Some boats are born to astonish, others to endure. SHE, an acronym for Sanlorenzo Heritage, belongs unmistakably to the second category: launched in recent days in Ameglia, the first unit of Sanlorenzo‘s new model is now preparing for its world premiere at the Cannes Yachting Festival, scheduled from 8 to 13 September 2026. Yet more than a première, Cannes will be the public confirmation of a thesis the yard led by Massimo Perotti has long been cultivating: true luxury does not chase trends, it outlasts them.
Elegance as measure
SHE is the fruit of a design dialogue spanning several years between the shipyard, Zuccon International Project, author of the exterior lines, and Piero Lissoni with Lissoni & Partners, responsible for the interiors. The declared reference is the great season of Italian yachting in the 1960s — that of the navettas with pure profiles and proportions that still define the ideal of beauty at sea. This is no exercise in nostalgia, however: the pencil of Bernardo Zuccon reinterprets those lines with a formal clarity that rejects the stacked volumes and monumental superstructures of so much contemporary production, in favour of fluid connections between interior and exterior and volumes calibrated around life on board.
Below deck, Lissoni has conjured the atmosphere of a refined Milanese drawing room: mahogany, burnished metal finishes, fabrics in warm tones and furnishings that recall the elegance of mid-century Italian design, arranged across an architecture whose lower deck hosts a full-beam owner’s cabin, a VIP and a guest cabin, all en suite. It is the language of quiet luxury applied with absolute coherence: nothing is ostentatious, everything is considered.
A hybrid heart, a classic soul
If the lines look to the past, the technological platform looks resolutely forward. SHE is the first yacht in the Sanlorenzo fleet to integrate Volvo Penta‘s hybrid IPS propulsion system: twin 1,000 hp IPS30 units delivering a 20-knot cruise in hybrid mode and full-electric navigation of up to 9 knots — silent and emission-free, ideal for harbour entries and time at anchor. Completing the package is a bespoke 3.9-metre carbon-fibre tender, itself electrically powered. It is here that the project reveals its deeper nature: the retro allure is no aesthetic conceit, but the tailoring draped over one of the most advanced platforms available in the segment today.
A success foretold
The market has already delivered its verdict: the first five units were sold to as many owners before the inaugural hull had even touched the water, when SHE existed only on paper. It is a signal confirming how strongly the demand for authenticity and restraint is gaining ground at the top end of the market — and one that hands Sanlorenzo a new concept within a range that now extends from 24 to 74 metres.
“Innovation arising from respect for tradition, SHE shows how the most enduring ideas continue to inspire when they are reinterpreted with a clear and conscious purpose,” commented Massimo Perotti, Executive Chairman of Sanlorenzo. “By recalling the elegance and balance of the classic navetta through contemporary design and cutting-edge technologies, SHE reflects our belief that true luxury is not defined by trends, but by its ability to endure and remain relevant over time: this is the essence of Sanlorenzo.”
In Cannes, come September, the public will be able to judge for themselves. But the feeling is that SHE has already won its most important wager: proving that in yacht design, as in fashion and architecture, the road to the future can run through memory — provided it is travelled with thoroughly contemporary means.
