M/Y EXCELLENCE - Builders Statement
Written by Jens Bottke
Photography by Guillaume Plisson
It was a great pleasure to build this extraordinary yacht for her very well-known Owner. The Owner returned to A&R based on his previous experience of three builds in 18 years. This time, the Owner of MY EXCELLENCE asked Abeking & Rasmussen to build him nothing less than an “iconic yacht.” The Build Contract was quietly signed during Monaco Boat Show in 2016.
MY EXCELLENCE’s exterior styling is second to none with the extended engineering in the background and unbelievable views from inside out. Her striking and angular bow was inspired by the American Eagle and cuts like a knife assertively through the ocean waters, offering a radical and clean silhouette which is at the same time comparable to a spaceship.
Prior to construction, the hull was optimized and went through extensive tank testing in calm water and waves in order to guarantee the best performance in terms of low resistance and safety in severe weather conditions. This has been time consuming but very successful, as the results and reality have proven already.
With the exterior design of MY EXCELLENCE, Winch Design sketched-up an artistic vessel which Abeking & Rasmussen with their experienced in-house and external team converted into proper engineering solutions, fulfilling the technical requirements and requested conditions. The yacht stands out with her glass superstructure which is not just a matter of careful engineering, but requires great team work of all trades and levels from start to finish. Installation of glass panels to this extent requires very careful engineering from both Abeking & Rasmussen and glass supplier GL Yachtverglasung GmbH. Hand in hand, we developed the excessive engineering of structure, glazing and interior integration in order to achieve this stunning look of the yacht.
With the silver glazing and the insulation glass, the required A/C cooling and energy consumption could be reduced significantly. The open structure, in particular in the staircase, required careful analysis of the detail and overall structure as well as the large window panels.
At the same time, the mirror effect of the glass required extreme caution in terms of building tolerances for both the hull and superstructure, which required very close monitoring.
The inclined superstructure, the minimalistic and clean exterior window appearance prevented the use of any standard door as the hinges would be visible on the outside. All exterior doors in the inclined superstructure have been custom-designed and produced, starting from pantograph doors all the way to completely new invented angled sliding doors.
Further, the vessel has been equipped with the first MTU 12V4000 M65R with SCR system complying with IMO TIER III.
The Owner’s first reaction when seeing the finished yacht was: “You exceeded my expectations!” It requires a brave Owner to order a vessel like MY EXCELLENCE, a daring shipyard to take on a challenge to build a vessel like this and a great team to win the challenge.
Today, MY EXCELLENCE has first been presented to selected individuals during the Monaco Yacht Show 2019. Abeking & Rasmussen and the entire team is looking back at a short 34 months, from contract signing to delivery, but all involved are very proud to have delivered this game changing masterpiece.