Marine

Sprawling, transforming yacht concept to ferry your supercar from island to island

Sprawling, transforming yacht concept to ferry your supercar from island to island
The CXL 160 will come with a McLaren MP4-12C, which has its own designated storage compartment
The CXL 160 will come with a McLaren MP4-12C, which has its own designated storage compartment
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The CXL 160 will stand nearly 200 feet tall
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The CXL 160 will stand nearly 200 feet tall
The key to the boat's design will be its folding hull beams
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The key to the boat's design will be its folding hull beams
The CXL 160 will come with a McLaren MP4-12C, which has its own designated storage compartment
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The CXL 160 will come with a McLaren MP4-12C, which has its own designated storage compartment
The CXL 160 is 158 feet (48 meters) long
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The CXL 160 is 158 feet (48 meters) long
CXL stands for 'Carbon Xtra Light'
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CXL stands for 'Carbon Xtra Light'
The CXL is a three-deck sloop-rigged trimaran currently in development
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The CXL is a three-deck sloop-rigged trimaran currently in development
When you're talking a $50 million yacht, a $250,000 supercar is a small throw-in accessory
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When you're talking a $50 million yacht, a $250,000 supercar is a small throw-in accessory
Ultraluxum is partnering with a number of companies, including McLaren Applied Technologies and Swarovski
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Ultraluxum is partnering with a number of companies, including McLaren Applied Technologies and Swarovski
Ultraluxum is partnering with a number of companies, including McLaren Applied Technologies and Swarovski
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Ultraluxum is partnering with a number of companies, including McLaren Applied Technologies and Swarovski
Ultraluxum is partnering with a number of companies, including McLaren Applied Technologies and Swarovski
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Ultraluxum is partnering with a number of companies, including McLaren Applied Technologies and Swarovski
When the beams are contracted, the CXL 160 will offer flexible mooring
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When the beams are contracted, the CXL 160 will offer flexible mooring
The folding hull beams expand the boat's width from 36 feet (11 m) to 75 feet (23 m)
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The folding hull beams expand the boat's width from 36 feet (11 m) to 75 feet (23 m)
The folding hull beams expand the boat's width from 36 feet (11 m) to 75 feet (23 m)
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The folding hull beams expand the boat's width from 36 feet (11 m) to 75 feet (23 m)
The fly bridge will offer a hot tub and deck space
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The fly bridge will offer a hot tub and deck space
Ultraluxum calls the CXL 160 the world's largest sailing trimaran with folding hull beams
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Ultraluxum calls the CXL 160 the world's largest sailing trimaran with folding hull beams
The dining area will include a sofa for lounging
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The dining area will include a sofa for lounging
Ultraluxum is partnering with a number of companies, including McLaren Applied Technologies and Swarovski
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Ultraluxum is partnering with a number of companies, including McLaren Applied Technologies and Swarovski
Ultraluxum calls the CXL 160 the world's largest sailing trimaran with folding hull beams
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Ultraluxum calls the CXL 160 the world's largest sailing trimaran with folding hull beams
Ultraluxum calls the CXL 160 the world's largest sailing trimaran with folding hull beams
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Ultraluxum calls the CXL 160 the world's largest sailing trimaran with folding hull beams
The lCXL 160 will be showcased at September's Monaco Yacht Show in some form or other
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The lCXL 160 will be showcased at September's Monaco Yacht Show in some form or other
Ultraluxum plans more boats in the CXL series
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Ultraluxum plans more boats in the CXL series
Nearly 160 feet of length and 200 feet of height
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Nearly 160 feet of length and 200 feet of height
Bikini models may not come with purchase, but with a boat like this, they shouldn't be hard to find
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Bikini models may not come with purchase, but with a boat like this, they shouldn't be hard to find
The outdoor dining and lounge area
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The outdoor dining and lounge area
The team behind the CXL 160 includes Jean-François Ruchonnet and Jean-Jacques Coste
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The team behind the CXL 160 includes Jean-François Ruchonnet and Jean-Jacques Coste
The team behind the CXL 160 includes Jean-François Ruchonnet and Jean-Jacques Coste
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The team behind the CXL 160 includes Jean-François Ruchonnet and Jean-Jacques Coste
The CXL's interior includes multiple sleeping cabins, a lounge area and dining area
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The CXL's interior includes multiple sleeping cabins, a lounge area and dining area
The CXL's interior includes multiple sleeping cabins, a lounge area and dining area
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The CXL's interior includes multiple sleeping cabins, a lounge area and dining area
A master's suite, guest cabins and crew cabins provide plenty of overnight accommodation space
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A master's suite, guest cabins and crew cabins provide plenty of overnight accommodation space
View gallery - 29 images

The McLaren MP4-12C is one of the more interesting supercars on the road, and it conveys a certain sense of wealth and connoisseurship about its driver. Of course, the MP4-12C's prestige pales in comparison to any massive, multi-million-dollar yacht ... unless, of course, it happens to be on board such a vessel. The Ultraluxum CXL 160, currently in development, is a huge, high-tech sailing yacht with a show garage designed specifically for the MP4-12C.

Ultraluxum Yachting's founding partner Jean-François Ruchonnet has set out to create what is called the "most extreme fusion of architecture, design, comfort, performance, economy and technology ever created in a luxury sailing yacht." That vessel is also billed as the world's largest cruising trimaran.

"I had a dream of leaving my house in Monte Carlo, getting onto a yacht in the harbor and sailing with my family for New York to arrive in less than a week," Ruchonnet recalls on Ultraluxum's website. "I wanted to travel in the same style, comfort and speed as a motor yacht but without using thousands of gallons of fuel. And when I arrived, I saw myself driving my car off the yacht straight onto the road in the USA."

In order to bring that vision to life, Ruchonnet and Ultraluxum, world-renowned naval architect Jean-Jacques Coste, and a number of outside partners have set to work on a massive sailing yacht that measures 48 meters (157.5 feet) in length by 60 meters (197 feet) in height. The key to the CXL (Carbon Xtra Light) 160's combination of ocean-hopping range, comfort, and sailing stability will be in its folding carbon fiber hull beams, which decrease hull width from 23 meters (75 feet) across on open water to 11 meters (36 feet) when mooring. This allows versatile, roll-free mooring in the harbor and solid, stable navigation at sea.

While we have to take claims about renewable resources and "harmony with nature" with a huge rock of salt when applied to gigantic resource-hogs like 160-foot yachts, Ultraluxum does claim that every effort will be made to keep the boat's operation clean and renewable. Its primary motivation, of course, comes from the wind, and on-board power is handled by a lithium-ion-based battery management system. The optional propulsion system will be a hybrid design.

The outdoor dining and lounge area
The outdoor dining and lounge area

In terms of sleeping and living quarters, the CXL will be a bit like a large waterfront vacation property. Outside, it will offer several open decks for soaking in the sun and atmosphere, a hot tub, and a dining area. The water will be but a quick climb down the swim ladder. Inside, the owners will enjoy a master cabin with en-suite bathroom, while up to four guest cabins and three crew cabins sleep the rest of the boat occupants. A spa can be added in place of one of the guest cabins, and there will also be a dining area, lounge area, additional bathrooms, a galley, and a navigation station. The interior is equipped with a full audio-video system and high-speed Internet access.

Oh, yes ... the McLaren. McLaren Applied Technologies, the branch of McLaren Group that applies its design and technology expertise to other industries, has is helping Ultraluxum in developing the carbon fiber hull beams. So naturally, the car that Ruchonnet mentioned in his original vision has become the McLaren MP4-12C, which will be included with CXL purchase. It will slide into a garage in the aft of the boat and remains visible through glass walls. If the MP4-12C isn't to your taste, we're pretty sure any supercar - including the MP4-12C's soon-to-be-revealed big brother McLaren flagship - will fit just as nicely.

You've probably figured out that you'd need a nine-figure-plus bank account to ever consider purchasing a CXL craft. That notion is correct: Ultraluxum lists the price of the CXL 160 at a cool €42 million (about $52 million). It can be configured for either personal or commercial use.

The CXL 160 will be on display in some form at the Monaco Yacht Show in September. If a $50 million, 160-foot vessel is just too much boat for you, Ultraluxum's public told us that there are also smaller boats in the works.

Update

Gizmag spoke to Ultraluxum to nail down the status of the CXL 160. As of August 1, 2012, "the yacht is ready to be build with all technical and financial aspects finalized." Whether a completed model will be ready in time for Monaco remains to be seen.

Source: Ultraluxum Yachting via Jalopnik

View gallery - 29 images
11 comments
11 comments
Mike Daniels
You know the worlds got it's priorities right when we build stupid things like this for people with TOO MUCH money.... -_- It's not like the worlds running out of resources or anything...
Dan Lee
I am going to have to agree with Micheal here, who gives a dam about this boat, its not exactly ground breaking, its nothing more than a wow factor, as in "wow, what a waste of money and why the hell am I reading this crap".
readydown
You're right, the world isn't running out of resources. And the amount of activity involved in designing and building this will keep many people active and working, employed and fed for the duration of its construction--not to mention the effort needed to keep it afloat.
Enjoy the technology on this site or preach poverty and neoluddism, you can't really do both and be philosophically consistent.
And what the heck is "too much money"?
Keith Reeder
Oh no!
Are the carbon fibre mines running out, Michael?
It's not like they'll be making these things in their thousands, you know...
And Dan: what, exactly, is wrong with "wow!"?
nutcase
Fifty million bucks for a toy. wow. Is this a record? When it gets written off by some billionaire's spoilt kid, thats what we really want to see!
jerryd
Actually the carbon fiber mines are running out!! Facts are the energy, etc needed to make CF is what is running out. And why would one use CF in this craft? It won't decrease weight more than a rounding error over medium tech composites that cost 10% as much.
Unless 20+ people live on this ear full time it has little but waste.
Next getting to NY in 5 days under sail isn't going to happen in such a craft. 10 woulde be more ;like it and even then one wouldn't be comfortable in the conditions/storms needed to do even that.
Next one isn't going to put their extremely expensive McLaren in a salt water environment.
Bill Brewer
Carbon mines? Carbon fiber is usually a petroleum or coal tar product. Although it would take an obscene amount of money to build and buy this thing, it would provide an incredible amount of middle class jobs that could not be readily outsourced. It would provide good job training and hopefully open up more opportunities for innovation in the future. Of course all this would be happening near Monaco where Ultraluxum is based. Take the Stratolaunch project: It is creating a huge amount of middle class jobs. yes, Paul Allen is rich. If the government took his money for redistribution it would just be wasted. Instead, innovation is alive and well in Mojave. The doubters will be silenced and a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will be launched to space from between the fuselages of a monster jet. Families will have breadwinners building the thing. I say build the boat. Silence the critics.
nutcase
Hey Bill do you think there would be any critics here? http://www.gizmag.com/tokelau-island-solar-power/23448/
Slowburn
re; jerryd
In ancient Rome bronze became cripplingly expensive (The tin mines were played out) there was a great deal of complaining that civilization was going to collapse and that there was no hope. But then a wiley entrepreneur hunted down the source of a grey metal and learned its secrets. Iron went from being had only by the rich in extraordinarily expensive imported bobbles to being cheaper than bronze had ever been converting the legions from ranks of bronze to ranks of iron. Incidentally new sources of tin were found but it didn't make the the discoverers rich because iron is better than bronze in most applications and with the reduced demand the price tin and bronze plummeted.
Carbon fiber can be made from rayon by cooking it as some extreme temperatures in an oxygen free environment.
Rayon is a manufactured regenerated cellulose fiber and is made from wood pulp.
"We're running out and disaster will ensue." is an old old song and almost inevitably wrong. When the natives of Easter Island killed the last of the trees that made adequate boats to move the giant heads they trapped themselves and cut themselves off from there primary food sources. The problem there was not inadequate resources but human stupidity. There is evidence that some of the rational amongst them escaped over the sea in the fishing fleet but the last time I checked that was a heretical view.
Don't complain that resources are running out go find other resources.
Nathaneal Blemings
I always love how the comments of people from any article like this is how the world is going to sh!t and some people are spending their own money on whatever it is they like, the nerve. And how these said people are absolutely stupid idiots who only had the money given to them or dropped in their stupid laps, or inherited.
Realistically if someone earns a lot of money they should be able to spend it however they please, most people who have this much money are work-aholics who rarely have time to enjoy all the money they earn, and when they do have time they go all out, good for them.
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