AKULA: The Superyacht Built to Reach the Ends of the Earth

If you start watching this video because your desire is to explore the world on a superyacht, then you will end it wanting to do so on this superyacht. I guarantee it. At the very least, you will be inspired, educated and left bursting with thoughts and ideas that will nourish and energize your dreams to levels that you just didn't think were possible. Because this is the full walkthrough video of Akula. I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with the owners on board yesterday and I learned so much, not just about the yacht, but also how to effectively build an explore yacht when you are seriously considering exploring the globe. What you need to think about ahead of time, practical elements that really only serious explorers would even consider. What is important on an explore yacht and what simply is not. Now we have a lot to get through in this video, so I've split it into three parts. First of all, the technical elements, then the layout of the vessel, and we'll finish with some amazing design features. First of all, though, here is an overview of Akula. She has a length overall of 59.4 meters, which is 194 feet and 11 inches, a beam of 11.3 meters, 37 feet and one inch, a draft of 3.45 meters, which is 11 feet and four inches, and she was delivered in 2024. Her gross tonnage is 1,241. Her hull is from steel, her superstructure from aluminium, with a top speed of 15 knots and a cruising speed of 12 knots. Her engines, well actually she doesn't have any. That is to say she does have engines, but not as you would usually see them on a yacht. In the beating heart of Akula we find four variable speed generators, the middle two producing 1,000 kilowatts each, and the port and starboard units producing 355 kilowatts each. I fully expected to be told that there is a huge bank of lithium batteries on board, but no, not on Akula. The chief engineer used this panel to explain to me how the system works. As you can see you have four generators and they produce AC power in, let's say, a raw format. Now clearly the propulsion system draws a great deal of energy, whereas, I don't know, plugging in a hairdryer requires much less, and the only way you can control that energy output is by converting the AC power to DC and then back again to AC in the required format, whether that is for your hairdryer or for the propulsion. Where the propulsion is concerned, power is delivered to these huge VEF pods. For those of you who don't know what they look like, here they are. They can rotate through 360 degrees for amazing maneuverability, something we'll be circling back to when we look at the bridge, and for those of you who are curious about the range, well I'll tell you about that at the end of the video. You won't be disappointed. An interesting feature in the generator room was this container here. Now the generators meet tier 4 emissions standards using urea injected into the exhaust system to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions. The existing urea tanks, however, obviously have limitations and since these owners wanted to cruise very extensively, they used this container to make their own urea, also known as AdBlue, so they can keep the tanks topped up. I spent well over an hour on this part of the yacht with the owner. It's where we started our tour on board, so it seems a good place to start for me to show you through the yacht too. After the generator room is a large garage for storage of small items such as bikes and dive bottles, the compressor is here too. There are technical spaces on either side, but just take a look at this. The engineer has his own workshop. Now when I asked him if he used it very often, he said every day, and interestingly they've been using the equipment here to make their own zinc anodes for the yacht. Now if you travel to remote parts of the globe, you can't always find places to buy items like that. I loved this though. Opposite the engineer's workshop, the owner also has a workshop that includes a 3D printer, something that was also put to good use on board. A day head is located in this area too. Forward of the generator room is the engineer's control room, a separate room for the air conditioning and water maker, and now we start to enter the crew quarters. The starboard is a walk-in cool storage area with a freezing room behind it. To port the galley, and here was something that I've never seen or honestly even thought of before. You can see from the imagery how well equipped the galley is. This could be a high-end restaurant kitchen, but just after the galley is a scullery. Now here is where waste is disposed of, washing up is done, totally separate from the galley where a clean working environment is so important. In the scullery there's a vacuum system so that waste can be reduced to the smallest possible size, a glass crusher to reduce glass to powder, and even a freezer so that on long passages waste can be stored until a port is reached where it can be disposed of correctly. Forward of the galley is a dry storage area and an elevator. Now this is not a small dumb waiter but a proper service elevator so that the stewardess can enter with a food trolley and serve the black truffle and comtesse souffle before it goes flat. Opposite the galley is a well-proportioned crew mess and forward of the mess is a shell door so that crew can easily enter and exit the vessel when they need to go to shore to go shopping or to take out the trash. There are six crew cabins forward and I have to say that I was very impressed with the size of these and then a laundry room and a separate room for ironing. Well the main deck is also effectively the boat deck but just look at the boats. This is an eight and a half meter tender pretty much what one'd expect for a super yacht of this stature. It's got coverings so that you can take guests to shore even when it's raining but then take a look at this. This is a proper explorer yacht tender, a nine meter tideman with an HDPE hull. That's high density polyethylene. It's so tough that you can drive right up the beach onto the sand and hop out onto the sand off of the bow. You can even take this up onto the rocks. That's how rugged and tough it is and another feature that I thought was very clever is that it has the same engine model as the other tender so that you can have interchangeable spare parts. It doesn't end there though because there's space for more toys here as you can see and these fixing points here in the floor were originally conceived so you could even put a submarine here, a triton or a u-boat works. I did tell you that if you watched this video you ended up wanting to own the yachts didn't I? Through the sliding glass door and rather than finding a large salon area as I expected we have this very elegant and practical reception area that the owner calls the mud room. The owner explained to me that when you explore remote areas very often you get back on board and need to take your cold weather gear off that can be wet or even dirty depending on where you've been so this is designed to allow you to do exactly that with a seating area and a large wardrobe that even has a stainless steel drip pan in the bottom. There's also a day head here. From the reception area we can either go up the stairwell to the main salon or through a door to the guest and owner accommodation so let's do that. To port and starboard are two beautifully appointed guest staterooms of equal sizes. Forward and to port is a large pantry and that service elevator that we saw earlier perfect for room service. Opposite the elevator is a twin cabin and further forward still and to port is a cabin that can be used as a cinema room or as a cabin since it has a sofa bed and all of the amenities that one would expect. Then we get to the owner's stateroom and this is absolutely magnificent. I'm going to shut up and let the images do the talking in a moment but first I do want to point out this gorgeous backlit marble panel by the bathtub. Can you imagine an excursion in the arctic traveling on a sled pulled by huskies cutting a hole in the ice to go fishing and then returning to a warm bath. Lights dimmed just the glow of the marble as you gaze out of the window at nature's beauty of iceberg and glaciers. This really does take yachting to the next level. Moving to the upper deck and here we find a great deal of deck space. The aft area is slightly elevated and perfect for sunbathing and interestingly the owners told me that there are fixing points here so that containers can be installed for use as scientists laboratories so that the yacht can be used for research purposes. There are even electrical connections here. Whilst down just a few steps we find a seating and dining area. What stood out to me though was this outside kitchen. I've seen a few villas with this kind of arrangement but it's surprisingly rare to find it on a yacht. Maybe a cooler will set a trend in this. Above the dining table is a heating system that I'm quite sure must have been put to good use many times. Inside we have a wonderful main salon and interior dining area. Now we'll be looking at some of the design features later but worth mentioning that the dining table top incorporates pressed tobacco leaves applied using vegan glue. It really is a beautiful feature custom designed by FM Architettura. Now I'll be mentioning them again in a moment. Forward of this area and to port we have a very large pantry and lots of storage space as well as a surprisingly large room dedicated to the servers and an AV of the yacht. Plenty of space to work in here. On the starboard side we find a gym and spa. Now you'll notice that there are three sliding doors here too so that if one person wants to work out on the gym equipment whilst the other wants the privacy of using the spa that can be arranged. Possibly one of the most striking features of a cooler though is the observation lounge. Some of the places this yacht has been to are incredibly beautiful but also incredibly cold so to be able to enjoy the natural beauty of your surroundings from the warmth of this lounge must be quite an experience and when the weather is a little milder you can enjoy this magnificent observation deck complete with a fire pit. The next deck up is the bridge deck and you won't want to miss the bridge itself. A large hot tub and sunbeds adorn the extreme aft and there's a private owner's deck space at a slightly lower level. I've spoken many times before about the yachting lifestyle and that's more than just having cocktails on the aft deck. It's also about being able to work on your yacht so that no matter where you are in the world you feel like you're being productive and just look at this for a yacht office. I can't emphasize this enough. I've often quoted a client who once said to me that anything you do on a yacht is so much better. He said I sleep on a yacht. I sleep so much better. I eat on a yacht. The food tastes so much better and I recently discovered for myself that when you work on a yacht you work so much better. You're more relaxed. You're more positive. You're more creative. Everything is so much better and now with Starlink widely available in so many parts of the world I really hope that we see more and more yacht owners doing exactly that. Forward of the owner's office we have a lobby area with a day head, a crew lobby with a pantry and then a corridor with the captain's cabin to port and the captain's office to starboard. Interestingly there's also a crew day head here. I've not seen that before but of course it makes perfect sense on a yacht of this size and then we enter the wheelhouse and what a remarkable space this is. You have the feeling of being on more of a ship than a yacht here. There's plenty of space for guests to come and enjoy the experience but just look at these enclosed wing stations offering total visibility for the captain to conduct even tight maneuvers with the greatest of safety. Those pods that we mentioned earlier do make maneuvering a lot easier and Akula also has a dynamic positioning system that keeps the vessel in the same position without having to drop the anchor. And finally we come to the sundeck. The structure that you see here houses an emergency generator and if you really want to enjoy what some would consider the best seats in the house due to being at the highest point this is where you would most certainly come. I did ask the owners though about the orange color of the structure here and his answer leads us to the final consideration of this incredible yacht. The design features and there are so many. The burning question for me was why did the owners choose a red hull and add orange to the top of the superstructure? Well they explained it to me that the further north you go the more you will see ships with red hulls. In high seas or when there's thick fog being visible is everything. The owner pointed out a container ship across the port that had exactly the same orange stripe on the superstructure. Why? Was simply to be visible. This is a yacht that is built and colored for serious world cruising. Another design feature that underlines this is the fixed rubber fender strip on the transom. Now I've been to Greenland to film a yacht there. I remember the port in Nuuk full of rusty old fishing boats banging up against each other. You need this kind of protection. It's a similar story with the hull itself. The choice to not fair the hull and paint it to what would be considered superyacht standards. That was an intelligent choice made by owners who understand how this yacht would be used. Damage to a fared and painted hull can cost hundreds of thousands to repair. Why risk it? This yacht is built to go anywhere. As far as the interior design is concerned I cannot start without mentioning Francesca Muzio of FM Architettura. An ex-colleague of mine I consider her to be one of the most talented and hard-working interior yacht designers in the world today. You saw the tobacco leaf dining table that she custom designed. But here is another unique feature that got the industry talking when Akula was launched. These beautiful columns are clad with reclaimed sails and these aren't traditional canvas sails. They contain high performance fibers such as Kevlar and carbon fiber. So material that would otherwise have been very difficult to recycle has been given a completely new life on board the yachts. The wall panels in the stairwell are made from acid etched steel giving this beautiful rust color to them that of course is fixed in place and adding an industrial feel to the interior decor. A theme that's continued by the use of rivets in custom furniture throughout the yachts. The curvature of the ceilings gives a strong nautical feel to the vessel and that added to the use of recycled sails gives a nod to the owner's start in yachting on a sailboat with their family many years ago. You know I've filmed over 500 yacht walkthrough videos over the years and I have to say that this is the most remarkable yacht that we've ever been able to film. I don't know how much of that is the actual yacht and how much is the fact that I was able to sit down with the owners and understand something about the story of the yacht and their choices. The vessel is full of little objects they picked up from around the globe. At one point the owner looked at me and he said you see that cactus I picked that in Jamaica look how it's growing. Now you can buy a yacht and you can keep it in Monaco or the Bahamas and have a great time but I suggest to you that who buys a cooler is not just opening up the usual cruising grounds they're opening up the entire world and to that point I did promise you at the beginning of the video that we would talk about the range of the yacht and this is important because when you see the range of a yacht in figures or you hear about it in a video that's the theoretical range. That's because captains are very reluctant to give the actual range because there are so many variables. A cooler has just come across the Atlantic to be here in the Mediterranean now and when I spoke to the captain he said well we have the bottom of the yacht was clean we had on average two and a half meter high waves the entire way and so that was one set of consumption figures. Today on the other hand the the sea is absolutely flat again we have a clean bottom to the hull so it's a different more favorable set of consumption figures but the theoretical range of a cooler at 12 knots is about 8 000 nautical miles. At 12 knots imagine what it must be like at 10 knots. The point is that this really is a yacht that can go anywhere. Ice class hull, proper waste management, well-proven propulsion system with tons of redundancy. If you really are considering world cruising on a yacht you just have to come and take a look at a cooler and to do that you should contact my colleague whose details are in the description below.