Lifestyle
Explore the Astonishing Flying Yacht Concept That Transforms a Majestic Sailing Vessel into a Jet-Sized Airplane
Forget flying vehicles. One audacious designer wishes to help you realize your Baron Munchausen fantasies.
The Flying Yacht, a novel design by Yelken Octuri, combines two potentially incompatible modes of transportation into a spectacularly wild vessel: an ocean trimaran that transforms into a jet-sized aircraft. In “Boat” mode, the 152-foot length and 89-foot beam provide sufficient interior space for a 10-person motoryacht. In “Airplane” mode, the 297-foot wingspan and four engines provide sufficient lift and propulsion for a theoretical maximum speed of 210.5 knots, or 242 miles per hour.
Octuri, an aircraft designer by trade, conceived of the Flying Yacht after researching enormous 1940s aircraft such as Howard Hughes’ H-4 Hercules, also known as the Spruce Goose, the largest flying boat ever constructed, and later flying boats such as the Soviet Union’s Ekranoplan, which resembled a monster jet stranded on the water rather than a boat. As the military vessel accelerated, ground effect — a cushion of air confined beneath the hull — lifted it approximately 10 feet, allowing it to travel at incredible speeds over the water.
The Flying Yacht’s additional component—14,000 square feet of sail on four 133-foot-tall masts—makes its design considerably more complicated, if it is to function in the actual world. The sails propel the multipurpose vessel, and when they are retracted, the masts transform into wings.
Octuri’s website implies that the Sail Yacht was constructed, but he is eager to point out that the specifics are fictitious. “However, I continue to receive numerous inquiries regarding the price,” he told Robb Report.
With this futuristic concept, the designer literally disregarded engineering. Octuri was more concerned with what he believed looked cool than with developing a feasible plan for a crossover vessel.
Octuri states, “I am aware of the tens of thousands of components that go into the design of any aircraft.” “It would take me a lifetime to compile all that data in order to construct this concept. I chose to disregard engineering at the outset.”