Numarine’s all-new 22XP aims to emulate the successof her bigger 26XP sister. We find out how on a full sea trial
Numarine is an excellent example of how not to let the past define your future. The Turkish-based company, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, started out building mainstream planing motoryachts and over the course of its first 15 years in business it built a good many of them, around 135 in total between 52-105ft.
However, six or seven years ago its founder, owner and CEO Omer Malaz, a highly experienced yachtsman himself and always one of his own best customers, sensed a mood change among his clients and in the wider world market. Demand for slower, more efficient, high-volume explorer yachts appeared to be gathering pace and he wanted in, personally and professionally.
Scroll forward to today and Numarine’s portfolio comprises just four craft, all of them throughly modern trawler-explorers from 72-122ft. The smaller two – the all-new 22XP featured here and the four-year-old 26XP – are both built out of GRP and certified Cat B and Cat A respectively. The larger two – the fiveyear-old 32XP and the new-last-year 37XP – have steel hulls and composite superstructures and are built to ‘Class’.
And in just five short years it has delivered no fewer than 27 of these high volume semi-custom superyachts to loyal owners all over the world – three 22XPs, 17 26XPs, four 32XPs and three 37XPs. Moreover, as of this summer, the yard has another 18 of them on order with deliveries stretching into 2024.
DESIGN LANGUAGE
Since it started, Numarine has relied on the same principal creative partners – Umberto Tagliavini for naval architecture and Can Yalman for exterior and interiors – and together they have been responsible for every Numarine to date. Most recently they have been working on two new additions to the range, a bigger composite model whose precise length remains confidential until an imminent autumn boat show reveal and a new steel/aluminium flagship 45XP.
Like her older and bigger 26XP sister, the 22XP is available as either a full-displacement craft or as a faster planing model. The two versions are essentially the same in most respects, save for the drivetrain and changes to the hull form. Above the waterline you can’t tell them apart. The main tooling is the same. The hulls are made from bonding the same two moulded halves together, but they have different keel sections. The displacement hull has a bow-bulb and a rounder keel. The planing version uses a flatter central keel section and has separately moulded spray rails bonded to the exterior after demoulding.
In displacement guise
