Adventure. Science. Education. These three principles drove the creation of Yersin, a 251’3” (76.6-meter) explorer, to cruise anywhere and everywhere, host researchers and schoolchildren, and provide her owner and his family with the travels and teachings of a lifetime.
Yersin was commissioned by François Fiat, the former head of a retail chain and a sailing lover since childhood. Also as a child, he loved exciting factual and fictional journeys alike, ranging from those of Jacques Cousteau’s Calypso to the famous comic-book character Tintin. He imagined himself cruising the world in similar fashion. “I wanted a boat that could sail anywhere, in any weather, with a reinforced hull for the ice,” he says.
He, his wife, his captain, and his chief engineer spent years designing all aspects of Yersin, specifying her systems and other equipment, and overseeing her build at Piriou, a naval yard in France. Yersin complies with Bureau Veritas’ passenger-ship rules and has the classification society’s Ice Class 1C designation, more complex than what most traditional yachts achieve. The yacht additionally has Bureau Veritas’ Cleanship notation, meaning she complies with MARPOL convention requirements to limit environmental impact. She features a waste-grinding system, her hull is treated with a slick silicon coating, and all grey water is treated to be reused for washdowns.
Yersin can further stay away from port for 50 days with all 44 people (including 18 passengers) onboard. Seventy percent of her areas are devoted to communal and technical areas, in fact. They include seven guest staterooms, the owner’s suite, two gyms, a hammam, and a cinema. A laboratory, scuba-diving station, and multi-purpose platform for launching and retrieving boats and equipment are all aboard, too. “We can take children on board to educate future generations on protecting the environment,” Fiat comments.
As to Yersin’s performance , the diesel-electric propulsion system, including Schottel azipods, permits a reported 11-knot cruise and a fuel burn of just 100 gph. (Range at that speed: an astounding 15,000 nautical miles.) Reduced to 9 knots, Yersin reportedly burns just 47½ gph.
Here’s a better look at Yersin, named in honor of Alexandre Yersin, who helped create the cure for the bubonic plague in the late 19th century and who was a great explorer as well. Fitting, then, that Fiat chose one of his quotes, “You are not truly alive unless you keep moving,” to be the yacht’s motto.
Leave a Reply