This May Very Well Be the World's First Yacht to Have a VTOL for a Tender

Most often yacht tenders come in the form of smaller boats, or jetskis, or in some extreme cases, even submarines and helicopters. At least that was the case until this week, when we got word of vertical take-off and landing aircraft taking on pretty much the same role.

The news concerns first and foremost a new vessel being constructed at the hands of British shipbuilder Archipelago. We're talking about an 80-foot (24-meter) explorer yacht powered by a hybrid electric system.

The ship, called A80, is an aluminum three-decker, the largest in the company's fleet. It can carry a total of 16 tons and 12 people and has enough room to accommodate all types of tenders mentioned above, including the ones that fly.

That's because the thing has up top, on the third deck, a dedicated landing pad. It is there where the owner of the ship plans to land an electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL), which to our knowledge marks the first time such a pairing has been imagined.

The catamaran is made with a dual hull design in a bid to lower its displacement and, this way, reduce the need for power to reach the same speed as a monohull of the same size. The ship will draw power from a 24 kW array of solar panels, with energy stored in large battery banks. The performance numbers for the vessel show a top speed of 29 knots (33 mph/54 kph).

The eVTOL that will serve this yacht is one made by a company called Skyfly and it wears the name Axe. It is perhaps the smallest kind of eVTOL we've seen in a long time, but also one that will most likely be used by scores of people, provided its development process goes as planned.

That's because the Axe was not created as an air taxi that needs a specific kind of license and training to be flown. It was devised instead to follow the same certification path as private kit-built aircraft, making it a tool that can be used with any pilot license. In fact, Skyfly says, this is the only two-seater eVTOL to be able to do that at the moment.

The company making the thing describes its operation as being just as straightforward as running a camera drone. The Axe takes off and lands like a helicopter (if the need arises, it could do these two operations in a conventional, aircraft-like fashion) and then transitions to horizontal flight. For the safety of the occupants, a ballistic parachute is included in the package to bring the Axe down safely in case of an emergency.

The Axe is a bit weird in design, as it has four wings of sensibly equal size placed at the aft and fore of a very small cabin. Each wing has a fixed-angle propeller (a total of four of them) on its two tips, each spun by a pair of electric motors.

The battery installed in the aircraft is enough to keep the aircraft going for as much as 100 miles (160 km) on a single charge, and that's probably more than enough to reach the ship from shore, or quite the opposite, reach some restaurant on land.

If the range is not enough for some people, Skyfly can install a hybrid generator that triples it. No matter the case, the aircraft will be able to charge itself right there on the deck of the A80.

The top speed of the aircraft is equal to its range, meaning it will burn through a full charge in a single hour. At 650 kg (1,433 pounds) the eVTOL is light enough to be supported by the deck of the A80.

Neither the ship nor the airborne tender envisioned for it are yet ready for operation. In the case of the aircraft, Skyfly will only begin crewed test flights of their concept more than a month from now, in March. The actual Axe eVTOL meant for the A80 will not enter construction before May of next year.

Plans are for the pair to be shown in their full glory in September 2025 at the Cannes Boat Show. The price of the entire package (meaning the Archipelago yacht and its airborne tender) is not known.

But we do know how much Skyfly is asking for the eVTOL. That would be $180,000, which is by all accounts one of the lowest prices in this industry. Pairing that with the fact it can be flown by virtually anyone, we expect plenty of such VTOLs to be in the sky in the coming years. Provided, of course, all the testing goes according to plan starting in March.