The Regatta Gear team likes to look over the best venues for crews who might sport our line of sailing gear, and what would be more appropriate than Eos, the 305-foot (92.92m), three-masted Bermuda rigged schooner owned by movie and media billionaire Barry Diller, husband of fashion designer Diane von Fürstenberg?
The ship is one of the largest private sailing yachts in the world. According to a 2007 article in Harper’s Bazaar, Eos features a figurehead of von Fürstenberg sculpted by Anh Duong.
Eos was launched in 2006 in Bremen, Germany, from the Lürssen yard. The ship took three years to build. When launched, she took over the number one spot for world’s largest sailing yacht from Athena – a 295-foot clipper-bowed three masted gaff rigged schooner built by Royal/Huisman in 2004 for Internet entrepreneur James H. Clark.
Eos was designed by the late Bill Langan, Rondal/Huisman supplied the rig, and the remaining naval architecture was completed by Lürssen. The interior was designed by François Catroux. The 200-foot (61 m) tall masts are the maximum height allowed to enable the craft to pass underneath bridges across the globe.
We went to Nick Riley at YachtPals.com to get his take on the big boat.
Although the 289-foot Maltese Falcon is the largest sailing yacht in the world when measured via LOD (length on deck), Eos, at 305 feet in length, is the largest private sailing yacht in the world overall (LOA – length over all). Both boats have three masts, are wind-propelled, float on the water and provide their owners and guests with opulent luxuries. But apart from that, comparing the two designs is sort of like comparing apples to oranges. Which one is bigger? Well, it depends on how you measure it. If the bowsprit counts (and it usually does), then the Eos wins.
The Eos is called a “three masted, Bermuda rigged schooner,” but it doesn’t look like any schooner from the past. Like many mega yachts (especially sailing mega yachts), the Eos is one of those love it or hate it designs. Is it a perfect blending of old and new, or is it some hideous mutant? You be the judge.
The interior allows for 16 guests to stay on board in robber-baron luxury. Normally, the Eos yacht uses around 21 crew members to maintain and sail the boat, and carries the usual mega yacht toys and goodies like jet skis and small powerboats. The sailing yacht is named after the Greek goddess Eos, the “Bringer of Dawn,” who rises from Oceanus each day to open the gates of heaven with her rosy fingers, so as to allow Apollo to ride his chariot across the sky. Whether or not you think it’s really a bigger boat, you’ve got to agree that’s a better name than “Maltese Falcon.”
Press coverage of Eos written for non-sailors describes the ship with phrases like “world’s largest,” (despite the opinion of the Latitude 38 “sailing experts”). A 2009 news story about Eos’ arrival in Fremantle, Australia appears designed to reinforce the glamour and mystique of luxury yachting, (if not envy and/or daydreaming). It claims that not only is the ship “the world’s largest yacht,” but that “Little is known about the yacht’s interior, kept a secret by Mr. Diller, but it is believed to boast a glass staircase and panoramic views astern.”
The outgoing captain was quoted as saying, “I thoroughly enjoy it … I have long, unstructured hours and an ever-changing itinerary. We have no set route but travel mainly between the Mediterranean and the Caribbean.”
Pop star Madonna lunched aboard Eos while attending the 2008 Cannes Film Festival “for a gala screening of her documentary about children in Malawi,” as the ship “moored for several days in the bay close to the Hotel du Cap, Antibes.
The ship is “valued in excess of US$150 million.”
Eos Sailing Yacht Characteristics
- Yacht Launched: 2006
- Yacht Designer: Bill Langan
- Yacht Builder: Lürssen
- Yacht Length Overall (LOA): 305 feet (93 meters including the Eos yacht’s bowsprit)
- Yacht Length on Deck (LOD): 271 feet (83 meters)
- Yacht Waterline Length (LWL): 233 feet (71 meters)
- Yacht Beam: 44.29 feet (13.50 meters)
- Yacht Hull Material: Aluminium
- Yacht Superstructure: Aluminium
- Yacht Gross Tonnage: 1500
- Sailing Yacht Engines: 2 x 2,333 hp (1,740 kW) MTU Diesels
Yacht Max Speed: 16 knots
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