When Azimut Yachts wanted to enhance its Magellano series with larger models, the Italian builder returned to UK-based designer Ken Freivokh, who was responsible for the first Magellano 74 model 10 years ago. The result is the Magellano 25 Metri, a raised pilothouse design.
Freivokh says a length overall of around 80 to 90 feet is a real sweet spot for yacht designers like him because the scale is sufficient to create proper proportions. The 25 Metri’s profile is elegant and timeless, and there’s something of the 1930s streamline moderne movement about it. The similarity could be the boldness of line, the glazing shapes, or perhaps something as simple as the horizontal stainless-steel banding that rounds off the rim of the wraparound swim platform. Maybe it’s the wooden battens on the after corners of the superstructure.
There’s a modern take on color with the exterior that Azimut displayed on Hull No. 1. Straying beyond whites, dark blues and gray metallics for hull paint is often contentious, but the hull here is a soothing blue-green metallic—what the Italians call ottanio and the English call teal. I like it.
The outdoor spaces are everything they should be. Side decks connect the foredeck terrace with a conventional cockpit aft. In that cockpit are double longitudinal sofas, a transom blind, and a step between the stern garage door and a beach terrace. Up top, the split-level flybridge is protected by the opening hardtop above and has two helm seats to port, a bar with a pair of stools, booth dining and an aft area open to interpretation—in this case, sun loungers.
The yacht’s interior concept comes from Milan-based architect Vincenzo De Cotiis, who dressed Hull No. 1 with a distinctly 1950s flavor. It sounds kitschy, but it’s uber-cool. The majority of the decor bounces off various off-white textures: laminates, fabrics, lacquer. The result is light and bright. And the yacht’s unusual hull shade influences various marble and velour upholstery choices (or perhaps the influencing was the other way around). Horizontal surfaces, such as those running down each side beneath the picture windows, are a softer, yellower faux marble. Other detailing includes brown-leather sole tiles, mottled rugs, irregularly shaped ceiling panels, faux brasswork, and lots of glass and mirrors, often distressed. De Cotiis loves the appearance of wear and tear.
There is a sightline to port from the aft deck all the way through to the windshield and beyond, an important design element from Freivokh. The stand-alone sofas and the rotating marble-topped dining table in the main salon are mostly items from De Cotiis’ own collection.
The galley is forward with white cabinetry, and with charcoal-shade work surfaces and backsplashes. Most appliances are Miele, and there’s a Mabe refrigerator. The galley is a semiformal space, open to owners and guests, but capable of being closed off by a pair of mirrored doors set at a shallow angle so as not to directly reflect the yacht’s symmetry. A banquette is adjacent to the galley and is ideal for crew, who have their own door to the portside deck for access to quarters in the bow.
A reverse-spiral staircase with a day-head beneath it climbs up to the raised pilothouse and flybridge. The helm console is to starboard in the wheelhouse with touchscreen instrumentation from Raymarine. A mini couch here tracks back and forth electrically from an inaccessible spot behind the staircase to a snug spot virtually amidships, and in doing so, it closes off the stairway, setting up a great pilot berth right next to the wheel.
Driving this yacht is all it should be. The Magellano 25 Metri is offered with twin 1,400 hp or 1,550 hp MAN V-12 diesels, which deliver quoted top speeds up to 25 knots. I got on board Hull No. 1 at the beginning of this past October off Portofino, Italy. The boat had standard engines and was over half-load with eight people aboard. With those V-12s spinning 2,300 rpm, and the Humphree electric fin stabilizers and transom blades set to autotrim, I recorded a top hop of 23.6 knots on various headings and a total fuel burn averaging around 142 gallons per hour.
At a cruise-all-day 2,000 rpm and 19 knots or so, the engines burned 101.4 gallons per hour, which, allowing for a 10 percent reserve, means a range of around 350 nautical miles. With full tanks and engines purring at 1,000 rpm, there’s a potential 1,500 nautical miles to be enjoyed at 9.5 knots.
We had a calm sea state and a breeze measuring slight to zero—not the harshest of conditions to see what the yacht’s dual-mode hull could do. The hull design comes from naval architect Pierluigi Ausonio and is named for a double-chine geometry that works well at displacement and semidisplacement speeds. The prop shafts spin in half tunnels on each side of a skeg keel.
I can report that the hull is light on the helm and turns precisely. The build quality also inspires confidence. While the specs suggest that the yacht is all vinylester, glass fiber and foam, in reality, the flybridge, hardtop and garage door moldings are carbon fiber, a material that helps a lot in stability versus utility trade-offs.
The lower deck, accessed from a starboard-side staircase abaft the galley, accommodates eight guests in four staterooms. The master is just abaft amidships and has hullside windows, a sofa to starboard and twin sinks to port, with a separate head-and-shower compartment. The VIP, which is forward of amidships, has a transverse berth to port, as well as an en suite head and walk-in closet to starboard. Between the master and VIP, the guest stateroom to port has a transverse double berth, and the stateroom to starboard has twin berths that convert to a double. All the staterooms come with Loro Piana bed linens, dark-grain Venetian blinds and Bose entertainment systems.
Hull numbers 2 and 3 of the Magellano 25 Metri are US-bound and will have the bigger MANs as well as upgraded 21 kW generators. At the time of this writing, five hulls had been sold. While the Magellano 25 Metri has a distinct style, it appears that it also has global appeal.
Take the next step: azimutyachts.com
