Austal Cairns and the Superyacht Group Great Barrier Reef welcome superyacht M/Y Australia, built in 2012 by bespoke yacht designer Benetti in Italy. Having recently undergone a major refit and due for her 10-year Lloyd’s survey docking, with a major worklist of repairs, Austal Cairns with the Pacific’s largest mobile boat hoist lifting 1120t and their reputation for excellence, was the facility of choice for luxury yacht, M/Y Australia.
M/Y Australia with a length of 56m, is the largest Australian owned superyacht to be lifted by Austal Cairns. This elegant superyacht has a beam of 10.4m, draft of 3.8m, a volume of 878 GT and is powered by 2 Caterpillar Inc engines, which give her a cruising speed of 14.0 kn and a top speed of 16.0 kn. On the ranking of the largest yachts in the world, she is listed as number 606th and is the 38th largest yacht built by the innovative designer.
Docking in Cairns marina, prior to the lift, Andrew Rokstad, manager of the Marlin Marina said ‘The significance of the Superyacht industry to Cairns cannot be underplayed, it is predicted the economic contribution to Cairns by 2025 will be $392.2m with the majority of this being vessel maintenance and visitors’ expenditure. Further opportunities lie in enticing vessels to charter out of Cairns with the new Special Recreation Vessels Act in place’
‘Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef is well-known for Superyacht visitation due to our stunning natural attributes and with the ever-increasing numbers and size of Superyachts entering Australia, Cairns has another string to add to its bow’ said Virginia Edwards, manager of the Superyacht Group GBR ‘The Superyacht Group GBR has a highly skilled member base with major OEM operators not more than 5 minutes from our Cairns Marine Precinct, which can accommodate mega yachts up to 140m. With our deep-water access, word class Marina facilities, not forgetting the proximity to the city and international airport, and with the ability for vessels like M/Y Australia to be lifted and have expert repairs carried out, it’s becoming the region of choice for larger Superyachts’
