On the last day of the Monaco Yacht Show, a contract for a 100m (328ft) motoryacht called Project Blade (DY007) was signed between Yacht Partners International (YPI) and Dunya Yachts on board their earlier 72m (236ft) Axioma (ex-Red Square) build. The Project Blade is being built for the owner of Axioma and was designed by Ken Frievokh with completion set for 2019.

“We put the Axioma on the market 48 hours ago and we have already had two offers,” Russell Crump, sales director of YPI, commented. Axioma was completed in 2013 and she made news when she was sold on the penultimate day of the 2013 MYS by YPI. She has proved to be a very successful charter yacht generating over $7m in her first year. She has also recently completed 75 days of back-to-back charters during the Mediterranean season.

Dunya will build the new yacht at its state-of-the-art 30,000sq m Ursa shipyard at Tuzla, which includes Turkey’s only covered drydock with a capacity of 5,000 tonnes; a total area of 30,000sq m of which 18,000sq m is covered including a 120m (394ft) main construction hall and 180m (591ft) of quay.

Commenting on the Axioma and the Project Blade, Sedat Ergun, Dunya’s managing director, said: “Since her launch, the success of the yacht’s warranty period and the satisfaction of her owners are two clear indicators of the quality Dunya Yachts is able to deliver. Not only is our standard of build at the highest level, but the quality of Dunya’s aftersales service is second to none. It’s one of the reasons why the owner of Axioma has chosen to return to Dunya Yachts for the build of a 100m superyacht project.”

On the question of the construction cost advantage of building in Turkey, Ergun suggested that it was of the order of 25-30%