Carinthia’s fleet adds its seventh hull

Carinthia yachts have a long story behind, dating back more than 50 years ago. Helmut Horten, the entrepreneur who introduced the supermarket concept into Germany, had a deep love for yachting, and since the early 1960s commissioned several yachts, which he named all Carinthia.
Details of the first two Carinthias are unknown, but they were very likely small vessels to sail on the Ruhr and Rhine rivers. Carinthia III was Horten’s first superyacht, a 24.60-metre vessel designed by André Mauric and built by Chantiers Navals de l’Esterel in 1961. One of the slowest in the fleet, she still boasted a top speed of 23 knots. She was still cruising in 2006, in Greece.
Carinthia IV, 18 metres longer than her elder sister, was the fastest of the fleet with a top speed of 34 knots. Designed and built by the same team as Carinthia III, with the additional collaboration of Jon Bannenber, she was completed in 1964. She took fire in Greece in 1981 and never recovered.
Carinthia V, again longer than her predecessor (67,85 metres), was designed by Bannenberg and built by the German shipyard Lürssen and could reach a speed up to 27 knots. Same year of completion, she stroke an uncharted rock near Corfu in 1971 and sank miserably.
Horten ordered a replacement that was delivered two years later in 1973. Again built by Lürssen to an almost identical design of Carinthia V, Carinthia VI measured 70.68 metres, and was one of the largest yachts in the world at the time. After she was sold, the yacht recently caught fire in Marmaris, Turkey.
The new model of the fleet, the navy blue hulled 97.20 metre Carinthia VII, will hopefully meet a more clement future.