Among the boats that shimmered in the heat at the Cannes Yachting Festival last weekend, one vessel stood out. Kohuba has the sleek lines and colouring of a killer whale, and five cabins appointed to the standard of a palace hotel. The underside of its macassar ebony dining table is wrapped in the same shade of leather that encases the door handles throughout the interior. The exotic wenge timber floors are as lustrous as those of a Côte d’Azur ballroom.
At a nose more than 30 metres in length, Kohuba, completed this year in Plymouth by Princess Yachts, was not the biggest boat on show at the annual jamboree in the South of France. But she was the only one to include on her rear decks a glass display cabinet containing a custom-built motorbike. Fat exhausts sparkling under the sun, it stood incongruously on the flybridge, or upper deck, like an automotive version of a Damien Hirst shark.
The journey of the bike to its unlikely parking space next to its own 1.5-tonne crane (the sealed container has to be lowered from deck to land before being opened and the bike rolled out) reveals much about the mechanics and mores of the luxury yacht market. And it is enjoying a buoyant year, as economies recover and, in the case of Princess, a weak pound attracts foreign buyers. “The publicity around Brexit was the best advertising we’ve had for years,” says Chris Gates, the company’s veteran managing director, as we shelter from the sun between the bar and the air conditioner inside Princess’s stand.