Arctic

Arctic did not begin as a yacht. She came off the Schichau Unterweser slipway in 1969 as an ocean rescue and towing vessel strengthened for ice, and in 1994 the Australian businessman Kerry Packer had her converted into what was then the largest expedition yacht afloat. She stayed private for more than three decades, went round the world several times, and holds a Guinness record for the southernmost point ever reached by a motor yacht.

Her central agent now offers her for the far north. In the summer months the itineraries reach Greenland's coasts, Iceland, the Svalbard archipelago and the fjords of western Norway; in winter, northern Norway, where the draw is orcas, snow and the northern lights. Weeks can be built with a polar guide on board, reindeer sledding and a Sami lunch, or heli-skiing for the most demanding guests. A steel ice-class hull and a range of 17,000 miles at 12 knots make those plans realistic rather than ambitious.

Twelve guests sleep in seven cabins, every one of them on the main deck or higher. The owner's suite comes with a sitting room, a study behind a door and two bathrooms, one for each partner, while the VIP adds a lounge of its own. At the stern, an enclosed pool with heating and a floor that rises and falls serves for swimming and for first dives with a tank; there is a cinema with motion seats, a gym, and a helideck that turns into a dance floor at night. The twenty-eight crew include a PADI dive instructor, and the tender fleet is unusually large: a Riva, a fast Donzi and expedition landing craft are part of it.

Two rules matter before anything else. Because she is a YET yacht, a status that treats her as a vessel in commercial trade, whoever signs as principal charterer has to live outside the EU, and a week in the Mediterranean can only begin in Monaco, Corsica or a port in southern France. In Norway, the APA is 40 per cent and is due 60 days ahead, because provisioning takes longer that far north. She is not for anyone after sleek modern design or a lazy week of beach stops: here, the landscape is the reason to go.