SailAway Yacht Charter Consultants

Azimut 103S motor yacht HAPPY DAYS hits the Mediterranean yacht charter market
in 2009. The classic TV show HAPPY DAYS and this brand new Mediterranean yacht
charter vessel are only similar in name. This Italian import packs sports car
performance into 103 feet of luxury.

The interior of motor yacht Azimut HAPPY DAYS is S-class at its very best:
modern, cool, and faintly minimalist, but underwritten everywhere with quality
detailing and a high standard of finish. There is, obviously, more area and
volume for the designers to play with in the 103 than on any of her
predecessors; although the layout follows convention with a full-beam midships
master suite, a VIP cabin in the bow, another VIP cabin, and a pair of en suite
twins between them (each with an extra Pullman berth).

The spaces breathe well on this Azimut 103, and the design’s emphasis on
horizontal planes is for once matched by a commensurate amount of floor space.
Space is, after all, the ultimate luxury. Headroom through most of the
accommodation is 6′8″. Light floods into all the cabins on this luxury yacht
from six sets of topsides windows. In the spectacular master suite and the
terrific VIP, it’s almost like being ashore.

The decor is also familiar from earlier S boats: The wenge on the floors is also
used on doors and bulkheads, providing a dark, dramatic contrast with the creams
and beiges of the carpets, linings, and upholstery. And if the slinky leather
bedspread in the megayacht master cabin doesn’t quite ring your bell, then the
impossibly soft fur counterpane in the VIP cabin probably will.

Details like the discreet stair lights, designed to echo the shape of those
iconic square topsides windows, might only be appreciated by guests with an eye
for such things. But everyone, especially Mediterranean yacht charter customers
will enjoy the more overt touches like the expensive Hansa Murano taps in the
master heads, which manage in equal measure to be both silly and rather
marvelous.

Money has been spent under the skin, too. The whole accommodation structure is
built on a rubber-insulated aluminum frame to reduce sound and vibration. And
behind the bulkheads’ linings and veneers are a 2.5-inch-thick foam-plywood
sandwich.

Although the 103S’s centerpiece, the master cabin, stands as a supremely
successful design, the main-deck layout, running through those giant cockpit
doors from transom to helm in one uninterrupted sweep, with a massive sunroof
that invites the sky into the dining room, comes a close second

Second only because of one conceptual shortcoming that needed a bit more
thought. The 103S has two galleys: a small one hidden down aft in the crew’s
quarters, and a larger, better appointed, stainless steel affair down some steps
just forward of the helm.

Interestingly, one reason why the main-deck layout works so well and feels so
spacious is the absence, at the request of the owner, of the standard layout’s
bar on the starboard side. With a bar already installed in the cockpit, another
one a few feet away hardly seems necessary.

In addition to the spacious cockpit, there is more external seating up on the
small flying bridge, with its upper helm station, sofa, and sun lounges—and
another bar—while the foredeck dinette, with a built-in bimini top, is both a
comfortable entertaining area at anchor and an exciting if breezy vantage point
when underway.

There is no shortage of places to sit with a gin and tonic on the 103S. In fact
there is no shortage of anything: space, headroom, horsepower, luxury, or speed.