The ambitious Ulyssia project (named after the female version of Ulysses) promises to be a residential experience like no other – a floating community of like-minded, tech-connected individuals in a state-of-the-art, mostly glass 1,000-foot vessel travelling the world to exotic locales. Stewart Hawkins spoke to the project’s founder, naval architect and designer to discover why they think Ulyssia will be unique.
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When Ulysses (Odysseus in Greek) went on his (eponymous) odyssey, the world was a rather threatening place.
He’d just fought a protracted war, and he had to contend with human flesh-eating monsters, seductive half-bird-half-women killers and other folk who meant him harm just to get back home.
Things did improve – if not for Ulysses (his son killed him with a venom-tipped spear) – at least for the rest of us and travel became one of the modern world’s largest industries.
Then we had COVID-19, Russia invaded Ukraine, China’s threatening Taiwan (again), and the Middle East is about as rocky as it’s ever been.
I met Merck Pharmaceutical’s heir, Monaco-based Frank Binder, in the gardens of a beautiful Sydney harbourside mansion late last year. He was there spruiking his vision of a giant superyacht – more than 1,000 feet long, 15 decks and a construction budget well north of $2.4 billion. He wants to create a floating community (minimum buy-in price around €10 million), which, should buyers choose to, they won’t have to leave. Schools, restaurants, pools, libraries, communal spaces – everything you’d expect from a community will be provided. (It’ll be akin to a floating Monaco, according to the yacht’s architect, Norwegian, Espen Øino.)
It’s not the first of its kind, “The World” launched in 2002 – outwardly at least, looks more like a regular cruise ship than the planned Ulyssia even though it’s not – it’s a privately owned residential yacht.
According to the Ulyssia prospectus, the main difference is that Ulyssia’s “founding team” previously managed and operated The World. In this new project, they have upgraded the design, technology, sustainability and operations.” Also, the look needs to be added. If it goes according to plan, Ulyssia will be nothing if it is not sleek and beautiful.
The idea is not to actually stay on the yacht permanently but to engage with the communities where it anchors for extended periods and take advantage of the vessel’s ability to travel to remote corners of the globe.
In Sydney, we talked about the environmental impact of the project – that kind of ship burns a lot of diesel to transport a couple of hundred people – this is being addressed [see Øino’s comments below] – but when I had the chance to catch up with Binder for a more relaxed conversation via zoom – I had to ask him: did thoughts of dystopia or utopia drive this project? Was it an ark for rich people to escape global turmoil or a vehicle to experience the world uniquely and wonderfully while still living, working and playing as you would in a terrestrial home?
Binder was remarkably upfront. While he said for him, potential dystopia wasn’t a driving force behind the project – the idea did pre-date COVID-19, after all – he admitted that some potential clients may well have different thoughts.
“I do see that many people want a kind of safe refuge somewhere, a getaway,” he says.
“Some buy a house in the mountains, but this is an alternative for many people, and that is true: we do have a place in the ark; we can go to the safest place on the earth. If it burns on the [one] side, we’ll go [to the] other side of the world. We can do that. I think that’s reassuring for me.”
Ulyssia by the numbers:
- Length: 320-metre/1,050-feet
- Accommodation: 133 residences and 22 guest suites. Residences range from 110 sq m (1,184 sq ft) to 953 sq m (10,258 sq ft) and are available in one- to six-bedroom configurations.
- Crew to resident ratio: 2:1
- Price: Average buy-in cost €18 million + three to 3.5% annual maintenance fee.
- Amenities: School, restaurants, two on-board helicopters, two on-board submarines, dive centre, car garage, market, night club, theatre and business centre.
- Construction company: Meyer Werft GmbH. Expected start date: late 2025, delivery 2029.
- Green credentials: Hybrid propulsion systems utilising flex-fuel options. Methanol as primary, Marine Gas Oil as secondary and biofuels when available. A combination of batteries and solar is also planned. Advanced hull design, inertia, heat and energy recovery systems.
Data source: Ulyssia media brief Nov. 2024
The Visionary: Frank Binder
Founder and chairman, lifelong sailing enthusiast, architect and serial entrepreneur.
“The idea of having more than just a boat, having a real home, travelling the sea, I found fascinating and a great way to live.”
“We can go places private yachts normally can’t, like the ice, [the] Northwest passage; some private yachts have ice class, but it’s very challenging.”
“You travel in a community [and] the people on board will all be very special. We will, of course, select them, and it’ll be the most exclusive club in the world. [You] can form new friendships and business relations and end up with people one would probably never meet otherwise.
“There will be a dedicated team preparing the trips… and this team will make different proposals to the owners based on their input. They will know who would like to go where, and we’ll try to incorporate that into the trip. And then the owners vote on several options.”
“We will protect the residents in a way that will not be available on land normally. We work with one company for marine security, and they will be there 24 hours. We try to make them as invisible as possible. They’ll be there not only on the ship but also around the ship. We’ll have different levels of security depending on the potential threat. So if we would pass by the Horn of Africa, we would probably have some naval vessel escorting us.”
The Naval Architect: Espen Øino
Described by Forbes as “The Superhero of Superyacht Design,” Øino’s firm has been designing yachts for decades, including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Octopus.
“What we’ve tried to do is to use glass; much more glass than what we see in most ships. So that your apartment is nearly full-[length] glass. Every apartment has a balcony – that makes a very different experience from most ships where you have a metal wall with little windows in them.”
“When you design something, you’ve got to establish a mission profile. And here the mission profile is it’s a worldwide service.”
“[It’s] Important to make the distinction between breaking ice and operating in loose ice. If you [go] to Antarctica, in the summer season, you don’t need to break the ice – there will be ice strengthening but not an ice breaker. I don’t think anyone would want to go down there in the winter anyway.”
“We are doing everything we can to minimise emissions. We are operating at very low speed, which is the most important thing when we are moving because [that] means that we have mostly frictional resistance, not so much a wave resistance.”
“To be fair, our mission profile is also that we don’t actually move that much. Typically, we’ll stay days in one location. We have been looking at things we can do to reduce what we call the “hotel load”, which is the air conditioning, heating, laundry, galley, and lighting. We are looking at everything we can to try and reduce the requirements for cooling by using careful coatings on the glass – we are looking at a mostly white ship, which is important because the heat gain is much less than it would be [with] a black hull.”
The Designer: Francesca Muzio
Muzio’s collaborations include working with Renzo Piano and Giacomo Mortola. She has designed more than 100 superyachts, residential buildings and hotels, developing interior design projects for Shangri-La, Mandarin Oriental, and The Shard.
“After the pandemic, the Ulyssia project became more than a utopia because the world changed; our needs changed after the pandemic.”
“We think the average on board [stay] will be about four, five, six months. [This] means [it] is not only a holiday destination but could be a very homey stay. And that’s why when we design your apartment, it’s not [just] a suite you are using. It’s very well equipped. We are delivering the residences in handover condition, [and] you can decorate with selected designers, interior designers [to] personalise your residence.”
“We [are] trying to create an authentic experience – one that is not ephemeral. If you live on board, you should encounter something which is very natural. That’s why we want to distance ourselves from the cruise world. This is an evolution of a mega yacht. We want to be very clear [about this], and the attention that we’ll put on the details would be [closer] to the residential industry rather than to the cruise word. We envision areas we call gardens – the air garden, earth garden, fire garden and water garden.
“We are creating some areas where you can work with your laptop and exchange your thoughts with other people who have the same vision of the world. First, there is the community. It is about how we can make this environment more human. The world we were [in] before the pandemic was very stressful. Today is still stressful, but because of how we can use new technology and let the technology also be [hidden] – we can use the technology but without feeling invaded by it.”
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