Shipyards liken the act of a delivery returning to its facilities for service to “coming home.” It took 11 years, visits to 57 countries, and two circumnavigations for the world’s largest private sailing catamaran to do that. Regardless, Hemisphere returns to Pendennis for some important upgrades so that she can keep up her busy cruising pace.
The all-aluminum Hemisphere launched in 2011. While she had started construction at the now-defunct Derecktor Shipyards site in Connecticut, the shipyard encountered financial difficulties. Following soliciting requests for bids from multiple shipyards around the world in 2009, the owners selected Pendennis. Avid divers for many years, the owners had chartered yachts to pursue their passion before deciding to build their own custom cruising and diving project. Additionally during their charter years, they enjoyed time aboard both monohulls and multihulls, as well as power and sailing yachts. All of that experience went into choosing Hemisphere’s catamaran configuration.
With a length of 145 feet (44.2 meters) and a 54-foot (16.6-meter) beam, the sailing superyacht has kept up a near-constant pace of exploring both above and beneath the surface since delivery. In fact, she was the first foreign-flagged yacht to charter in Australia, in 2019. Besides Australia, she’s visited some of the most highly prized diving destinations around the globe, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and all sorts of areas in between. The yacht has a PADI-certified dive center for 12 guests onboard. Her captain—who has been at the helm since delivery—is a dive instructor, too. He further enjoys sharing his detailed knowledge of fish and other undersea life with a wide variety of charter guests. (She’s in the central charter fleet of Burgess.)
Hemisphere returns to Pendennis following a summer in the Med. She will now spend the full winter in the UK shipyard. Among the items on her work list are a full repaint, along with a number of systems’ replacements and refurbishing. For instance, she’ll gain a new genset, plus an overhauled drive train.
Once the punch list is complete, the yacht will return to chartering. Expect her to return to exploring some of her favorite wrecks and natural reefs come springtime next year.
Burgess burgessyachts.com
Pendennis pendennis.com
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