Most yachts are built and then offered for charter. Acqua Chiara reverses the order. The 47-metre Columbus Yachts superyacht, designed by the Milan studio Hot Lab, was conceived for charter from the outset, and almost every decision on board follows from that.
She is the third yacht in the Atlantique line that Hot Lab has developed with Columbus Yachts, and she carries the family's sailing-inspired lines despite four extra metres of length. Acqua Chiara began on a 43-metre platform and was stretched to 47 under her owner's direction, for more elegant proportions and better balance on board. The added length changes the stance, not the category: she still sits comfortably within a 499 GT envelope.
Delivered in 2025 to an Italian entrepreneur and managed for charter by Fraser Yachts, she spent a busy first season in the Mediterranean. What sets her apart is less any single feature than a discipline of intent. As Enrico Lumini, co-founder and design director at Hot Lab, puts it, a charter brief rewards a particular kind of clarity: guests should feel confident from minute one, even on their first time aboard.
That clarity shows in how the yacht is zoned. Social and private areas are cleanly separated, circulation is intuitive, and the spaces are arranged so that several groups can enjoy the yacht at once, in parallel, without ever crowding one another. It is a yacht designed to be lived in immediately, not learned slowly.
A profile drawn from sailing
Three cascading levels, one connection to the water
The defining move of every Atlantique is the stern, and on Acqua Chiara it is organised as three closely connected terraces that step down toward the sea. At the top, a covered dining area. In the middle, a central lounge with a pool and fold-down balconies that widen the deck over the water. At the bottom, a flexible platform with a transformer that sits just fifty centimetres above the waterline, so the sea is never more than a step away.
The logic is not only aesthetic. By separating dining, lounging and swimming across three levels, the layout lets those three things happen at once without colliding, which is precisely what a full charter party asks of a yacht, day after day.
Held under 500 GT, by design
Four metres longer than the platform she grew from, Acqua Chiara still measures 499 GT, keeping the operational simplicity of the sub-500 class while gaining the proportions of a larger yacht.
Spaces that change their mood, not their shape
Rather than rearrange the yacht, Acqua Chiara changes its register. The upper deck moves from open lounge to cinema-style setting; the main social zones carry an easy daytime life into a more formal evening without losing the yacht's character. Forward, a pool and its lounge give the bow a second social heart, away from the aft decks, while the flybridge keeps a sun deck of its own.
It is the kind of flexibility a charter rewards: several parallel experiences, so one group can take the sun forward while another lingers over lunch aft, and the same deck that hosted an afternoon becomes, after dark, somewhere else entirely.
Profile · Last light
Foredeck · Lounge & pool
Foredeck · Outdoor cinema
The foredeck pool · From above
A charter yacht is judged in its first hour. Acqua Chiara is built to win it, and then to keep winning it, day after day.
USA Onboard Editorial
Owner's suite · Main deck
Modern detail meets timeless warmth
The interior starts from a bright, timeless base and lets a few controlled gestures do the work: dark metal-effect finishes, Sicis mosaic, Vetrite panels. The main saloon is the clearest statement of the approach, with custom sofas in white sponge fabric edged in blue, Fendi Totu armchairs and a teak coffee table gathered under natural oak ceilings, partially lacquered in matt white.
White parquet floors and floor-to-ceiling windows on every side keep the volume light and open, so the sea is present from almost anywhere on board. It is an interior that reads as calm and composed, and is built, quietly, for constant use.
Owner's bath · Marble & mosaic
Guest bath
The lobby · Toward the suite
A suite that is really an apartment
Ten guests are accommodated across five staterooms. The owner's suite sits on the main deck and works as a private apartment, with a strong signature of its own: dark leather framing, burnished metal detail and Galaxy blue glass surfaces, closing on a spa-grade bathroom with a marble bath, a separate shower and a skin of glass mosaic.
The guest cabins, on the lower deck, keep the same design DNA in a calmer key, with white marble, tactile contrasts and Sicis mosaic accents. A crew of nine looks after all of it.
Incremental innovation, made visible
As the third Atlantique, Acqua Chiara is where a quiet, years-long method comes together. Hot Lab calls it incremental innovation: improving small elements of each project, one at a time, until the sum reads as a step change. Here it shows in technology folded into the architecture so it never interrupts the calm, in timeless materials paired with contemporary surfaces for depth and durability, and in social spaces that shift mood through light and layout rather than rearrangement.
Dining · Upper deck
The Hot Lab touch is welcoming simplicity with precisely designed details.
Antonio Romano · Hot Lab
Yacht fiche
Acqua Chiara at a glance
47 m · 154 ft 2 in
9.1 m · 29 ft 10 in
499 GT
Columbus Yachts
Columbus Yachts
Hot Lab
2025
Atlantique · third of the line
10 · 12 cruising
5 · 3 double, 1 twin, 1 convertible
9
14.5 kn cruising · 15.5 kn max
Fraser Yachts
Mediterranean
from €300,000 · low / €330,000 high
Specification and rate as listed for charter by Fraser Yachts; design and build details per Hot Lab / Columbus Yachts.
A yacht conceived for charter has to earn its guests twice: once with a first impression, and again every morning of the week. Acqua Chiara was drawn to do both, which is why she reads, from the first minute, as a yacht that was waiting for you.
USA Onboard Editorial
Image credits
Giovanni Malgarini · Guerrieri Visual