At 151 feet long by 46 feet wide (46 meters by 14 meters), Charley is one of the biggest catamarans around. She’s a shadow vessel toting a mini armada of toys for an even bigger megayacht not even built yet.
Shadow vessel and mothership share the same shipyard, in fact: Australia-based Echo Yachts. As for the mothership, White Rabbit Golf measures 276 feet (84 meters). Look for her hand-over late next year. She’s a trimaran design, and when delivered will be the biggest megayacht from Australia.
Two and a half years in the making, Charley is historic herself. She’s the largest resin-infused fiberglass vessel built in Australia. LOMOcean Design (formerly Craig Loomes Design) carried out the engineering vision. This included the capacity for a helicopter to reside onboard alongside nearly a dozen toys, as well as good seakeeping. Catamarans can handle some seas better than monohulls, while shadow vessels sometimes travel far ahead of their motherships. Charley can reportedly venture 2,500 nautical miles at a 16-knot cruise speed, powered by twin Cummins engines. Top speed should be 20 knots.
That makes quick work of taking up to 18 guests and 13 crewmembers out for adventures. Among those adventures: wreck diving. Charley therefore has dive gear and a decompression chamber, but also sonar equipment, to pinpoint spots.
Even more significant, Charley has a “mini me,” of sorts. A 39-foot (12-meter) custom catamaran sits on a special platform fully aft. It lowers the toy to the water for launch, and lifts the boat out of the water as well. If you add this structure to the shadow vessel’s length, she actually measures just shy of 170 feet (51.7 meters).
Take a look at the tender-launching operations in this video, along with what else Charley offers.
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