Maverick, the second in Cantiere delle Marche’s Flexplorer series, is fast approaching completion at the shipyard in Ancona. Owned by Tom Schröder, Top Gun aficionado and now principal shareholder in the shipyard, the 44-metre explorer yacht has been designed and built expressly for a round-the-world tour.
Like her predecessor Aurelia, Maverick embodies all the key elements of a true explorer vessel – robustness, long range, ample storage, seaworthiness in all weathers, and so on – but the flexibility and functionality that defines the Flexplorer concept has been ratcheted up a notch.
Heavy lifting
The trademark A-frame crane, for example, has undergone important upgrades. Custom-built in carbon fibre by Advanced Mechanical Solutions (AMS), the lifting capacity has been bumped up to 4,000kg and its dimensions increased to improve the functionality of the aft deck. Aurelia’s crane is not full beam and the recesses that house the structure and close flush with the deck when not use (the teak planks are cut at 45 degrees to further disguise the join) reduce head height in the lazarette that houses a gym.
Maverick’s crane is wider and its recesses are further outboard, so they intrude less on the beach club, laundry and technical spaces below. Moreover, the crane has a mobile snatch block that can be positioned directly above the tenders and toys instead of moving them around the deck on cradles during lifting operations. A portable, carbon-fibre davit crane by Atlas is used to handle smaller loads with sockets located around the deck perimeter.
Crank up the volume
Maximising the loading capacity of the main deck aft meant concentrating the living areas forward and adding a fourth deck to house the wheelhouse and captain’s cabin. The upper deck is now dedicated to the owner’s use, with a VIP suite on the main deck forward and four guest cabins on the lower deck. Additionally, there is a ‘crow’s nest’ or observation deck under the radar mast (the winglets are a styling feature that recall the tail fins of the F-14 fighter jets in Top Gun). The extra deck brings with it added volume and the yacht is rated at 499GT – appreciably more than average for her length overall. Despite the higher superstructure, however, her profile looks balanced on the water.
”The owner’s previous yacht was a 74-foot Sunreef sailing catamaran (also called Maverick), which he sold in 2018. The idea of building an explorer yacht and a world tour came during the Covid lockdown while holed up at home. Due to start after Monaco Yacht Show 2024, the seven-year, globe-trotting expedition will take in high latitudes as well as the Northwest Passage. To this end, Maverick is partially winterised with pre-heating for lubricants and the hull has an ‘Ice Belt’ around the waterline. Ice strengthening usually involves doubling the number of frames where reinforcement is needed to make the whole hull structure several times stiffer, along with thicker plating for extra strength to prevent buckling caused by floating ice, but CdM already builds to higher specs than normal.
Business boom
Sales of explorer yachts have boomed in recent years, thanks in part to younger, adventurous owners who are less interested in cruising the usual hotspots. The explorer category often favours styling over substance, with the result that most so-called ‘explorer’ yachts are no more designed for long distance passage-making than your average SUV is for serious off-roading. CdM is different and since launching its hardy Darwin Class of steel-hulled explorers in 2010, the brand has carved out a niche for itself in the market for ocean-going, pocket explorers under 500GT. As Vasco Buonpensiere points out: “We believe it should be you that sets the limits of what you want to do with the boat. Not the boat.”
With 16 projects under contract and seven deliveries, including Maverick, scheduled for this year alone, CdM has seen production turnover increase from 37 to 80 million and its staff double in the last three years. Due to lack of space, its steel hulls are currently built up the coast in Trieste and Porto Marghera near Venice, but a new onsite construction shed will bring all the steelworks in-house by the end of the year. 
Although technically a series builder, CdM has always offered a high level of customisation. However, the brand is also developing new models of around 100 feet/200GT, a size range in which clients are accustomed to more standardised products.
“Clients upsizing from 70 or 80 feet are often nervous about customisation and prefer less choice, not more,” says Vasco Buonpensiere. “I’m a big believer in the smaller boats because they are the foundation of this company. We have quite a few Australian owners, for example, where most of the market is for boats under 35 metres. Especially in boom times you see yards start to build bigger, but nearly all our clients start at 100 feet.”
On the inside
The layout of Maverick’s main and lower decks is similar to Aurelia’s. The asymmetrical arrangement of the main saloon, which is widebody to starboard, remains, but the galley is designed to be more family-friendly and communicates directly with the saloon with no intervening pantry. In line with the yacht’s explorer vocation, there is a large walk-in cold room inside the galley with more cold/dry storage space on the tank deck, and in the full-height tunnel that runs between the engine room and the crew quarters – one of the features that the owner first liked about the brand.
“We had the hybrid conversation with Tom, as we do with all our clients, but the more you look into it the less it makes sense for us and our owners,” says Buonpensiere. “Firstly, an explorer has to be reliable, so simplicity is the top priority. Secondly, Maverick burns around 70 litres of fuel an hour at 10 knots, so any additional savings a hybrid system may provide will never outweigh the extra cost. Thirdly, alternative fuels require more storage and technical space on board, which is a problem on the size of yachts we build.” 
Winging it
Dresden-based Wingit was set up in 2010 by kite surfing enthusiast Stephan Schröder (no relation Maverick’s owner). The company began with wing kites for smaller sports boats and nearly 40 have been installed to date, but later started receiving requests for automated systems on larger yachts. It is currently developing a special system for CdM able to handle much higher loads based on a feasibility study for kites of 20, 25 and 30 square metres on a steel-hulled vessel like the Flexplorer displacing 440 tonnes. The results show that they will be able to tow the yacht at over 8 knots on wind power alone, or more when engine assisted. The size of the kite does not dramatically affect performance, but the smaller the surface area the greater the angle it can sail to the wind.
No mast is required to fly the kite, just a deck-mounted coupling above the height of the railing in the bow for attaching the three control lines – one to take all the forces and the other two for steering. After inflating, the kite is released and launched it into the air by pulling the lines. When the kite reaches the optimal height, it begins to trace a figure of 8 in the sky on an automatically controlled flight path. To bring the kite down the auto pilot moves it to a position directly above the boat where it exerts the least force. It can then be winched down and collapsed for stowage.
“The advantage of a kite over a conventional sail system is that it does not need a tall mast, flies higher in the sky where there’s more wind, and generates up to 10 times more power than a traditional sail per square metre,” says Schröder. The main thing is not the size of the kite but the speed at which it performs the figure of 8 in the sky – ideally you want constant flight speed to maintain constant power.”
This article is featured in Issue 4 of the new SuperYacht Times technical magazine How to Build It. Subscribe now to receive your copy straight to your door and never miss another issue.