Air Yacht 80 Exterior Drawing

The Design Evolution

Air Yacht is the result of John Mountain’s uncompromising quest to find his dream catamaran, one that offers the perfect combination of speed and luxury. His goal? The efficiency, functionality and speed of a world-class performance boat combined with the profoundly luxurious live-aboard experience typically provided by superyachts. A further requirement was that this luxury performance catamaran should be suited to short-handed sailing. When he failed to find the ideal solution, John simply decided to build it himself.

John turned to the world-leading Berret-Racoupeau team, under lead naval architect Olivier Racoupeau, as well as North Sails, Rigging Projects, Lorima, and Rivoyre Engineering, to develop his flagship, the Air Yacht 80. The carbon-fiber catamaran’s design evolved during this deeply collaborative process as our team of the world’s leading engineers, riggers, sail designers and smart-tech pros worked together to finesse every detail. 

This collaboration gave John the opportunity to customise the design down to the finest detail. As well as providing short-handed, safe and fast sailing, the catamaran had to be beautiful both under sail and at anchor or in port. Versatility, efficiency and safety were essential. Additional requirements included, among others: 

  • lifting rudders for shallow anchorages such as the Exumas in the Bahamas

  • daggerboards for improved upwind sailing

  • remote controls for easy docking and anchoring

  • a safe anchor and chain

  • both electric and diesel engines for redundancy and to enable access to marine protected areas

  • grey-water tanks, increasingly a requirement in many marinas and in marine protected areas

  • titanium stanchions, pad-eyes, cleats, handrails, etcetera, to minimise maintenance

  • renewable power to make the yacht self-sufficient

  • a truly turn-key solution to purchasing a boat – the only thing left to purchase will be your groceries, fresh produce and drinks!

The result is the Air Yacht 80, which challenges outdated yacht-design norms with its elevated luxury offering that features customised detailing and some of the most advanced yacht design and technological innovations available.