Soundwave

Soundwave chartered for years as 11.11, a name taken from the birthday of the then owner's child. She left the Benetti yard in 2015, and the following spring the World Superyacht Awards jury picked her as the best yacht in her class, motor yachts of 500 to 1,299 gross tonnes. A 2025 refit gave her fresh paint, an overhauled engine room, a re-equipped gym, new carpets and new art. Her axe bow, close to vertical at the stem, still makes her easy to pick out at anchor.

Candy & Candy designed the interior as a modern reading of Art Deco: dark lacquered panels, mirrored and polished steel details, faceted chandeliers and plenty of Italian marble. The bars in the main saloon and the sky lounge are treated as centrepieces. Anyone who prefers restraint may find it a lot; anyone who likes a sense of occasion at dinner will see that as the point.

What is unusual at this size is the pair of master suites. On the highest accommodation level, the first enjoys a panoramic view ahead and a private patch of foredeck where a jet pool waits; a child's room just big enough for a cot opens off it. The second takes the whole beam of the main deck, with room for a desk and a dressing area big enough to walk into. Below, four more cabins, two of which can be set up with twin beds, house the rest of the party.

Up top, a spa pool and a casual bar make the sun deck a place to spend the day, and one level lower, dinner for 14 is served alongside a stone bar that weighs more than a tonne. For recovery there is a steam room clad in mosaic, a treatment room in white marble and, since the refit, a cold plunge in the gym. A limousine tender built by the yard, 8 metres long and capable of 38 knots, handles the runs to shore.

The usual pattern is a summer between the Riviera, Corsica and the Balearics, then a winter on the far side of the Atlantic among the Bahamas and the Caribbean islands. Soundwave suits two families, or two couples who each want a proper suite, and groups who enjoy dressing for dinner. Larger parties, or guests who prefer a pared-back interior, should look at other yachts.