Sailing: Around the world (and boat shows) on the Advanced Yachts A80

Mindfulness is a 24-meter semi-custom Advanced A80 launched last July that magnetically attracted audiences at the Cannes Yacht Festival and MYS 2021, the super-refined Monegasque nautical event that also took place on the Côte d’Azur. This cruising yacht sails fast and safe, with great roominess, comfort and “particularly generous” stowage spaces. She boasts an important planing speed and a maximum beam of six metres moved aft for additional space below deck. And a draft that’s not too deep, which may not be conducive to upwind sailing but helps a lot when cruising around those seas with “four-kilometer tides”.

The Advanced 80, now at her third unit launched, is specifically designed for Transat sailing, that’s for sure. Her seaworthiness does not require long-winded speeches. After all, if a yard knows how to rig its boats properly, this is confirmed at sea. A round-the-world trip is an indisputable test.

Now let’s talk in detail about the A80 Apsaras. The name evokes Apsara, a Hindu nymph, and is one of the (nautical) creations of Advanced Yachts, the company chaired by Antonella Di Leo and her husband Marco Tursini at their headquarters on Via Brera in Milan. Apsaras, like Mindsulness, was built at the Fano-based yard to run free at 27 knots, or the same speed with two reefing lines and foresails.

The A80 project boasts a sandwich construction of fibreglass and carbon panels with unidirectional carbon reinforcements at the points of greatest load, impregnated with epoxy resins, cured in an infusion process. “The hull and deck are extracted from female moulds,” they explain at the yard where A80 is fitted with a 326 square metre sail plan. It’s the mix that delivers an effectively lightweight craft (displacement:40 tonnes), where the extensive use of unidirectional carbon fibre hardens the parts subject to the greatest stresses. Complanar: another way of saying that the deck is literally a “parade ground”, practically devoid of any structural obstacles.

The top design by Mario Pedol and Massimo Gino of Nauta Yachts makes the most of the space available, offering a layout with the master cabin located aft or forward (with walk-in closet), galley in the saloon or otherwise positioned to the left of the boat in classic mode, with the guest and crew cabins aft. But the magnificent thing is the deckhouse, entirely windowed and bright. And the ultra-wide cockpit with the perfect symmetry of the two rudders.

The naval architecture is the work of John Reichel and Jim Pugh, who have been designing racing yachts for 30 years: “The shape of the rudder and the profile of the keel are the result of the most advanced research in terms of performance and manoeuvrability to allow the helmsman perfect control of the yacht in all sea and wind conditions”.

A80: a holistic view of sailing

Mindfulness stands for ‘awareness’, ‘fullness of mind’. The name of the latest A80, though of Anglo-Saxon extraction, undoubtedly recalls Eastern philosophies. And Eastern are also the owners: “one of them is the son of one of the richest men in the world who works in the field of renewable energies in China,” explains Captain Fabio Beccattini on the quayside at Port Canto during the Cannes Yachting Festival. With Apsaras, Beccattini completed a truly egregious and adventure-packed world tour in 2017. The skipper, who has been at sea for 35 years, comments on his experience aboard Asparas with satisfaction: “Strangely enough, I haven’t really had any problems, the A80 sails beautifully.”

The Advanced A80 is a five million euro yacht, but in this case the owners wanted her ‘rather plain’, with little instrumentation. Because they are people who take sailing as an ‘extreme act’. Mr. Beccattini insists that the equipment is necessary: “I made them buy 50,000 euro worth of equipment, we spent on satellite systems and the dual autopilot, but that doesn’t mean the boat isn’t equipped with the best the market has to offer“. Owners come and go, joining the skipper more for the crossings than to stay at anchor. With Mr. Beccattini at the helm, Apsaras will go everywhere, to the Seychelles, the Maldives, Thailand and even Burma and the Marquesas Islands: “A fantastic archipelago of 4,000 islands, where the sea gypsies live (…)”.

Technical Specs