite cabins here, en suite heads and shower and then once again all of the hidden lockers, stowage space and the floating nest that is the berth. From this starboard aft cabin you have interior access into the main mechanical room which you can get to from the lazarette but this panel here also removes and we'll have a look in here to see how well laid out it's been. You're probably used to seeing classic styled yachts not really having much room in the ends and squeezing all the machinery room into one space but this has been done very very well. Electric drive up forward there, shaft drive coming out, regenerating prop as I mentioned earlier and above that, that very neat Luma Vortex hydraulic cylinder that's only 25 litres of oil for this whole yacht. It's amazing and that's part of the eco-efficiency really, not having to change so much oil, not using so much oil and then coming back aft on this main bulkhead you've got all the fuel filters and the separators and a sewage treatment plant in the middle and then you come up, you come further aft and there's there's more beam here so they have two medium-sized Torquedo gensets. Now these are really for more emergency use because the the yacht is designed to sail silently and to regenerate itself so it shouldn't have to use diesel but they still had to put these in for classification purposes. Although there's not full standing headroom or anything there's plenty of space for an engineer to walk to get around to service everything so through this panel here whose watertight door you've got access to the steering gear, the carbon rudder stock and the autopilots and that sort of thing but each side of me as well as the main access into this area through the big lazarettes and workrooms these are the huge aft gullwing like lazarette doors. You can't see the hinges from the deck but proper old structures on gas springs here, open up, big big locker space so in this one alone there's two electric motorbikes with the chocks already, they're not here but they're all set up for them to be stored in here. Then moving forward a watertight bulkhead you go into a mechanical area of work surface that sort of thing and then in center of the boat is that access to the rudder stock, carbon rudder stock and then again into the engine room port of that and there's another one of these on the port side at the moment being used as a big sail locker. 90 years after the last wooden vessel of such magnitude was launched in Britain Spirit has rekindled some of the magic of our timber boat building heritage whilst fashioning a thoroughly modern, wonderfully custom and impressively eco-efficient superyacht. This Spirit 111 is a masterpiece, as close to floating artwork as a yacht can get.