ON
BOARD
WITH

ROYAL TREATMENT

On board AK Royalty with Aaron Fidler

BURGESS

The Furrion founder tells Sam Fortescue about his path from superyacht engineer to owner of 41-metre AK Royalty

“I was 26 when I suddenly realised that I wanted to be the one drinking cocktails on the aft deck,” explains Aaron Fidler, the proud new owner of 41.4-metre Palmer Johnson AK Royalty.

“I had become chief engineer on a boat called Sea Bowld but I wanted to be an owner. I knew it was my time.” It’s a punchy statement from a young man, but Fidler has that punch. And the proof is, as they say, in the pudding – or rather, in the Palmer Johnson.

AK Royalty has just been relaunched after a custom respray, containing real 24kt gold, and is now for charter with Burgess in Dubai. When she’s not out paying her way with guests, the boat is there for Fidler.

Like all sea stories, this one started a long time before Fidler bought the boat in 2022, and in fact long before she was even built in 2009. This story begins in the 1980s, when he was still a kid growing up in Perth, Western Australia. “I grew up around the ocean – living in Australia, that was everywhere I had fun,” he says. “I grew up with this love of the ocean.”

Surfing was really his thing, and boats sometimes formed part of that world – reaching surf spots up and down the coast. He studied close to home and got a good degree in electronics, and then decided to do what Aussies are famous for: he set off to travel the world.

“I lived in the Amazon, the Sahara, ventured across Europe and studied Spanish in South America,” he reels off the list in a quick-fire staccato, as if anxious to get to the good stuff.

“I travelled for several years and then came across the yachting industry. I went to Fort Lauderdale and started learning about yachting, did the safety courses and found some day work. Then I got a job in Barcelona with Solemates.”

For those who don’t have a copy of Lloyd’s Register to hand, Solemates is a well-regarded 52-metre Feadship. Launched in 1998, she was the Dutch yard’s first boat to meet the full MCA safety specifications and featured an interior by Winch Design. She was, in other words, a serious yacht and one that still had that scent of newness when Fidler joined ship in 2002.

BURGESS On board AK Royalty at its home port of Dubai

His next post was on Sea Bowld, a 53-metre fast-displacement yacht built by Australia’s Oceanfast. She was capable of an impressive 27 knots with twin 3,650-horsepower MTU engines, and Fidler would have seen plenty of them in his role as second engineer.

He was diligent and effective and, before long, he was promoted to chief engineer. Fidler is still reeling off these stepping stones in a short, matter-of-fact voice and I ask him to repeat himself – for this is no mean feat.

“It took a lot of sacrifice, a lot of risk. I almost lost everything – probably 100 times”

“It normally takes a long time to make chief engineer, but I crammed years of learning into two years of work. I have a knack for engineering, so I got the job,” he explains.

“We sailed Sea Bowld back from Australia via Fiji, Tahiti, through the Panama Canal and back through the Caribbean. While I was on the boat, I studied hard – I wanted to become an owner!”

Left: Fidler and his family recently enjoyed a cruise to Oman. Rght: Abu Dhabi is an easy trip from Dubai when your yacht goes 33 knots

Now it gets interesting, because in 2005 Fidler recognised that he would never be standing on that aft deck, cocktail in hand, if he continued to crew on yachts. Instead, he took his savings and ploughed them into more study.

“I started to learn how to manufacture products and saw that there was a gap in yacht shore-power products. Nothing yet was made in China, so I went to China to learn how to make things there – I was even working on the production lines myself sometimes. The first product took four years to develop, then it was 10 to 15 years of hardship.”

I can hear from his voice that he’s not kidding. There’s a weariness and a strain that attests to the fact that these were genuinely tough years. We return to the topic later in the interview, and he explains how he was still drawing a salary of just $25,000 when the company he had built was turning over $25 million.

With his brother and a mate, he transformed Furrion into a brand worth hundreds of millions of dollars before selling it to America’s Lippert Group in 2021. By the end, it had annual sales of $230 million and its biggest market was in camper vans.

“It took a lot of sacrifice and a lot of risk. I almost lost everything –probably 100 times, and right up until the end. It was hard, and the bigger the business got, the harder it was. I could have taken it to a billion-dollar turnover if I’d wanted to, but I’m married and I’ve got kids. I can’t keep going all-in.”

BURGESS The aft deck decor includes chairs that gleam in champagne gold

During those long years, Fidler never owned his own yacht, but his business did buy a stunning Numarine 78 HTS in 2019. This he had kitted out with all the latest equipment he could think of, including plenty from his Furrion line, which by now extended to audiovisual systems, galley appliances, power management and renewables.

It also possessed a form of early artificial intelligence, and the main aim was to showcase the yacht at the giant CES electronics fair in Las Vegas, which he did.

“It took two weeks by road from LA, through the middle of Vegas by night, taking street lights and power lines down as we went,” he remembers. “It won the best stand in the show that year.

The boat was very high tech – a bit too much for the time, and in the end, you needed software engineers on the boat. No one was prepared to do that. It would learn your preferences, you could talk to it, it had facial recognition, you could set moods, go shopping and send orders to the galley.”

“I could have taken it to a billion-dollar turnover if I’d wanted to, but I’m married with kids”

The boat caused quite a ripple of excitement at CES, and you might expect AK Royalty to showcase something even more extreme – after all, AI is rarely out of the headlines these days.

But the 41-metre’s goal is to provide an oasis for Fidler and his family in Dubai. The only thing the two boats have in common is speed, and the swept-back aesthetics that go with it.

A major refit post-purchase optimised the yacht for charter and owner use

“I’ve always loved Palmer-Johnson and I thought this was the sexiest boat. It hadn’t been used very much, with low engine hours, so it was a good canvas to work on.

It was a total upgrade: I bought every toy possible, adjusted the layout of the boat, including remodelling bathrooms and knocking out some walls to make it more user friendly and high-end. I turned it into an even sexier boat.”

What about that famous gold paint, I want to know? Well, it turns out that Fidler already had a Lamborghini SVJ Roadster in gold and wanted to replicate the spectacle with his new boat. But it was far from easy.

“It was a bit of a process – testing the paint and getting the colour right so it reflects right from every angle. I wanted to see the shine of the gold in the paint. There was a bit of a balance – we couldn’t put too much in to ruin the integrity of the paint, but enough to show.”

The recipe is top secret, as is the manufacturer with whom he worked. “Confidential,” he confirms when I ask how much gold went into the project. “We’re getting a lot of requests from people trying to copy it. The time and the effort it took, we don’t want to just give that away.”

What he will say is that the move has garnered plenty of press attention, as well as charter interest. In view of the Emiratis’ well-documented fondness for gold, it looks like a smart marketing move for a Dubai-based boat.

The custom paint on AK Royalty is a top-secret composition that includes 24kt gold

Living like royalty

BURGESS

Aaron Fidler’s wife, Ksenia, was responsible for restyling AK Royalty’s interior. Before the couple moved to Dubai in 2021, she had run a design and fashion business in Macau, also under the AK Royalty moniker.

Her experience styling restaurants, clubs and spas at Studio City and the Macau Roosevelt Hotel lent itself perfectly to the glitter and bling of the Palmer Johnson.Only traces of the original woody interior remain, with new white carpets, headlining and upholstery throughout.

“When we bought the yacht, the amount of space was incredible,” she says. “But it was a bit dark and looked outdated, so the idea was to create something modern and luxurious to fit the brand without tearing the whole place apart.

"Glass and mirror panels added the needed gloss and opened up the space even more. New lighting features created a more modern look. White furniture with black accents, on the other hand, created a classier look.”

Bathrooms are finished in a high-contrast black and-white marble, and appropriately enough, there is gold detailing around the fittings. The owner’s bathroom features panda white marble and a translucent acrylic bath with a wall of pale, backlit onyx.

Outside on that great aft deck, gleaming chairs in champagne gold steel surround a glass dining table, while the sofas have polished stainless frames and there are black marble countertops.

Even the modest overhang of the flybridge is in a lustrous, mirror-finished black. The effect is particularly strong at night, when the full array of underwater and courtesy lighting creates a golden halo around the yacht.

Ksenia is now breathing new life into her women’s clothing brand, which fittingly majors in beachwear. A new collection is due out this summer.

Toys are the other big investment in the yacht. The list is exhaustive, including two gold-painted jet skis, two Seabobs, three underwater scooters, a flyboard, an eFoil, paddleboards, wakeboard, water skis, towables and diving and fishing equipment.

There’s also an anti-jellyfish pool for tethering to the beach club, a waterslide, climbing wall and trampoline. And in case help is needed, there is a pro fisherman and a watersports instructor among the crew of seven.

“If you have a boat like this, it’s all about the adventure”

Let’s not forget the DJ booth, aft deck spa pool, barbecue and foredeck cinema. If anyone among the maximum complement of 12 guests professes boredom – well, they’re simply not trying.

“I just love the toys – watersports,” exclaims Fidler. “We like to anchor off in Jebel Ali – for a day or a night or sometimes a weekend. It’s a bit more secluded and protected and we can put all the toys out. Sometimes we have it to ourselves.”

“I bought every toy possible, adjusted the layout of the boat... I turned it into an even sexier boat”

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a man used to relying on his own wits to get by in life, Fidler isn’t always to be found living the high life. “I’m hands-on with the boat and like to get involved with things,” he says. “I’m also looking at getting more boats.”

What’s more, he is investing in green technology for boats. “The industry needs to change,” he says. “I’m trying to figure out how to make yachts more carbon neutral. It could be a combo between electric and hydrogen.

"I’ve got some engineers working on some new tech I’ve envisioned. We’ve got a few little prototypes. My goal is to get rid of the smelliness of this industry – I hate the smell of the generators.”

With a mind for the engine room and an imagination for the yachting lifestyle, he might just make it happen.

AK Royalty is available for charter through Burgess, burgessyachts.com

First published in the April 2024 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.

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