excellence 4 yacht

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EXCELLENCE YACHT CHARTER

80.01m  /  262'6   abeking & rasmussen   2019.

• Previous Yacht

Cabin Configuration

Special Features:

• Aft deck pool with swim-up bar
• Excess of curved glass encasing the owner's suite to provide incredible views
• Tiered home cinema
• Triple-height glass atrium
• Expansive list of water accessories
• Beach club with sea terrace and swim platform
• Twin limo tenders

Excellence is spacious and packed with things to do making her fully primed for guests seeking a luxury charter at sea.

A masterpiece of modern design, the 262.47ft /80m Custom motor yacht EXCELLENCE was launched by Abeking & Rasmussen in 2019. Winch Design is responsible for her futuristic exterior design and contemporary interior styling.

With her innovative features and host of cutting-edge amenities, EXCELLENCE is a superyacht worthy of her title. She is a charter platform designed for the discerning, and promises a superyacht vacation in the lap of luxury. 

Exterior Design

One of the defining characteristics of EXCELLENCE is her unique exterior design, which has been compared to a spaceship. Penned by Winch, her iconic profile features a reverse bow and sharp lines which work to blend the hull with the superstructure to create a unique and eye-catching silhouette. The expanses of mirrored glazing across her superstructure further add to her visionary good looks. The final effect is not only attractive to the outside viewer, but the wide sections of glass also provide stunning vistas over the surroundings. Abeking & Rasmussen have stated that glass has never been installed in these dimensions on one of their superyachts before, marking an impressive first for the German yard.

Interior Design

Winch has ensured a perfect harmony between the yacht’s innovative exteriors and her cool and contemporary interior design. Her social spaces are infused with natural light, with a triple-height glass atrium taking centre stage. The space serves as the social hub during charters, providing an unparalleled setting for enjoying the company of the entire charter party while still feeling connected to the outside world. The motor yacht is also home to a tiered cinema for indulging in movie nights at sea, as well as a spa with sauna and well-equipped gym facilities. All of which these sumptuous features can be found on the main deck.

Guest Accommodation

EXCELLENCE provides accommodation for 12 guests in seven cabins. Each cabin is well-appointed, and benefits from its own individual colour palette.

The principal charter guest can take advantage of the owner’s deck, which has been designed to provide the finest in privacy, comfort and luxury living. The cabin boasts an outdoor terrace with jacuzzi, sun lounging area and private office to offer everything a guest might need right at their fingertips.

The owner’s suite also represents a feat of incredible engineering, as it is partially encased in floor-to-ceiling mirrored glass to provide 180-degree views over the surroundings. The largest panel measures a staggering 6m in length, and has been designed to offer a totally unobstructed connection to the world outside.

Onboard Comfort & Entertainment

On a private yacht charter on board EXCELLENCE, guests can enjoy relaxing and unwinding as well as entertaining and socialising. On the aft deck, a large pool with swim-up bar is a great spot for getting together and having a dip or a drink.

Those looking to get closer to the sea can do so, thanks to a spacious beach club which benefits from a wide sea terrace, bathing steps and a large swim platform. A large locker of toys and tender can also be accessed from here; among her range of water accessories, EXCELLENCE boasts Seabobs, sail boats, inflatable toys, jet-skis, paddleboards and scuba-diving equipment. She also plays host to two limousine tenders for the ultimate elegant arrivals and departurers

The sundeck is also a lovely spot for topping up your tan, and is complete with a deck jacuzzi and multiple lounging areas.

Performance & Range

Built with a steel hull and aluminium superstructure, she offers greater on-board space and is more stable when at anchor thanks to her full-displacement hull. Powered by twin MTU engines, she comfortably cruises at 13 knots, reaches a maximum speed of 17 knots with a range of up to 6,300 nautical miles from her 150,000 litre fuel tanks at 14 knots. An advanced stabilisation system on board reduces the side-to-side roll of the yacht and promises guests exceptional comfort levels at anchor or when underway.

Set against the backdrop of your chosen cruising ground, you and your guests can enjoy endless days of fun on the water with the exceptional collection of water toys and accessories aboard Excellence. Principle among these is a Angeboat RS 200 sailboat to bring out the explorer in you. You'll be loving the huge adrenaline rush as you zip over the water on one of the two Yamaha VX cruiser WaveRunners. Another excellent feature are waterskis that are hugely entertaining whether you are a beginner or a seasoned pro. If that isn't enough Excellence also features a seabob, kayaks, scuba diving equipment, inflatable water toys and kneeboards. When it comes to Tenders, Excellence has you covered - with three tenders, including a 9.8m/32'2" Hogdon Limo Tender.

Why Charter Excellence

EXCELLENCE has been custom-built for an owner with a wealth of experience owning charter yachts. They have also been vastly successful on the charter fleet, and no doubt EXCELLENCE will follow in their footsteps.

Book your next the Caribbean luxury yacht charter aboard Excellence this winter. She is already accepting bookings this summer for cruising in the Mediterranean.

With a highly experienced and talented crew of 22, you can be sure that each and every need will be met and exceeded while on board this prestigious motor yacht.

TESTIMONIALS

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Excellence Photos

Excellence Video

Amenities & Entertainment

For your relaxation and entertainment Excellence has the following facilities, for more details please speak to your yacht charter broker.

Excellence is reported to be available to Charter with the following recreation facilities:

• 9.8m  /  32'2 Hogdon Limo Tender with 2 x 220 HP engines
• 8m  /  26'3 Hogdon Limo Tender with 1 x 300 HP engine
• 1 x Zodiac 450 Rescue Boat with 1 x 40 HP engine

For a full list of all available amenities & entertainment facilities, or price to hire additional equipment please contact your broker.

Excellence Awards & Nominations

• Monaco Yacht Show Awards 2019 The Finest New Yacht of the MYS Winner
• World Yachts Trophies 2019 Best Exterior Design (54-82m) Finalist
• Monaco Yacht Show Awards 2019 The Exterior Design Award Winner
• Boat International Design & Innovation Awards 2020 Outstanding Exterior Motor Yachts - 50m and above Finalist
• Boat International Design & Innovation Awards 2020 Best Interior Design Motor Yachts 500GT and Above Finalist
• Boat International Design & Innovation Awards 2020 Judges’ Commendation for Best Lighting Design Winner
• The World Superyacht Awards 2020 Best Displacement Motor Yacht of 2,000GT and above Nomination
• Robb Report 2020 Interior Winner
• + shortlist

For a full list of all available amenities & entertainment facilities, or price to hire additional equipment please contact your broker.

'Excellence' Charter Rates & Destinations

Summer Season

May - September

€1,100,000 p/week + expenses Approx $1,224,000

High Season

€1,260,000 p/week + expenses Approx $1,402,000

Cruising Regions

Mediterranean France, Italy, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro

HOT SPOTS:   Amalfi Coast, Corsica, French Riviera, Sardinia

Winter Season

October - April

$1,150,000 p/week + expenses

$1,300,000 p/week + expenses

Caribbean Antigua, Bahamas, Saint Martin, St Barts

HOT SPOTS:   Virgin Islands

Charter Excellence

To charter this luxury yacht contact your charter broker , or we can help you.

To charter this luxury yacht contact your charter broker or

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Boat of the Week: This Speedy 153-Foot Superyacht Has Its Own Turbo Boost

Push a button and the turbine kicks in, which is yachting's equivalent of light speed., julia zaltzman, julia zaltzman's most recent stories, from lap pools to grecian spas: how yacht designers are bringing wellness to the high seas, here’s where all the sanctioned russians superyachts stand today.

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What do you get if you have two friends with a passion for boats, high-profile automotive careers and cash to burn? The answer is the 153-foot superyacht Excellence , a vessel that oozes speed, has brand pedigree and captures the hearts of all who own it.

Built in 2001 by Formula One racing car driver and automobile entrepreneur Roger Penske, who named her  Detroit Eagle , the yacht combined Feadship ’s Dutch craftsmanship with Penske’s own brand of engine. (Disclosure: Roger Penske is the father of Jay Penske, who owns this publication, as well as its sister publications in the Penske Media portfolio.)

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“At the time [Roger] Penske owned a company called Detroit Diesel that made diesel engines for boats, and he was also involved with a company that built turbine engines,” current owner and Penske’s longtime friend, Herb Chambers, told Robb Report . “So, he went to Feadship and built a lightweight aluminum yacht with a shallow draft to demonstrate the capability of his engines.”

The Feadship was originally built and owned for years by Roger Penske, who wanted a very fast, very luxurious superyacht. Penske installed his own Detroit Diesel-branded engines and then added a 5,600-hp turbine to give the yacht a 10-knot pop at the top end.  Courtesy of Burgess Yachts

The immaculate, polished-chrome engine room, with the diesels painted in fire-engine red, has always been a symbolic indicator of the type of impressive speeds the yacht can reach. The engines are 16-cylinder 4000 series, which generate 3,650 horsepower each. Penske then added something the superyacht world had never seen before–a Lycoming TF-50 gas turbine for an additional 5,600 horsepower.

“The boat can cruise at about 23 knots on diesel engines,” Chambers says, “but if you really want it to go fast, you push a button and the turbine kicks in taking the boat from 23 knots up to around 33 knots. It really is a remarkable vessel.”

Serial boat builder Chambers grew up in the Boston area, spending long summers on the water at his grandmother’s cottage. “I always had the desire to have a boat,” he says, a goal he realized at 24 with a 30-foot Trojan flybridge motoryacht. The Trojan would be the first of five yachts called A-Copy , named after his successful copy-machine business.

“After I sold the copy company and had this windfall of money, I ordered a 127-foot Feadship. The name A-Copy wasn’t of any significance to me anymore so I tried to think of a name that I would like,” Chambers says. “I’m not an avid reader, but I read Tom Peters’s book In Search of Excellence and loved it. It’s about running a good business. I thought Excellence , that is a great name for a boat.”

Launched last summer, Chambers’s newest 262-foot Abeking & Rasmussen “Excellence” has a futuristic hull shape, with an eagle-beak bow and large glass panels on the exterior.  Courtesy Abeking & Rasmussen

To date, Chambers has owned more than 40 yachts of many sizes. Some were even sold before he took delivery. The name “Excellence” serves as a constant reminder to his 30-year-long captain for the need to maintain high standards on board, he says. It has also carried through to Chamber’s six most recent yachts. This includes his largest yacht to date, a striking 262-foot Abeking & Rasmussen launched in 2019, on which he enjoys cruising the European waters of Croatia, Greece, Italy and St Tropez. That Excellence won Robb Report ’s 2020 Best of the Best award for interiors.

With its “eagle” reverse bow and triple-height glass atrium, the Winch-designed yacht turns heads wherever it goes. But that’s hardly surprising considering Philip Starck’s opinion-dividing Motor Yacht A was the design inspiration this latest Excellence .

“When I first saw Motor Yacht A , I said, ‘That looks like a submarine. Who would ever want to have a boat like that?’ And the second time I saw it, I said, ‘That boat is pretty nice. I kinda like that bow.’ And the third time I saw it, I thought, ‘I absolutely love that.’ So, that’s where the idea for Excellence ’s bow came from.”

While he has recently listed the Feadship “Excellence,” Chambers plans to enjoy the yacht for while he still owns her. He has often owned two yachts—the newer one that is often under charter, and a smaller, faster one that is at his disposal for his “personal use.” 

While Chambers’s appreciation of Feadship has long endured after his first foray with the Dutch shipbuilder, it wasn’t until a 2018 visit to Fort Lauderdale Boat Show that Penske’s 153-foot yacht caught Chamber’s eye. Prized by Chambers for its flexible speed and six-foot Bahamas-friendly draft, it is one of the few yachts that he hasn’t put on the charter market.

“I view the Feadship as a very personal boat,” says Chambers. “It’s only a four-stateroom boat, but you can bring three other couples or family members with you. When I told Roger Penske that I had bought the boat, he said his family was mad at him when he sold it because they loved it so much.”

An extensive 2019 refit of the yacht includes a full paint job, an updated sound system and refurb of the original John Munford interior. Chambers bought the yacht for his own personal use. “Because my boats get chartered, I always love to have a boat that’s available just for me,” Chambers says. “I built a 94-foot Mangusta for that purpose and used it in America when my big yacht was on charter in the Mediterranean or Caribbean. The Feadship can do pretty much what the Mangusta did, but it’s a bigger, more comfortable boat, so I sold the Mangusta at the start of 2020.”

The 2001 build has undergone a complete refurbishment of the interior. 

Being a serial owner, Chambers also recently listed the updated Feadship. He plans to enjoy the yacht while she is still available. Will he miss this Excellence ?

“I really don’t know,” Chambers says, pausing. “I would maybe look to build a similar boat, around 150 feet, something that would be fast. But the Abeking & Rasmussen Excellence is still new to me. The time for me to sell a boat is when I still like it.”

That creates a great opportunity for a buyer who wants a piece of superyacht history–a very fast superyacht history.

Excellence is co-listed for sale with Burgess  and Merle Wood & Associates for $16,900,000. Here are more views.

Images Courtesy of Burgess Yachts

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• Abeking & Rasmussen

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On board 80m Excellence with American businessman Herb Chambers

Get to know the owner of 80 metre Abeking & Rasmussen superyacht Excellence, in this exclusive interview with American businessman Herb Chambers...

Super Bowl 2020 was a special weekend in Miami. Beneath the glass towers glittering in the sun was an equally glittering line-up of the biggest and best superyachts launched in 2019. There was the 93-metre Feadship Lady S , Oceanco’s 109-metre Bravo Eugenia and 90-metre DreAMBoat , while Germany was represented in the shape of Lürssen’s 95-metre Madsummer . However there was one notable exception to this stellar procession – easily the most eye-catching superyacht launched last year: 80-metre Excellence .

“I am not into sports,” explains Herb Chambers, her owner, as we chat in his office near Boston a few days before the big hoopla in Miami. What he loves are cars, boats and, many years after making it big in the business world, work. “It’s something I enjoy,” he says. “People ask, ‘Why do you work so much?’ and I reply, ‘I really don’t work, I do what I love to do’.”

That’s why we meet in a cloudy Boston in January rather than, say, St Barths, one of his favourite Caribbean destinations. Chambers, who has established one of the largest car dealership franchises in the US, keeps a regular work schedule. He doesn’t sell cars – never has – but he likes to stay involved with the day-to-day management of the company.

The Herb Chambers Companies owns about 60 dealerships employing around 2,500 people within a 160-kilometre radius of Boston and represents practically every brand. The local newspaper says his company sells more cars than any other in New England.

Chambers’ office is on the second floor of a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Somerville, a neighbourhood of Boston. The top floor is a helipad, which allows him to shave hours off the commute from his weekend residence in Connecticut. Near the reception desk is a large framed picture of his new Excellence with the signature of the craftsmen involved in her construction at Abeking & Rasmussen ; a stack of magazines is on the table, including the December issue of BOAT International with Excellence on the cover, and the latest Boston magazine, which belongs to a friend. Awards that his company has won, including one for being one of the area’s top employers, catch the light from a spotlight shining on a nearby cabinet.

Downstairs, aside from the squeaky-clean showroom filled with the latest Mercedes cars, is the service centre. The polished floor has hardly a tyre mark and the space smells like freshly brewed coffee. Good service is at the heart of what his company does. “We don’t want to sell people anything,” he says. “We want to help them buy things that they want and hopefully they will love us for that.”

He got into the car business in 1985, buying an Oldsmobile-Cadillac dealership where he had received poor service. He knew he could do better and so he did.

But his first fortune wasn’t made in cars – it was in photocopiers. In the early 1960s, Chambers was fresh out of the US Navy, where he had been an aviation electrician, and looking for a job when he saw an ad in The Boston Globe seeking a photocopier repairman. Fixing things sounded like something he might want to do, although he wasn’t quite sure what the job entailed. “No one knew what photocopying was back then. I thought a copy machine was something to copy photos,” he says with a laugh.

He talked himself into the job – a gift he had picked up in his youth. “I grew up in a very blue-collar neighbourhood. My father was a commercial artist and we lived with my grandmother, so we never had a lot of money,” he says. “I always had a job from the time I was 13 years old.” One of his first was at a Stop & Shop supermarket where he was hired after lying about his age. He liked working much more than school. “The only thing I enjoyed about school was mathematics,” he says.

During his stint as a copier repairman, he learned pretty quickly that people selling copiers were making much more money, and he parlayed himself into a sales job. “I was a pretty good salesman; I am a pretty good salesman today,” he says with a smile, “but only because I heard the word ‘no’ so many times in my life.” He was also at a disadvantage because he was shy. “I was afraid to talk to people,” he says, “[but] I knew I could work harder than most salespeople and I outworked them.”

Around the time the kid from Dorchester, Boston, started his first company, at the age of 22, he enrolled in a 12-week training course at Dale Carnegie to overcome his shyness. “It was one of the best things I’ve ever done.”

The photocopier business was changing, and he saw the opportunity. “Copy machines were just becoming popular and I was in the right place, certainly at the right time, and I built the company to be the largest photocopier distributor in America.”

After a few years he was finally in a position to indulge his long fascination with cars and boats, which he had loved from an early age. He remembers going to a boat show in Boston with his father in the early 1950s, when he was 10 or 11 years old, and becoming enthralled with a futuristic- looking motorboat built by the Outboard Marine Corporation. “Why don’t we buy one of these?” he asked his father, who gave a response typical of parents seeking to appease a child: “We’ll look at it next year.” Meanwhile, when he fell for a curvaceous Cadillac convertible he’d seen for sale down the street and asked why they did not replace their old Buick with it, he got the same answer from his mother. “Then I got a job at 13 years old, and I realised what money was,” he says, but the experience didn’t dim his desire to own these beautiful, shiny machines.

Summer times, which he spent at his grandmother’s cottage south of Boston, gave him a chance to get on the water. He had a friend with a small motorboat and they went exploring in it. A few years after founding his company A-Copy America, he bought his first boat, a used nine-metre flybridge motor yacht built by Trojan. “I paid $10,000 [$7,720] for it; I remember it very clearly,” he says. “It was all the money I had.

“My company continued to do well, so I got a bigger boat, and a bigger boat, and a bigger boat, and in between all those boats, I probably owned a half dozen Cigarette boats, two or three Magnums and a Formula boat. I’ve always had this passion for boats. I love them,” says

Chambers, whose current fleet comprises his 80-metre Abeking & Rasmussen Excellence , a Mangusta 94 and a 47-metre Feadship (formerly known as Detroit Eagle and Sea Racer ). He remembers the progression from the Trojan to a 12-metre Chris-Craft, a 14-metre Concorde and then a 16-metre Hatteras.

His first experience with a superyacht was on board an acquaintance’s Feadship docked near his boat in Connecticut. “I was in awe of that boat,” he says. When the owner, a car salesman and former politician, invited him on board he remembers being intimidated. “I was so nervous, I did not know where to sit, I did not want to touch anything and he said to me, ‘One day you will have one of these,’ and I said, ‘I know I will never have one of these’.”

His first big yacht, built in 1979, was a 25-metre custom-built Broward with a modern interior and two turbocharged GM diesel engines. He named it A-Copy , after his company. “To me, at the time, it was like a baby Feadship,” he says. “It was a great boat. I chartered it and it was pretty popular.” Then came the windfall from the sale of his business in 1983, and just three years later his friend’s prediction came true as Chambers took delivery of his first Feadship, a 40 metre, the first Excellence .

The name of the yacht was inspired by a bestselling book by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman that he was reading at the time, In Search of Excellence . He made the boat available for charter, as he has all the following ones – Excellence II (another Feadship), Excellence III (his first Abeking) and V (he built but never owned Excellence IV , as it was bought mid-construction by another owner who liked it). The newest Excellence (“I stopped numbering the boats because it was getting kind of silly”) is on the charter market as well.

The name Excellence comes with certain responsibilities, he admits. “We tell people when they come to work on her, ‘She is not called Average.’ Just the name of the boat puts a lot of pressure on you. The boat needs to be excellent all the time.”

He buys and builds boats for pleasure, and he keeps an eye on the market by reading all the boat magazines, but it is also a business. “Chartering is important to me because the boats are so expensive to run and everything in my world has a price/ value relationship. I really like the value of having the yacht, but I don’t like what it costs to do it, and by chartering, I can reduce that price. Could I have the boat, use it and not charter it? Yes I could, but to me the value would not be there,” he says.

The new Excellence , designed inside and out by Winch Design, is a big departure from all of his previous yachts and is in no way average. The yacht’s topsides are almost entirely glass and its elongated hull ends in a thin reverse bow. He loved his previous boat, the 60-metre Abeking Excellence V , which had more classic lines, but he had warmed to the idea of a different approach when he saw a concept by the award-winning British designer. “I kept thinking about how I could have bigger windows, more glass. And when I saw Andrew Winch’s rendering, I thought that could be the answer, but with some modification to it.” He also wanted a yacht that would not look like any other, and on a recent visit to St Barths he was pleased to spot Excellence from a significant distance.

He is happy with the response he’s received so far and the yacht, which is under the command of Captain Ray Shore (Chambers’ captain for more than 30 years), has already chartered well. He knows why. “There is no greater luxury than being on a yacht where you get personalised service and you don’t have to wait for anything,” he says. “When you have a yacht with a crew, you can pretty much have whatever it is you want 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

They say the harder you work, the luckier you get and this is true of Chambers. He looks back on his success with the humility of a man who has had to earn every cent. “I’m basically just a hard- working guy who has been very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.”

This feature is taken from the April 2020 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.

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