Every build reaches a point when the vessel finally comes alive. It’s not when the design is finalised or the plates of steel are cut. It’s not even when the engines are run up or the shafts start to turn for the first time. It comes with a blitz of tasks, as curtains are fitted or artworks hung, racing to the hot pulse of an imminent deadline. Swiftly, it is a yacht impatient to be peopled and set free.
Rio is unique because she has been born twice. The new 62-metre steel and aluminium yacht built by CRN in Italy’s Ancona had been due to launch in 2021. She was nearing completion despite the challenges of a shipyard shutdown and the global supply crunch when the almost unthinkable happened – the owner pulled out. Then she was resold, speedily reimagined and born again this spring for a very different life.
“She is a yacht that is not only unique, but interesting in many ways,” says David Westwood of broker TWW Yachts. The company had a long-standing charter client who wanted to purchase their own boat of between 60 and 65 metres. Two other projects in Italy were scouted, “but they just didn’t have that flair they were looking for”, Westwood says. They wanted
