The path to building the new Nilaya began with a years-long refinement of ideas. The subject under consideration was how to replace a 34-metre high-performance cruiser delivered by Baltic in 2010, a boat with plenty of podium finishes and many miles of family cruising over 12 years. This would be, in other words, the difficult follow-up to a smash hit.
“My brief for the new Nilaya was that she should be versatile, comfortable and safe; a yacht conceived for worldwide cruising in style, yet capable of hitting important racing targets. I wanted her to be fast in light winds, enabling us to cruise without an engine as much as possible,” the owner says.
She can rightly be called a development of her predecessor, with a similar racy, low profile, straight bow and wide transom. But with 2.48 more metres of beam and 13 metres more of length, the increase in interior volume and on-deck living area is immense.
The owners wanted a lot, some of it difficult to reconcile: the capability for longer journeys without sacrificing speed, and a quieter, stiffer boat. They laid this problem at the feet of their team, California-based naval architects Reichel/Pugh and Nauta Design of Milan, who, along with owner representative Nigel Ingram of MCM, had created the previous Nilaya.
The owners’ emphasis on comfort for this Fanamax
