Boat of the Week: This 238-Foot Superyacht Is Made to Take You Heli-Skiing at the World’s Most Remote Slopes
Most owners have a good idea about how they want to use their yachts. For some, it’s fast island hopping. For others, it’s slow ice breaking. The owner of 238-foot Cloudbreak wanted something very different. He wanted the capability to ski hard-to-reach terrain. Surfing, diving, and all-out exploration were all close seconds, but a “ski boat” was what he wanted. And he hired yacht designer Espen Øino—an experienced Alpine ski racer—to create it.
The Norwegian naval architect is one of yachting’s pre-eminent designers. He’s also a former competitive downhill skier. With Cloudbreak, he combined his nautical knowledge with his passion for the slopes. “I’ve heli-skied both poles and spend most weekends during the winter in the French Alps. Skiing is my second love after sailing,” Øino tells Robb Report.
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Cloudbreak is one of the few yachts to have a commercially rated helicopter deck to facilitate heli-skiing in remote areas—the owner especially loves skiing Greenland’s fresh-powder mountains. A dedicated ski room on board provides storage for copious amounts of ski equipment, including a ski locker and heated boot rack. In addition to the six guest suites, there are cabins for alpine guides. A range of 8,500 nautical miles, an 11-foot draft, and a reinforced steel hull mean the boat can navigate Norway’s glacial fjords as easily as it can cruise Alaska’s inland waterways.
“Heli-skiing expeditions take a lot of planning, so we factored in a debriefing room especially for that purpose,” says Øino. “The boat also carries extra tenders for when it’s in areas where helicopters aren’t permitted, so that guests can go ashore on a tender and climb the mountain with their skis.”
Prior to building Cloudbreak, which was delivered by Abeking & Rasmussen in 2016, the owner had chartered Larry Page’s 187-foot yacht Senses, a mix between a tug and elegant yacht. It arguably planted the Cloudbreak seed, which has a double skin hull and watertight bulkheads should the yacht run into trouble in icy seas.
“The owner knew very well what he wanted,” Jim Evans of SuperYachtsMonaco tells Robb Report, who sold and project-managed the Cloudbreak build and now manages the yacht’s charter availability. “Senses was a landmark yacht, but Cloudbreak took the beautiful design aspect to the limit of form meets function.”
Part of the design brief was the capability to travel to both cold and warm climates for when the owner’s focus shifts from skiing to surfing. Additional explorer features include a wave breaker bulwark in front of the bridge—the yacht is named after a notorious wave off the coast of Fiji—and an enclosed stern where the yacht’s multiple tenders, big enough to fit the owner’s surf boards, are stored.
There is a large pool on the sundeck, a winter garden on the bridge deck, and a crow’s nest observation deck. Guests’ high-octane pursuits are filmed via the yacht’s professional camera equipment, ready for viewing in the onboard cinema. “I like to think of Cloudbreak as an active-lifestyle boat. Certainly, the owner’s program dictates that,” says Øino.
The yacht’s interior design is the work of the late Christian Liaigre, who penned a lower-deck wellness center to match the yacht’s action-forward ethos. A sauna, massage room and plunge pool are twinned with beauty treatments, including acupuncture and Pilates. Among the yacht’s 22 crew are personal trainers and therapists. The gym enjoys an open balcony and is stocked with a range of equipment, including a ballet barre, punching bags and body bikes. There are also eight road bikes for shoreside excursions.
On the main deck, the full-beam master has two large terraces (one enclosed, one open). An additional outdoor bed means the owner can occasionally sleep under the stars without impeding on comfort or privacy. A glass-enclosed lift serves all levels. Unsurprisingly, the yacht’s toy chest is bulging.
Since taking delivery, the owner has tested the boat by heli-skiing in Antarctica, Greenland, Norway, Alaska, and Iceland, and big-wave surfing in Fiji, New Zealand, and the South Pacific. It’s now located in Southeast Asia for guests hoping to catch some gnarly waves this summer.
For Øino, it’s all part of the owner’s plan. “It’s great to see a boat doing exactly what it was designed to do,” he says. “The first plans that I presented in 2011 are virtually unchanged. Projects that stay true to the initial concepts are usually the best.”
Click here to see more images of Cloudbreak.
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