How to pet-pimp your superyacht

Keeping pets on boats used to be the preserve of pirates, but take a spin around superyacht harbours today and you’ll notice more paws than parrots. At the most recent Monaco Yacht Show, the decks and jetties were packed with prospective buyers but also a surprising number of animals – everything from lap dogs and cats to Labradors and even larger canines. “Ultra-high-net-worth individuals have been looking at ways to adapt their transport to welcome their pets as they travel,” says Robert Drontmann, sales director of Heesen Yachts, “and this is now reflected in designs for both bespoke and semi-custom yachts.”

The trend for travelling with animals is up across the board. A survey by Condor Ferries noted that 53 per cent of travellers already take their pets on holiday, with a similar number planning to do so again this year. Dogs account for 58 per cent of all pet journeys worldwide, with cats coming in second, accounting for 22 per cent. 

Boats, of course, pose particular challenges. “It can be quite difficult,” says Marnix J Hoekstra, co-creative director of Dutch yacht-design studio Vripack. “They scratch surfaces very easily and they need to be relieved quite regularly, so you need to deal with that.”

In practice, that means less leather, fewer textiles, more hard-wearing surfaces and easy-to-clean carpets, as well as bigger beds, says Hoekstra. “The pets often sleep with their owners. We just did a yacht with a 3m by 3m bed – their dogs were like horses!”

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The Heesen-built 50m Amare II, which was delivered in 2020, is home to two dogs, Jessie, an 11-year-old cocker spaniel, and Vidar, a three-year-old Swiss shepherd. Designed with the animals in mind, Amare II features an Astroturf patch onboard for the dogs to relieve themselves, a dedicated “doggie freezer” to store a month’s worth of food and SeaScape bathing platforms to grant the dogs easy access to the water. “Big dogs can become heavy and hard to get out of the water,” says Amare II’s captain, Nick Powell. “We lower the platform so Vidar can swim onto it and then lift him out that way.” Similarly, the Heesen-built 60m Ultra G is equipped with a high-tech relief area, complete with synthetic grass, sensors, cameras and sprinklers for self-flushing convenience. “We needed to test if it worked, so we sent samples of the artificial grass for the dog to try,” says Drontmann. 

Italian yacht designer Cristiano Gatto – whose Italian surname fittingly translates as “cat” – has worked with several boat builders to accommodate their clients’ felines. For the Heesen-built 50m White (sold and renamed Daisy D in 2023), he incorporated features like scratch-friendly areas and custom-built napping spots. “My experience working on White made me rethink how yacht design could cater to cats,” says Gatto. “I’d love to incorporate features like handrails that function as a ‘cat highway’ or build vertical spaces so they can climb and observe their surroundings from up high.” Despite their reputation for hating any kind of water, cats are well-suited to life at sea. “They are very intelligent creatures and care for their lives, so there’s no worry about them jumping overboard,” says Drontmann. 

Polish yacht maker Sunreef has developed dedicated pet cabins that feature secure cages for pets when the boat is travelling, and then transform into guest accommodation when the dogs are off. Meanwhile, Dutch yard Oceanco launched the 75.5m superyacht Wheels in 2008 with a 2,700-litre aquarium made to mirror a genuine coral reef and rumoured to have been designed to prevent the fish from getting seasick in rough weather. 

Pets can also prove to be a powerful pull factor in a competitive charter market; a picture of a dog sitting on a teak-decked superyacht has more viral power than a “cocktail at sunset” shot. According to Ian Robertson, captain of the 55m yacht Moskito: “Some charter yachts have resident dogs on board, and guests go back year on year to see the dog.” 

Frank, a Belgian Malinois, forms part of the deck team on board the Fitzroy-built 44m sailing yacht Mes Amis, and no doubt has a hand in persuading some guests to pay the €125,000 per week charged by broker and charter company Cecil Wright. The golden retriever that goes by the Instagram handle @buddyatsea is believed to be resident on board the Feadship-built 102.5m Ulysses (owned by private equity investor Graeme Hart, New Zealand’s richest man). 

While dogs might make up the majority of pets on board today, that’s not always been the case, insists Robertson. “There was a boat called Lazy Devil, which had a parrot on board in the late 1980s,” he says. “It sank off the coast of Sicily in the 1990s but thankfully all hands – and wings – were saved.” Other than that, there’s tales of a resident chimp on board a 62m 1991 sailing yacht named Baboon, stories of pigs on private yachts and Monique, a hen that travelled around the world with her owner Guirec Soudée in 2014. Setting sail from the Canary Islands aboard a 39ft boat named Yvinec, Monique laid eggs, lived, surfed and swam alongside Soudée. “She follows me everywhere, and doesn’t create any problems,” Soudée told BBC News in 2016. “Compared with people, she doesn’t complain at all.”