Sunreef Yachts will give the ULTIMA 88 its global debut at the Cannes Yachting Festival, the first time the catamaran is shown in public. Invited guests saw it earlier at the Singapore Yachting Festival, through an immersive virtual presentation rather than a hull in the water.

The staging is worth noting on its own. A virtual preview for a selected audience, then a physical world premiere at the show that has become the industry's launch window of choice. Sunreef is running the same playbook the large Italian groups have been running for three seasons, and running it from a yard in the Gulf.

The ULTIMA 88 is built at Sunreef's shipyard in Ras Al Khaimah, in the United Arab Emirates. The yard positions the model as performance luxury: the agility of a monohull with the stability, interior volume and shallow draft of a multihull. Its signature feature is the Ocean Lounge, formed by opening bulwarks and an aft garage that turn the stern into a single waterside space.

The name attached to hull one

The debut follows Sunreef's announcement that Spanish tennis champion Carlos Alcaraz has chosen the ULTIMA 88 as his first yacht. The yard is explicit about why it matters: the model is aimed at a younger generation of owners, and it now has a name to prove that the aim landed.

For anyone tracking how catamarans are being sold at this size, that is the story. Not the Ocean Lounge, and not the draft. It is a shipyard using a first owner as market proof, at a show where the competition arrives with spec sheets.

The yacht will be on display for the run of the show.