Taking over 700,000 man-hours to complete, the world’s largest tri-hull superyacht has been delivered by Perth-based builder, Echo Yachts.

Designed by Sorgiovanni Design and One2Three Naval Architecture, White Rabbit is a 100% custom-designed superyacht built to its owner’s exacting requirements. It showcases the highest standards of luxury cruising and provides amazing seakeeping, speed and fuel efficiency for a vessel of its size.

At 84m long, 29.6m at beam and having a gross tonnage of just under 3000 GT, it is the largest superyacht to be built in Australia and is the largest trimaran (tri-hull) superyacht in the world. Oh and it’s also the world’s largest aluminium superyacht.

White Rabbit features five deck levels with over 1200m² of palatial entertaining and living space to accommodate up to 28 guests, as well as facilities for 36 crew members.

The project began in 2014 when Echo Yachts Director, Mark Stothard, signed the contract to construct White Rabbit and its 46m shadow vessel, M/Y Charley, for their owner. Taking four years to complete, the project created 300 construction jobs at its peak, with multiple local contractors and suppliers also engaged.

The White Rabbit superyacht features a unique hull, and is driven by diesel-electric drive propulsion with controllable pitch propellers. Power generation is located in the outer hull while the propulsion motors are installed in the centre hull. According to Echo Yachts Design Manager, Nick Gee, this design created a number of engineering challenges which were being implemented on a yacht or vessel for the first time.

As is the case with all yachts, space for services was at a premium. Echo Yachts engaged Western Australia based Systemaire, to provide a customised fan solution to ensure both sufficient air flow and pressure could be delivered.

“The engine room ventilation was always a challenge to ensure that we could supply a sufficient amount of air for the engine combustion and remove the heat produced by the generators,” said Nick.

“Systemaire has always provided excellent local support and technical assistance. We spent considerable time and investigated multiple options offered by Systemaire to meet the design criteria. In the end, we went with a number of unique fan selections to provide the flow and pressure required.”

Among the fans supplied for the project were AP Series direct drive adjustable pitch axial fans, TD Silent and ProVent Series in-line mixed-flow fans.

“One of the key challenges was meeting the air flow, noise, frequency and space requirements,” says Systemaire’s Senior Sales Engineer – Applied Technology, Lorne Adger. “This involved using some special fans, especially for the C32 generator sets.” White Rabbit was successfully launched in early September 2018 from Henderson, south of Perth, before being extensively trialled at sea off the Western Australian coastline. The superyacht was delivered to its owner in December 2018.

The unique project has been recognised around the world. One2Three Naval Architects won the Best Naval Architecture Displacement Motor Yachts Award for White Rabbit at the 2019 Boat International Design and Innovation Awards. Support vessel M/Y Charley was also a finalist in the World Superyacht Awards category of Best Shadow Vessel.