On board Baglietto's 38m custom superyacht Enterprise

He summarises her styling with the words “bold, striking, sleek”. Her powerful vertical bow rears high above the waterline, harbouring the owner’s suite in the forward half of the main deck. Her silver exterior is punctuated with dark windows – also vertical – and topped with a huge sundeck and matt black mast. The forward slant to the transom gives the impression that this is a boat already on the move, eager to get started on the adventure that her transatlantic range promises.

“She will generate excitement wherever she goes,” the owner continues. “People will ask, ‘What is it?’ They will know it is unique. They will know it’s a Baglietto.”

The Florence-based Italian designer Paszkowski brought these words to life through a crisply drawn exterior. The owner liked the looks of explorers, so the design studio developed ideas that incorporated the language of the deep sea and ambitious cruising, albeit in a yacht destined for warm-water sailing. “In line with the owner’s brief, the yacht ensures close contact with the sea and the surrounding environment,” Paszkowski explains.

Clever deck layouts and internal configuration by the design teams have also played a role here. With no side decks to chip away at the forward part of the main deck, the owner’s rooms stretch across the boat’s full beam. The same tactic is used on the upper deck, where the aft saloon, pantry and captain’s cabin make use of the deck’s full width.

Another feature that Enterprise shares with a larger yacht, according to the hyper-involved Meshoulam, is the galley. It fills a generous 14.2 square metres and boasts three fridges and freezers, including a large walk-in cold store that fits into a well-insulated space between the galley and the owner’s cabin. There are twin dishwashers, a dumb-waiter system connecting all decks and an oven/hob unit that would look thoroughly at home in a restaurant kitchen. “They like very healthy food,” Meshoulam says. “The owner also plans to have lots of parties on board, so the dumb waiter goes right to the sundeck and the galley has fully automatic doors.”

Enterprise is intended as a warm-water boat, so the outdoor entertaining space is a key feature, amounting to more than 170 square metres. The massive sundeck, which accounts for more than half of the yacht’s exterior area, extends further aft than is usual. At its centre is a magnificent spa pool, lined with aquamarine mosaic tiles and finished with heavy glass sides so that swimmers appear to be suspended off the deck. From within the pool, which is raised modestly, one can enjoy sweeping views of the surrounding seascape. Whether it’s the sunset or a picturesque Greek harbour you’re looking at, these are among the best seats in the house for admiring the scenery. There’s even a deck shower up here.

“Glass technology has continued to improve, and Baglietto’s people were very familiar with it,” Paszkowski tells me when I ask whether the pool presented a design challenge. “We have been working with them since the 1990s – they are amazing at finding ever y solution for our proposals to meet the owner’s requests.”

There is also plenty of room for sun loungers and a choice of seating arrangements that will vary according to whether guests want a quiet perch for a confidential chat or acres of upholstery for kicking back with friends. Either way, the well-supplied bar, with its fridges and ice maker, sink and discreet dumb waiter connecting to the galley two decks below, will assure seamless service.

In a rarity for yachts of this size, there is a fully functioning helm console up here, which makes it a flybridge rather than a sundeck. Two deep, well-padded pilot seats allow the skipper and a companion to put the boat through her paces with views over the full sweep of the horizon. With her twin C32 ACERT engines from Caterpillar, she offers a top speed of 18 knots and a more economical cruising rate of 12 knots.

“This driving station was a request from the owner,” Meshoulam says. “He wanted full driving controls with shade, in eye contact with the guests. You could accommodate 30 to 40 people up here easily.”

A floating steel and wood staircase gives access to more formal dining area on the aft deck below, with a horseshoe of comfy seating built into the main deck below that. The beach club, reached down the twin transom staircases, looks like a relatively modest affair – until you realise that it harbours a fold-out hydraulic platform. It keeps another secret, too: the glass structure dominating the transom is a room with a sliding door, which is a kind of antechamber for swimming and watersports. Formally designated as a gym, with space for a treadmill and a weights trainer, the room has skylights as well.

“When training in the gym, it is not nice to be shut up inside and unable to see outside,” Paszkowski says by way of explanation. “The gym is located close to the water, so when you open the bathing platform while training you can enjoy sea views. But why not also enjoy the sky view as you would in a pool? We drew inspiration from this and created two wide skylights. If you can’t have the bathing platform open for any reason while training, you can at least enjoy the sky view and get the gym enlivened by natural light.”

A tender garage lies laterally across the lower deck just ahead of the gym, accessed via three steps and a sliding door. The Williams 505 jet tender fits easily in here, launched and recovered using a sliding overhead gantry system. There’s plenty of room left over for a dive store and access to the compact engine room.

Watersports are a big part of the owner’s programme, so a lot of thinking went into creating dedicated toy storage. A cavernous bow locker contains a folding crane and offers enough volume to store a jet ski and a host of smaller equipment, including paddleboards and scooters. There are two Seabobs and a pair of eFoils. A 11-metre chase boat from Baglietto currently accompanies Enterprise on her travels, but capacity will be upgraded when a new 13.8-metre tender is delivered next year. As well as carrying additional toys, the chase boat is outfitted as a very capable fishing launch.

Baglietto built in much of the furniture, but there are also lots of free-standing items from US designers, such as Dakota Jackson for sofas, Jonathan Browning for lighting and Jiun Ho for chairs, as well as a scattering of Italian brands. With lots of glossy surfaces, the overall effect is modern, unfussy and comfortable – a villa on the sea, exactly as the owner wanted. One of the most pleasing effects achieved inside the boat is that of natural light, which pours in through the large hull openings.

This is particularly the case in the full-beam owner’s cabin, which makes the most of floor-to-ceiling windows. The same is true of the owner’s office, in an antechamber where there is a serious risk that the compellingly framed view could hinder any attempt to work.

Guest cabin windows on the lower deck are naturally smaller but just as key. Everywhere around windows, oversized stainless-steel frames in a mirror-like finish emphasise solidity and reflect the light.

After a whirlwind tour in the heat of an Italian summer day, I am left with the bewildering sense that I have been aboard a boat that is more than the sum of its parts – something bigger than the 38-metre alongside the quay. It is a feeling that all those who worked on her acknowledge. Enterprise really is a space ship.

First published in the March 2023 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.