The Vitters superyacht Aglaia started off her second Mediterranean season with a spectacular novelty:  Her Code 1 sail which measures around 3,600m2 features  artwork by Norwegian artist Magne Furuholmen. This extraordinary price of art is the largest artwork on canvas in the world. The owner of yacht Aglaia had a series of Furuholmen pieces on board and after christening her, chose to make his art a more integral part of the yacht design by putting his work on her sail.

Vitters Sailing yacht Aglaia with sail art by Magne Furuholmen - Photo by Christopher Scholey

Aglaia is a spectacular 66m sloop-rigged aluminium sailing yacht built by Vitters with a low superstructure and a clean deck.  Yacht Aglaia’s rig is all carbon with EC6 rigging and gives a sail area to displacement ratio equivalent to a racing yacht. This Dubois design breaks new grounds in several areas – not just the length of this sloop but in the design and all the engineering, innovation, technique and craftsmanship coming together.

The performance sloop Aglaia’s design brief asked for an all-weather performance sailer with sleek and clean lines. In addition, requirements were stated for sailing, steering and manoeuvrability. With the motto to develop a 60m+ yacht that sails like a dinghy, the design team set specific targets like hoisting the main sail in less than two minutes and tacking the boat within 30 seconds. The 83m carbon mast one of the tallest in the world and is the largest ever produced by Southern Spars and had to be transported to The Netherlands in two pieces. The three-dimensionally curved glass in the deckhouse has a spectacular light effect and gives undistorted panoramic views.

Vitters sailing yacht Aglaia with curved glass in the deckhouse

For performance reasons, the Owner and Naval Architect Dubois chose to avoid a double headstay. The size and weight of the Staysail and Code 1 implied difficult manual handling. This challenged them to develop an innovative storage system on two drums in the forepeak. In addition, they designed an inline furler for the Staysail. This new type of furler significantly increases safety of the crew by completely avoiding manual handling for large sail hoisting and setting.

Vitters Sailing yacht Aglaia with sail art by Magne Furuholmen

While designing yacht Alaia’s magnificent sail artwork, Magne Furuholmen took a modern approach to portrait paintings of 100 years ago. The sail artwork is his interpretation of a history that has a connection to the context in which the work was going to be placed and a connection to that person who he was portraying.

The new artwork on the Aglaia yachts sail by Norwegian artist Magne Furuholmen includes letters from the names of the owner’s family. He began with the Christian names of the owner’s family, with letters becoming a ‘personal alphabet’ to generate words. With these he created an abstract narrative (in the orange sections) – a family portrait in text.

Sailing yacht Aglaia with sail art by Magne Furuholmen - Photo by Christopher Scholey.

The final version of Aglaia’s sail was produced by the expert sail painters Harris Sailpainting, in Majorca.

Please see a vidoe below of sailing yacht AGLAIA in action

The Aglaia superyacht was named after the Greek goddess of beauty and splendour.

Photo’s by Christopher Scholey and Rick Tomlinson