Solo: inside the most unusual charter yacht
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Solo: inside the most unusual charter yacht

Tankoa 72m superyacht cruise
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Huge chess pieces «stuck in the walls of sculpture» of people, jambs of teddy fish floating «down» the stairs. In the charter market, the 72-metre Tankoa Solo is probably one of the most unusual yachts. Her interiors, designed by Margherita Casprini in close collaboration with a Russian owner, can be either «hated or loved. But if they've got you, it's in your heart.

Tankoa proved to be perhaps one of the most open companies to journalists at the Monaco Yacht Show 2018. The young Genoese shipyard, founded in 2007 by former topographers Baglietto, held a major press conference aboard its new 72 metre semi-deck yacht, the third in the shipyard's piggy bank. Even the owner had not yet seen Solo in her gala«attire»when the press and MYS privileged guests boarded the yacht. The yacht was just under a month away from delivery.


«Green» Solo

The Solo was built on the same platform as the 69m Suerte that Tankoa launched in 2015. Francesco Paczkowski and Margherita Casprini are the exterior and interior designers of both yachts. They look like sisters, but they do have differences.

Solo can be rightly called one of the most energy efficient yachts of recent years. Her three Northern Lights generators (two for 230 kW and one for 155 kW) are equipped with HUG particulate filters that clean the exhaust so that guests do not have to breathe black soot even when the two Caterpillar 3516B motors are running at full power and deliver a maximum of 17.5 knots.The engines, in turn, are equipped with the Eco Spray exhaust selective catalytic reduction system, which significantly reduces harmful emissions.

Even at top speed, the Solo can travel over 3,000 miles.

At 15.7 knots, the yacht burns 570 litres per hour, while at ten it burns only 195 litres per hour. Her power reserve at 10 knots is 7,000 nautical miles. That's enough to cross the Atlantic twice.

The boat has an emissions monitoring system for environmental protection, which allows the crew to choose the best mode of sailing, the safest for the environment. Thanks to these innovations, Solo received the «tower» from the RINA classifier - Rina Green Plus Platinum notation.

Three extra metres of Solo compared to Suerte have extended the beach club, winter garden on the main deck and guest areas on the upper deck. The main deck bulwarks have been lowered to provide even more spectacular sea views from the saloon.

Owner from Moscow

Solo and Suerte have the same client, and they are from Moscow. His friendship with a young Italian shipyard was preceded by an unusual prehistory.

In 2011, Tankoa was looking for a customer for a 65-metre project. The shipyard found a client through one of its private investors, but when the investor suddenly passed away, the client abandoned the yacht already under construction. To avoid legal problems, Tankoa bought the project and asked Michel Carsenti, owner of the yacht consulting agency Yacht-Ology, for help. Carsenti had many Russian clients. One of them had recently sold a 50m Trinity and was looking for something larger but was not ready to overpay for Dutch or German brands. This client was ready to buy a 70% completed hull on the condition that the yacht project was revised. It had to be considered that the boat would be used mainly as a charter boat: the client could spend a maximum of 10 days a year on board his yacht. The shipyard agreed to meet this condition.

So the future Suerte received an owner and four additional meters aft, which allowed for a spacious beach club. And Tankoa is the new Sales Director in the person of Michel Carsenti and an experienced returning customer.

Suerte entered the charter market in May 2016, but already in September the owner decided that he needed a bigger boat. He quickly sold the Suerte (the shipyard did not even have time to show it at the Monaco show) and returned to Tankoa with a request for an 80m yacht. But the shipyard was not ready to build a boat of this size. The client then decided to buy Tankoa's 70-metre project, which was in fact a Suerte syster bearing«, based on his positive experience with Suerte.

This is how the Solo came about. Now the boat is available for booking in the Caribbean and the Bahamas, and in summer it will be possible to rent in the Mediterranean Sea.

Non-standard interiors

This is probably the most unusual of all charter yachts. Her interiors are not to everyone's liking.

The guests of Solo are met from the threshold by a huge chess piece of horse. Guarding the entrance to the winter garden, it is as if warning: get ready for something unusual. Winter Garden, embodied by a strip of succulents, which adorns the upper part of the low partition separating the stairs down, precedes the entrance to the dark main salon, all finished with black marble.

Its smooth surface reflects the movement of water from the skillfully illuminated aquarium. A touch in the form of a vase on the table reminiscent of an actinia, several dishes in the form of shells placed here and there, and the guest has the complete feeling that he has entered the underwater world.

In the hallway, sinking statues of people in the walls are the hands of Italian sculptor Matteo Pugliese - sinner and «spirit» of time. The staircase is finished with a million narrow wavy plaques. On wooden ripples «floats» under a ceiling a jamb of textile fish.


From the central atrium, the visitor emerges «to the» surface. Further down the corridor, the guest cabins have a much more classic and serene interior, reminding you that the yacht was conceived as a charter boat.


Works of art are found everywhere on a yacht. Salon is decorated with works of the academician of the Russian Academy of Arts Aidyn Zeynalov. In the VIP cabin of the owner's son - an acrylic bull Dutchman Leon Bosboom.


There is no trace of the underwater theme on the floor above. There is a control station, a captain's cabin, a beauty salon that can be transformed into a security or XO room, a second, more informal salon with a fireplace on bio-ethanol and a large TV, a bar and an office piano.

A huge outdoor seating area with a dining room is protected by a superstructure roof.

The next deck is fully committed to the owner. There's as much air and light as possible. You can even get here from the air thanks to the helicopter pad on this deck. The master bedroom is 180 degrees surrounded by large floor to ceiling windows. Enjoy panoramic views without getting up from the large island bed in the centre of the apartment.

The owner has at his disposal an office, a large dressing room, a private lounge and two full-fledged outdoor lounges with Jacuzzi, sun loungers, sofas, an outdoor breakfast table and a bar. One of the jacuzzis - the one on the nose - has glass walls and a floor lined with Bisazza mosaics.

Sandec is the cherry on the Solo cake. The best views are from his sofas and sun loungers. But the main attraction area is not at the top, but at the bottom, the beach club, the pride of the Solo. From the lobby you can reach the relaxation area with sofas, bar and TV, or the spa area with sauna and hammam, or the all-glass gym with folding balcony.

Behind the wall of the beach club there is a tender garage for two custom built 7.5-meter tenders. Further up to the bow there is a motor compartment, crew cockpits, technical rooms and storage rooms with a full arsenal of water toys and diving equipment.

Like the Dutch.

«The Solo internal device was a real challenge for us. Since the inception of the project, we have been very clear about our goal - to build and hand over to the owner a boat that will be able to seriously compete with the works of the best world builders from Holland and Germany. With these ambitions, we have fed all our engineers, workers and project managers almost daily throughout the entire construction process. Today, after the boat passed serious tests, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that our ambitions were fully justified," says Michel Carsenti, Sales Director at Tankoa. - No board meeting has been held without thinking about the importance of positioning Tankoa as the best quality yacht builder in Italy.

Of course, to build a brand like Feadship, Heesen or Oceanco, one (or even two, counting the 50-metre Vertige) is not enough successful project. But to declare itself - it is already a lot. Tankoa's capacity does not yet allow for the construction of yachts longer than 80 meters, so the company will obviously have to make serious investments in the coming years. In the meantime, on the production site in La Spezia, two 50-metre on-spec projects, sisters of the popular «Vertige», have been undertaken.

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