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SX88: Inside Sanlorenzo’s revolutionary crossover yacht

With its loft-living aesthetic and easy access to the sea, Sanlorenzo’s new crossover yacht has a wow factor that could mark the beginning of a whole new genre

It’s a brave shipyard that diverts from a winning formula. Sanlorenzo ’s semi-custom SL and SD lines are so entrenched that they keep the yard near the top of global build tables year after year.

The company, which turns 60 in 2018, could have kept tweaking the models by degrees to suit the market mood, but instead it has taken everyone by surprise with a bold grab for a brand new slice of the semi-custom market . In doing so it has come up with a product that is truly refreshing, something that changes the conversation. You have to say: hats off.

From first glance, the brand new SX88 is immediately unlike any Sanlorenzo that precedes it. The superstructure is original and muscular. The reverse windscreen has a hint of trawler about it. Behind, the lines by Officina Italiana Design swoop back to a long, low, teak-clad stern used for storing tenders and toys that can be quickly cleared using a hidden davit to provide a superb water-level beach club.

There has been just as much innovation inside the boat. Sanlorenzo gave architect and interior designer Piero Lissoni something close to carte blanche. The result is breathtaking — whether you love it or loathe it. He has stripped out almost every established element from the main deck and turned it into one open space, bordered by near floor-to-ceiling windows, with only slim mullions interrupting the view.

“I wondered ‘why are there so many strange spaces on a boat?’” explains Lissoni. “I never understood why people who use boats accept something so vulgar. I wanted the interior like a loft. In architectural terms, a loft is a beautiful space, without frames and corridors.”

The master cabin ? Down below. Nav station? Upstairs. Galley? That’s the floating unit at the side, which can be extended or moved as necessary. Sofas, tables and other furniture? It’s all free-standing and can be rearranged at will. All that’s left to encroach on this open space is the staircase up to the flybridge — a cantilevered structure that almost appears to float.

That flybridge, therefore, becomes the nerve centre of the boat. Built from carbon to save weight, its huge wraparound vertical window can be lowered for ventilation, or raised for climate control. It’s an engineering tour de force, and much of it owes its genesis to Olympic sailor turned boat builder Luca Santella.

The SX88 had its first outing at the 2017 Cannes Yachting Festival , the culmination of many years’ work. Santella had sensed a market for a big boat with an open arrangement and good access to the water after feedback from clients for his own brand of 9 to 13 metre motor yachts.

His company, Bluegame, fell victim to the financial crisis in 2013 but, as he says: “I closed my business, but I didn’t close my mind.” The germ of the idea sprouted and in 2014 he felt ready to present the concept to Massimo Perotti, the owner of Sanlorenzo.

“It was the moment at which the pleasure yachting business restarted its positive trend after the 2008 crisis,” explains Perotti. “The market went through a radical change and only experienced, passionate and true sea lovers remained as players. I truly believed that this new concept of boat and boating could match very well the new market trend expectations.”

Reception was cautious at first, and development slow. But as the yard made contact with potential buyers of the new boat, dubbed “X” for crossover, it became clear that there was significant interest. “Mr Perotti immediately understood that there was real possibility here,” Santella says. Before the first boat was complete, 11 units had been sold — not bad going for an unproven design with a €5 million-plus price tag.

The story of the SX88 is one of overcoming technical hurdles. There was so much in this project that Sanlorenzo had never done before that it presented a steep learning curve. It took all the energy of Santella and his team to drive it on. To start with, he envisioned a new style of hull and signed up veteran American naval architect Lou Codega to deliver it.

Something between displacement and planing, the SX88 carries one marked chine all the way aft and a second one back amidships. From the outset, Santella had a top speed of 23 knots in mind and throughout the design process he defended this target — “17 or 18 knots is fine most of the time but, like a car, it’s good to have that extra speed if you need it,” he says.

The footprint of the boat at the waterline is sleeker than most, with the widest beam in the last third of the hull. There are not two but three Volvo Penta IPS 1050 diesel engines, each unit delivering 800hp through twin propellers on a fully rotating pod. The boat is supremely manoeuvrable, without the need for rudders or thrusters. “It is the first time Sanlorenzo has experimented with this technology,” Santella adds.

His team ran the calculations for hull speed and trim a hundred times, but they wanted external verification. They took a scale model for tank testing in the Netherlands, which yielded proof that the hull calculations were correct. The result is a yacht with a range of 1,000 nautical miles at 12 knots and 600 to 700 nautical miles at full speed. “She can sail at night like a semi-displacement yacht,” Santella explains. “This gives the boat another appeal: she can go nearly anywhere.”

It was key to the design that sole control of the boat be moved to a flybridge nav station, freeing up space on the main deck. “Technically, it was very difficult,” Santella says, “but it rewarded us with a huge opportunity to give the client a boat with two personalities: open plan with the master cabin below, or a more traditional layout.”

The biggest challenge with the flybridge was to make it comfortable to use in hot and cold weather. The solution was a giant hydraulically controlled window. “Like in a car, except that this window is three metres long with curves,” he says. The view from the navigator’s seat offers a 270 degree connection to the water. “The windows are so big, all you can see is water – it’s like being outside,” Santella adds.

In line with the vision for the main deck, the flybridge is a very open space, running out onto an area of open decking suitable for loungers or a table. Lissoni’s sofas in light grey linen line each side of the covered area, with a gleaming red table in the middle that can be raised and lowered. A glass balustrade gives the deck the appearance of merging with the sea. When it’s time to switch on the air con, a louvre built into the hardtop can be closed, and a transparent plastic curtain divides the inside from outside.

A key part of Santella’s vision was that large open aft deck, which he wanted close to the waterline to enhance the connection to the sea. In beach club mode, a 4.6 square metre section lowers into the water and an integrated staircase adjusts to the chosen depth. It provides a great spot for the family to play, and for berthing the tender and toys between outings.

But this area has a dual personality too. There is enough space to store a 4.45 metre Williams Dieseljet, as well as a couple of Jet Skis. The idea came late, but Santella’s team realised after the hull was in the mould that they might be able to disguise the launching crane within the plunging curve of the handrail. It took a lot of design work, but the solution is neat: the rail on the port quarter is indistinguishable from that to starboard, but a three metre section of it is mounted on a huge bearing, and is capable of swinging a tonne through 270 degrees.

By concentrating storage at the stern, the bow is left free as another relaxing space. All the gleaming stainless steel for launching and recovering the anchor and mooring lines is hidden in a deep locker. The locker lid can be covered with cushions to provide ample sunbathing, or you can retreat to a U-shaped sofa in the shade of those raked windows, where another lowering table creates a huge lounger.

The big windows have so far meant that access to the bow is possible only via the side decks. But that is about to change. Sanlorenzo’s team has found a way to engineer a forward exit, the top swinging up and the bottom swinging out. Santella calls it “a technical headache”, but expect to see this feature on an addition to the SX range — a yacht of well over 30 metres LOA, which is still on the drawing board.

An SX76 is likely to hit the water first, and has already pre-sold half a dozen units. “The SX project was so particular in its characteristics that we immediately decided to design a complete range around it,” says Perotti.

Being a largely customisable yacht, the finish inside is a matter of personal taste. Lissoni’s vision is all dark wenge panelling, long, low-slung sofas and natural fabrics in grey and orange. His galley unit is in brushed stainless steel by Italian firm Boffi, while the four cabins on the lower deck are en suite, with shower rooms clad in Carrara marble.

The master cabin aft runs the full beam of the SX88, with walls in gleaming green glass panels. In the VIP cabin, the bed lies athwartships and the glass panelling switches to blue, as it is in the twin cabin and the single (with Pullman).

His design has certainly created the wow factor, but for those with more conservative tastes, Sanlorenzo has produced its own alternative visions in light oak and lacquered wood, with the main deck split into an enclosed dining space and separate relaxing space. But as Santella himself says: “With the SX, the boat is already giving so much; there’s no need to go even further with the interior design.”

The owner can also choose to put the master cabin below, or on the main deck, where it can take advantage of the light that floods in through the forward windows.

Even without the Lissoni interior, this is an exciting, innovative yacht. The average age of owners is already much lower than the mid-50s of Sanlorenzo’s other lines, and it’s not hard to see why. “We believe that the SX line will bring Sanlorenzo a new and younger clientele,” says Perotti. “For sure there will be many copies of it by our competitors in the coming years.”

And if that happens — if the SX range becomes a genre — you will know that Sanlorenzo’s bold decision has paid off and set the company on a course for its next 60 years.

First published in the February 2018 edition of Boat International .

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Sanlorenzo’s Asymmetric SL106A Reviewed

• By Diane M. Byrne
• July 1, 2022

Any time a company deviates from “the norm,” eyebrows raise. This is especially true in yachting, which remains a fairly conservative industry in terms of design. Traditional looks still sell, so many builders play it pretty safe, as is evident at any boat show where attendees are incredulous upon seeing a radically different yacht.

Massimo Perotti, the chairman and CEO of Sanlorenzo , knows the feeling. When the shipyard announced the addition of Asymmetric models to its SL series, the news was met with “a bit of skepticism,” he says. These Asymmetric models push usable interior space out to the full beam on one side—and only one side, where there’s no traditional side deck.

Captains and crew accustomed to having two side decks to handle lines and get around the yacht were worried. Customers could have been too, but funny enough, the customers liked it. Then, the captains and crew came around.

“The market has been receiving the Asymmetric idea very well,” Perotti says, adding that acceptance came partly because the side deck isn’t actually removed; it’s just moved. When owners see and feel the difference in the interior, and how much it enhances their connection to the cruising environment, they’re sold.

The idea behind the Asymmetric line dates back several years. Sanlorenzo was wrestling with how to provide owners with more usable interior space. An initial idea was a widebody design, in which the main-deck interior spans the yacht’s full beam. Sanlorenzo quickly decided that wasn’t practical for smaller to midsize superyachts. So, Perotti sought the input of designer Chris Bangle, with whom Sanlorenzo has been working since 2015. Bangle is known for shaking up the designs of Fiat and BMW. He came up with the notion of a widebody to one side to benefit owners along with a full side deck opposite, as well as an over-the-widebody passage from the flybridge to the bow to benefit the crew.

Sanlorenzo then tapped Zuccon International Project and its own design department to make the concept float. The first Asymmetric model, the SL102A, debuted in May 2018, with about a dozen contracts coming in less than a year. After that, customers began asking for a slightly longer aft deck and swim platform, which resulted in the creation of the SL106A.

If you’re still trying to wrap your brain around the asymmetry, rest assured that the SL106A doesn’t look lopsided. In fact, unless you know to look for the difference, you may not even notice it at first.

There is still a side deck to starboard, and the twin stairways leading from the swim platform to the main deck aft are what you’re used to seeing. The same is true when you view the vessel bow-on or in aerial photos. Handrail-lined side decks—truly dedicated passageways outboard of the leisure areas—on the flybridge lend aesthetic balance.

For the remaining skeptics, consider that most flybridge yachts don’t provide a way for the crew to reach the foredeck from up top. The SL106A has a few stairs on the widebody side. Crew also can access the flybridge via an alfresco floating stairway aft and to port on the main deck, or by way of steps from the raised pilothouse (a configuration that’s hidden until you step aboard).

As for the extra interior space, the one-sided widebody adds nearly 108 square feet to the main deck. Much of it is used in the open-plan salon and dining area, where most owners and guests spend their time when they’re not swimming or otherwise enjoying the great outdoors. Additionally, a nearly sole-to-ceiling window is on the widebody side. Guests can practically stand right up against it, lending the sensation of hovering directly above the water. Sliding glass doors and a deploying balcony opposite, along with the 23-foot beam, add to the roomy feel.

The main-deck master stateroom also feels airy because of a rectangular port forward, directly over the bed. (Where so many builders position the en suite head; Sanlorenzo situates it along the portside entry.) This stateroom has a door to the starboard-side deck. Push a button, and there’s access to the foredeck settee with a table for a private breakfast or snack. A few steps up on the port side are a sun pad and the stairs to the flybridge.

In challenging conventional notions of how a yacht has to look and function, Sanlorenzo actually includes new ways to get around. And the SL106A is still a 10-guest, 28-knot yacht. That is about as traditional as they come. 

Fueling the Future

Sanlorenzo is exploring alternatives to traditional diesel fuel. In partnership with Siemens Energy, it’s developing a superyacht with methanol fuel-cell systems to generate electricity—a proven technology that has never been used in yachting. Delivery of the 164-footer is expected in 2024.

Sanlorenzo Arts

Recognizing that its customers regularly attend major art fairs, Sanlorenzo has a global partnership agreement for the Art Basel events in Hong Kong, Switzerland and Miami through 2023. The shipyard created Sanlorenzo Arts to better connect its brand to the art world, collaborating with artists for special exhibitions.

Sanlorenzo created its High-End Services division in 2020 to enhance customer relationships. Services include leasing and financing, crew training at the Sanlorenzo Academy, as well as maintenance and refit through Sanlorenzo Timeless. The builder is augmenting the division this year to increase client loyalty and attract new buyers.

Take the next step: sanlorenzoyacht.com

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What Happened on Nazino Island? The Cannibal Gulag

The short-lived Nazino Island Gulag was one of the most horrific episodes of Soviet history, wherein the inmates turned to cannibalism in order to survive.

• Over 6,700 prisoners were sent to the gulag on Nazino Island in Western Siberia with minimal resources, resulting in widespread starvation and cannibalism; 4,000 died within 13 weeks.
• The island, intended as a part of Stalin’s plan to spread out the Soviet population and utilize prisoner labor for collectivization, faced logistical challenges, including a severe tool shortage, which contributed to the disaster.
• Despite reports of the horrors on the island, officials initially turned a blind eye; when the tragedy finally came to light decades later, a memorial was erected to honor the victims, many of whom were not true criminals but unlucky citizens caught in Stalin’s harsh system.

In 1933, 6,700 prisoners were sent to a gulag on Nazino Island in the middle of the Ob River in Western Siberia. They were given only a few bags of flour to sustain themselves. Without tools to cultivate the land nor any clothing and supplies to survive the harsh climate, the gulag’s population resorted to the most depraved act of cannibalism. Within 13 weeks, 4,000 people had died on the island, and armed guards shot those who tried to escape. Nazino Island was, quite possibly, the worst gulag of them all.

The Origins of the Nazino Island Gulag

During the early 1930s, the Soviet Union wished to spread out its population to make use of arable farmland across the vast country. Relocating prisoners was a perfect way to do this. Collectivized farms sprang up across previously uninhabited parts of the country, and prisoners were used as the labor that would achieve this. With plenty of political enemies, there was no shortage of prisoners in the Soviet Union, and labor was easily attainable.

In February of 1933, the head of the OGPU secret police, Genrikh Yagoda , and Matvei Berman, the head of the Gulag system, proposed an idea to deport two million people to Siberia and the Kazakh regions to work on collective farms. They had done this before with the Kulaks, which had proven successful. 

This time, however, there was a severe shortage of tools. And this would prove to be a vital ingredient to the carnage that would follow.

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In major cities such as Moscow and Leningrad, workers and other people providing important services were issued with internal passports. This system made it easy to identify unproductive, unwanted, and criminal elements of society. These undesirables were earmarked for deportation. Despite being a much-loathed feature of Tsarist Russia and done away with under the Bolsheviks , the passport system was reinstated under the rule of Stalin to devastating effect. It proved to be highly effective in streamlining productivity and reassigning the superfluous elements of society to more productive roles.

The authoritarian decrees and the arrest quotas the police had to fill ensured that being deported to one of the many gulags was incredibly easy to achieve. Between March and July 1933, 85,937 people were deported from Moscow alone. Being an avid communist and supporter of the system meant nothing if you left your papers at home. It was in this dynamic that the 6,700 prisoners destined for Nazino Island began their journey.

Transportation hubs were set up in the cities of Tomsk, Omsk, and Achinsk. Rail convoys were created, which departed from Moscow and Leningrad. Daily rations on board the trains consisted of just 300 grams (11 ounces) of bread. Thuggery within the carriages meant that many went without rations, while those with muscle and a questionable moral compass had plenty to eat.

Those destined for Nazino Island then found themselves on barges, where for two weeks, they were crammed together for two weeks and fed only 200 grams (7 ounces) of bread per day. Twenty-seven people died en route to the island.

On May 18, 1933, 322 women and 4,556 men disembarked at their destination, which was the last place most of them would ever see. The island was 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) long and 600 meters (660 yards) wide and could not feed the thousands of new residents. The only thing the prisoners had was 20 tons of flour. Fighting broke out as the flour was being unloaded and distributed, and the guards fired on the prisoners to restore order. Distribution was attempted again the next day with the same result.

After leaders were designated amongst the prisoners, the flour was handed out. However, most of these leaders would simply hoard the flour for themselves.

With no ovens on the island, the prisoners ate the flour with water from the river, and as a result, dysentery spread through the gulag.

It was around this time that the plan for the Nazino Island Gulag was rejected by Stalin. But it was too late for the deportees. Yagoda and Berman had already put their plan into action.

Many tried to escape via flimsy rafts but drowned in the icy waters of the Ob. Those who did manage to make it to shore were hunted by guards as if it were a sport. Those who managed to escape were presumed dead, as the wilderness around the area is extremely inhospitable.

The guards were equally violent. They allowed the gangs to operate and executed prisoners for minor infractions. The violent situation on the island also hindered the doctors on the island, as they feared for their lives too. The guards made little attempt, if any, to keep them safe.

Chaos Breaks Out

It did not take long for violence to become rife and for order to completely break down on the island. Cultivation of the soil was impossible without tools, and as most of the deportees were city-dwellers, they knew very little about survival in the wild.

The more violent members of the new society formed gangs and took control, exploiting the weaker members. Anything that could be traded for food was taken, including gold teeth. Fights broke out over food, and murder became a daily occurrence.

Barely one week after being confined to the island, doctors started reporting incidents of cannibalism. News of this was sent back to Tomsk, but the response was not positive. Instead of sending help, the authorities sent another 1,000 prisoners and no extra food. This was probably due to a bureaucratic mistake rather than a willful decision to make the situation worse.

Meanwhile, the guards would regularly throw bits of bread into the starving crowds and watch as fights broke out. Their cruelty extended to shooting at the prisoners on the island for sport while they sat in the safety of their boats, getting drunk. They even traded cigarettes and bread for sex from female prisoners.

They did, however, take action when they heard reports of cannibalism, but they were almost powerless to prevent the atrocities.

The Horror of the Cannibalism

Those who died from accidents, fights, or being shot by the guards were eaten in desperation, but this body count wasn’t enough. Roving gangs hunted and murdered for food. They skewered their victims on sticks and roasted them over fires.

Interviews with the local Ostyak people later revealed harrowing stories. In one account, Feofila Bylina’s parents received a visitor from the island one night. A 40-year-old woman was at their door, and the Bylin family took her in and discovered that the poor victim’s calves had been cut off.

Another account tells the story of a 13-year-old Ostyak girl who went to the island to gather firewood. She witnessed a woman being tied to a tree, whereupon her breasts, calves, and other bits of her body were sliced off. The girl hurriedly alerted the guards, but the victim died before she could be helped.

A communist instructor living on the banks of the Ob, Vasily Velichko, began to hear rumors of what was happening on Nazino Island and, without waiting for permission from the authorities, decided to investigate the situation. When he arrived on the island in August, a grim picture of the situation greeted him. He found half-eaten bodies hiding among the tall grasses. He followed up by conducting interviews with the Ostyak people living nearby and built up a picture of what had happened. He sent a report to Moscow. For his efforts, he was kicked out of the Communist Party and fired from his job. The report was then hidden in the archives.

Action, however, was taken, and the gulag was closed. The 50 guards overseeing Nazino Island also had their Party membership rescinded, and they were all jailed for negligence and being complicit in the horror that unfolded.

“I only ate livers and hearts. It was very simple. Just like shashlik. We made skewers from willow branches, cut it into pieces, stuck it on the skewers, and roasted it over the campfire. I picked those who were not quite living, but not yet quite dead. It was obvious that they were about to go — that in a day or two, they’d give up. So, it was easier for them that way. Now. Quickly. Without suffering for another two or three days.” One of the survivors 

The Aftermath

In the period of thirteen weeks which encompassed the tragedy, roughly 6,000 people were deported to Nazino Island. Around 1,500 to 2,000 people died from starvation, disease, exposure, murder, or accidental death. Approximately 2,000 survived past the camp’s closing, but the vast majority were ill, with many bedridden. Many did not survive their relocation to other camps. Only a few hundred people were healthy enough to work.

With the Glasnost policy in 1988, the Soviet Union became more open about its past, and the human rights group Russian Memorial Society investigated the horrors of Nazino Island, bringing it to the attention of the public.

A wooden cross was planted on the island in memory of the victims, and every year in June, pilgrims make their way from Tomsk to pay their respects in honor of those who died in this tragedy. In 2018, a church was also built and dedicated to the memory of the victims.

The purpose of Soviet gulags was primarily to get rid of dissidents but also to provide labor. In this, Nazino Island was a complete failure on both fronts. Many deportees were not criminals but just unlucky enough to be seized by the police. One man, over one hundred years old, was a victim because he didn’t have his papers on him. Another was a student simply standing at the front door of his aunt’s apartment.

Stalin’s Great Purge: Gulags, Show Trials, and Terror

By Greg Beyer BA History & Linguistics, Journalism Diploma Greg specializes in African History. He holds a BA in History & Linguistics and a Journalism Diploma from the University of Cape Town. A former English teacher, he now excels in academic writing and pursues his passion for art through drawing and painting in his free time.

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