Stealth 93ft

Italian industrialist Giovanni Agnelli knew exactly what he wanted when commissioning this iconic design: “The boat will be black and called Stealth. I wish to simply have fun and pleasure from sailing her. And I want her finished within 6 months!”.

The result was one of the fastest and certainly most remarkable superyachts built since the great J-Class monoliths in the 1930s. Her all-carbon construction pushed the boundaries of composite technology well beyond any superyacht before – and they needed to be, as hull loads generated at 15 knots were 2.5 times higher than those measured in a normal yacht.

Stealth was designed first and foremost to be fast, and her performance graph has become a benchmark by which all other performance yachts are now judged. It was launched in June 1996, the same weekend that Michael Schumacher won his first F1 race for Ferrari.

Her record across the Mediterranean from Marseille to Carthage set in 1998 still stands – an average speed of 15.77knots! Mani Frers was one of Stealth’s crew on that voyage, and recalls: “After racing on the maxi circuit, this was my first taste of Volvo Ocean racing type sailing and showed just how hard these yachts are pushed in extreme conditions.”