Khalilah

Nothing about Khalilah is meant to go unnoticed. Palmer Johnson finished her in 2015 in a pearlescent gold that shifts with the light, set off by a black radar arch, and her hull is built in carbon composite, which according to her broker makes her the largest private yacht of that construction. The bow is a wave-piercing shape, and the beam is unusually wide for her length, so the decks and rooms feel as if they belonged to a bigger boat.

The interior keeps up the mood. Stained oak floors meet very tall windows, mosaic walls and loose furniture chosen for surprise, and the main saloon has a Buddha bar under a purple glass chandelier in the form of an octopus. Upstairs, the sky lounge is bright from skylights and lime-green loungers. Every cabin is decorated in its own colours, and in one bathroom the shower mosaic shows sea creatures gathered around an enormous red octopus. Children tend to love it; people who expect wood panelling and restraint will not.

The layout is what makes her practical. Instead of one owner's suite and a ranking of smaller cabins below, she has two masters of almost the same size side by side on the main deck, each with big vertical windows, a walk-in wardrobe and a generous bathroom. Two couples travelling together can split the cost and the view without anyone drawing the short straw, while a double and two twins on the lower deck take the children or friends. Unusually, the kitchen sits on the main deck and has a counter where guests can perch with a coffee and see lunch being prepared.

Outside there is plenty of room: a round table for twelve on the aft deck, a sun deck with a bar in Karelian birch, and a Jacuzzi on the foredeck tucked behind a second helm. Her tender is a small copy of the mother ship, styled to match.

She cruises at a brisk pace and her shallow draft lets her into smaller anchorages. She is not the yacht for a quiet, traditional cruise, and with one cabin fewer than most at this length, a group of twelve adults will not fit.