There is a special terror in restyling a yacht the whole world already loves. Ahpo — 115 metres, instantly recognisable, fiercely loved by her previous owner — came to Larboard Naval Studio with new ownership and an impossible brief: make her ours without making her less.
Open, don't add
The studio's masterstroke was subtraction. The enclosed upper aft deck — dead space on the original — was opened into a single indoor-outdoor salon behind full-height sliding glass. “We added almost no volume,” Elena Vianello explains. “We added air. Owners always ask for more metres; what they want is more sky.”
Fourteen months, two yards
The interior programme replaced 3,900 square metres of joinery, stone and fabric while the exterior teams re-skinned mast and cowlings in parallel. Fourteen months later, sea trials confirmed what the renderings promised: a familiar silhouette with a completely new temperament.
The verdict
Read the full project breakdown on our Ahpo fleet page — and judge for yourself whether icons can evolve. We think this one just did.