The Adler 76 Suprema is a clever motoryacht, and she presents us with a number of noteworthy details. One is that Adler is a Swiss company, but the yacht is built in Monfalcone, near Trieste, and also designed in Italy, by the well-known studio of Nuvolari Lenard. Tank testing for the hull took place in Vienna, and engineers from both Austria and Germany were involved in the concept and execution of the Suprema’s complex core. The structure is carbon fiber, and the interior fully customizable.
The accommodations layout is equally unusual. There is a wholly unexpected double cabin in the stern. This is reached down the aft salon companionway, which also offers access forward, via the crew’s quarters, to the engine room. The machinery space lies dead amidships, and the remaining two cabins consist of a luxurious full-beam master stateroom and a voluminous VIP forward that has excellent headroom and a pair of scissor berths, which can be slid apart or together as required.
There is a five-cabin layout as an option, but with just three suites in a hull this size there is no shortage of space on the lower deck, and it’s the same story overhead, where the sociable, open-plan galley and curved glass cockpit doors accentuate sightlines in the salon and capitalize on the light provided by the floor-to-ceiling windows. The interior design is modern, edgy and minimal, and the quality of finish meets the standards one expects from a modern Italian shipyard.
2019 Adler 76 Suprema
There is only one way up to the flybridge, from inside, which creates extra space in the cockpit. The flybridge itself is huge and remarkably well appointed, with space aft for a tender. Closed-circuit cameras allow all external areas of the yacht to be monitored from the lower helm, including the carbon-fiber propellers: You can watch them spinning. Other alluring attributes include under-floor heating and chilled cup holders. You can draw the curtains, dim the lights and switch on the air-conditioning using your iPad while still finishing your dinner ashore. This yacht is fully loaded.
The Suprema features a hybrid propulsion system, many years in gestation. Her twin Caterpillar C18s can be used to spin a pair of conventional propeller shafts, or to generate power for the yacht’s two 100-kilowatt electric motors, which are built around the prop shafts and also function as generators. The diesels also charge the yacht’s huge bank of batteries, stowed under the engine room floor and extending well aft along the centerline. According to Adler, they can be fully charged by the engines in an hour.
The most interesting thing about this yacht is that it’s hybrid propulsion technology—perhaps the most complex and versatile ever fitted in a vessel of this size—operates entirely automatically. The owner simply uses the boat as he would any other, while the hybrid system’s electronic control unit makes all the decisions about whether to use diesel power to push the boat along, electricity, or both.
The Suprema 76 is complicated, but it works. The cleverest thing about its remarkable propulsion system is how simple it is: The boat monitors your demand for speed and decides how best to deliver it. If you aren’t looking at the screens, you don’t know what’s happening in the engine room. And you don’t need to know—so you’re free to get on with enjoying your boat. And that’s probably the cleverest thing of all. —Alan Harper
Adler Yachts, +41 41 729 39 48; adleryacht.com
LOA: 75’10”
BEAM: 19’10”
DRAFT: 5’9”
DISPL.: 108,025 lbs. (dry)
FUEL: 1,374 gal.
WATER: 232 gal.
Std. POWER: 2/1,150-hp Caterpillar C18, coupled to conventional prop shafts and to combined electric motors/generators
CRUISE SPEED: 21.2 knots
PRICE: $3,870,000